They’ve infiltrated our universities, our art crawls, our festivals and our headphones. Maybe they’ve been here all along, and we’re the infiltrators. Who are they and what do they do?

They’re Hamilton’s hip-hop artists, and they’re not something you want to miss out on.

Lee Reed has been a Hamilton hip-hop fixture since the mid-‘90s. Reed gained prominence as the front man for the legendary and revolutionary group Warsawpack. Now he works on solo projects – playing shows all over Hamilton and releasing his own albums.

In a recent interview with the Public Intellectuals Project, which is a group of students, professors and activists writing about local concerns and academic debates, Reed talked about his musical and political role in Hamilton.Throughout the years, he’s been working with others in the hip-hop community to open up bigger clubs in Hamilton – the Casbah, This Ain’t Hollywood, Club Absinthe – to aspiring hip-hoppers so that they have a decent chance at exposure and success.

“The path I took with music locally has helped build bridges between the regular and hip-hop music communities,” said Reed. He sees other cities, like Toronto, as being divided between hip-hop and other musical circles.

Back when Hamilton’s scene was developing in the ‘90s, Reed, along with some other artists, helped make hip-hop a definitive part of Hamilton’s culture.

His work with Warsawpack involved live instrumentation, something that’s not often found in hip-hop scenes small or large. This, as well as years of networking with promoters and club owners, is part of how he has helped Hamilton’s scene become so integrated and diverse. Now, other distinctly Hamiltonian hip-hop groups like Canadian Winter play with live instrumentation to back up their rhymes – and believe me, it makes for a mind-blowing set.

While many of Reed’s lyrics have a radical edge, he insists that he doesn’t fully subscribe to any of the famous -isms.

“I’m not completely an anarchist, or a communist or a socialist or any of those things,” he said, but he believes that something needs to change. “We need to work towards a world without hunger, war, thirst … where people are treated respectfully and they treat their environment respectfully.”

However, he is not one to say that he has all the answers. He is a self-proclaimed critic, with the power to spark thought and emotion through his music. When describing how he is able to make a statement, he said, “I think I have the distinct advantage of poetic license. So, I can exaggerate, I can enflame, I can be vague, I can be open-ended.”

As a hip-hop artist, he doesn’t have to come to an academic conclusion in all of his arguments, but his listeners take away something from his music. They begin to see the cracks in the wall, and they’re challenged to draw their own conclusions. He’s unapologetic about his angry music, and it’s refreshing.

“I think I’m best defined by what I stand against with my music … and I think that’s how it manifests, as a loud and angry criticism.” Luckily for us, that angry criticism comes in the form of sick rhymes and dope beats.

At Supercrawl, he’s playing in the Roots 2Leaf Urban Arts Fundraiser at Club Absinthe, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 15. Admission is by donation. There will be more than 16 performances, with break dancers, DJs, producers, beatboxers, emcees and a wall open for graffiti artists.

Part two of the fundraiser takes place at the Tivoli Theatre from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Roots 2Leaf is a free youth mentorship program that aims to empower youth through hip-hop.

Reed is also playing at Everybody Dance Volume 7: Super Crawl After-Party, at This Ain’t Hollywood on Sept. 15. He’s playing along with the Dirty Nil, BA Johnston and Toledo.

For the full interview with the Public Intellectuals Project, go to vimeo.com/49074075. You can follow him on twitter, @FreeLeeReed, and download his full-length album, Emergency Broadcast, for free at leereed.bandcamp.com.

 

Alex Epp


 

Myles Herod 

Entertainment Editor

They’re the definition of chill, the harbingers of boom-bap drums and low-end groove. There is nothing quite like the music of A Tribe Called Quest.

From their New York emergence in the early ‘90s, innovation, intelligence and unparalleled chemistry forever set them apart.

MCs Q-Tip and Phife Dawg’s skill erupted not in what they said, but how they shaped it – adroitly sampling jazz loops contrary to the West Coast zeitgeist.

Actor turned time-director Michael Rapaport has succeeded with an ode of obvious affection, exercising his admiration of the hip hop outfit into a chronicled account of origin, importance and, until recently, reprieve and reunion.

Reverence for his subject is imperative, for if Rapaport’s film had suggested a condescending tone from its opening pulse, Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest would have succumb to a VH1 retrospective compromise. It’s better than that.

Not to say it doesn’t have flaws. It just happens to resonate history from the streets through interviews from all four members, archival clips and the hypnotic animation interludes by artist Motion Theory.

Tribe – who originally broke up in 1998, only sporadically getting back together in recent years – made a bold move in allowing Rapaport to candidly document their creation and fragmentation at equal parameters.

The beginning of the film is like an upbeat mosaic, a celebratory kaleidoscope of hip-hop in the late ‘80s, largely focusing Q-Tip and Phife’s childhood alliance and their odyssey with funky cohorts Jarobi and Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

From their signing with Jive Records to their subsequent rise from Queens into the consciousness of listeners and critics, the film’s first half is awash in neon colours. It details the conception of their nocturnal masterpieces, The Low End Theory and it’s follow-up Midnight Marauders.

Accolades from industry heavyweights, such as Pharell and The Beastie Boys, come pleasantly, but perhaps too exaggerated in glorification.

Fast-forward to the present, where modern maestros like Kanye West or Common are jumping to share the mic with Q-Tip as he excels in his solo career, still enjoying the legacy of his tribesman past.

The film’s progression and editing is straightforward and absorbing, to say the least, going from beginning to bitter end, and back again with somewhat less acidity.

In later years we trace the paths of all four members, with primary focus set to Q-Tip, but also Phife and his medical issues associated with diabetes.

From one emotional event to another, it’s an interview with former member Jarobi, who breaks down in tears discussing his friend’s deterioration, that packs the most wallop and profoundness.

Moments of tension make the second half work. Although some portions awkwardly suffer in portraying the domesticated lives of the four men, the unraveling friendship between an ailing Phife and a reinvigorated Q-Tip are fascinating realisms confronted before our eyes.

Elevated by honest insights from within the sect, the film ultimately draws passion from behind the lens. Funny how Rapaport, a pale, redheaded New Yorker, could credibly infiltrate the acceptance of a hip hop insider.

Perhaps he should stick with directing – he might have the rhythm for it.

 

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