If rock’s not dead, it’s on life support

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 15 Comments

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

When U2 wrapped up its 360° tour last month, they closed the book on the highest-grossing tour of all time, raking in over $736 million. Rock bands, it seems, can still make a dollar or two on the stadium circuit.

Of the 10 highest-grossing tours last year, seven were by traditional rock outfits, with Bon Jovi, AC/DC and U2 leading the way. Among the interlopers, appropriately enough, was “Walking with Dinosaurs—The Arena Spectacular,” which seemingly differentiates itself from the rock performers on the list by featuring animatronic dinosaurs rather than figurative ones. Because while the touring circuit, at least as far as the big earners are concerned, is still dominated by rock acts, they are increasingly aging rock acts.

A Deloitte study published in January found that, of the 20 top-grossing live acts between 2000 and 2009, the lead singer for eight of them will be in his or her sixties this year. Moreover, the older acts are still soaking up the vast majority of the touring cash available: 94 per cent of the money earned by the biggest live acts in those years went to those whose lead singers are now 40 and older; not a single one had a singer still in his or her 20s.

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Two klezmer fanatics and a microphone

By Michael Barclay - Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 11:15 AM - 4 Comments

Photograph by Christopher Wahl

Josh Dolgin was scouring thrift stores in Montreal 10 years ago, searching for old records to sample in hip hop, when he discovered klezmer, the catch-all term for Jewish music of Eastern Europe. Until those crate-digging expeditions, the man credited by the likes of the Wall Street Journal with inventing a third wave of klezmer (the music’s first revival began in the ’80s) had never heard a note of that music: he grew up Jewish, but in rural Chelsea, Que. Now performing as Socalled, Dolgin began revelling in the novelty of mixing 80-year-old klezmer records with hip hop, sampling Yiddish theatre legend Aaron Lebedeff, even rapping in Yiddish.

Dolgin’s friend and latest collaborator, Geoff Berner, meanwhile, discovered the roots of klezmer driving around the back roads of Romania. Berner had learned klezmer and Israeli folk songs at Hebrew school in Vancouver, but as a teenager, he played in punk bands, ran as a Rhino Party candidate, and eventually became a Billy Bragg-influenced singer-songwriter with an accordion—a genre he had pretty much to himself. His song Light Enough to Travel was covered by West Coast trio the Be Good Tanyas, and he toured with country singers Corb Lund and Carolyn Mark—who inspired him to turn to his Jewish roots. Lund and Mark “were punk rockers who had taken the music of their heritage and applied their own aesthetic to it,” he says, “which turned out to be way more authentic than what was being marketed as country music. It seemed like something that ought to be done with klezmer.”

So when an invitation came to travel to Romania with a musical anthropologist, he jumped. The pair plied reluctant 90-year-old fiddle players with drinks and told them dirty jokes until they shared their songs. “I learned that the roots of the tradition are much more dirty and sexy and fun than much of the klezmer here,” he says. Inspired, Berner reinvented himself as a “whiskey rabbi” and started writing profane and political drinking songs, often set to traditional melodies.

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Sounds like a hot investment

By Michelle Magnan - Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 2:48 PM - 0 Comments

David Becker/Getty Images;

In case you haven’t heard, headphones are hot right now. Skullcandy, the U.S. headphone maker with a posse of musician, athlete and DJ endorsers, has kick-started the process to go public. Rapper 50 Cent recently used Twitter to pump penny stocks for H&H Imports, a company in which he’s not only invested, but has partnered with to create his own line of headphones, called Sleek by 50 Cent. Can’t wait till 50′s headphones hit store shelves? Then consider throwing on a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones from Monster Cable, a company that’s created headphones bearing the names of rapper Dr. Dre, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and NBA star LeBron James. Big names, for sure. Big business? Time will tell.

Skullcandy’s prospectus, filed on Jan. 28, argues that the growing demand for portable media and music devices, like smartphones and Apple’s iPod, is driving a massive demand for accessories such as headphones. The document points to IDC Research, which estimates that, from 2010 through 2014, the number of smartphones available worldwide will grow at an annual rate of 24 per cent. Not everyone sees the connection being quite as clear. Or as guaranteed. “The market for consumer electronics is massive, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the market for rapper-branded headphones is hot,” says Jack Plunkett, CEO of Houston-based Plunkett Research, Ltd. and author of the new book The Next Boom. “The question is: how long will revenues hold up until demand from fans has been filled?”

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Straight Outta Winnipeg: a primer

By Martin Patriquin - Monday, December 6, 2010 at 1:52 PM - 13 Comments

This week, Maclean’s looks at the huge hip hop scene in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

There is a great, thumping noise emanating out of Winnipeg these days, propelled by a crop of artists bent on telling tales of their rough, windswept city. The city famous for the “Winnipeg Sound” of Neil Young, the Guess Who and a more recent crop of well-regarded indie rock bands is becoming better known for its beats and rhymes than its drums and guitars. There’s another twist: almost all these artists are native.

What follows is a selection of videos from some of the city’s rappers and groups. It’s not exhaustive; anyone wanting to see more should spent a couple of hours on YouTube. This is stuff that I really like.

Hellnback, Keep It Movin’

A veteran of the scene, Hellnback was a founding member of Native hip hop group War Party and Team Rezofficial, with whom he did the following track. I straight up love this song.

Young Kidd, Hometown

This is a track from half-black, half-Native rapper Young Kidd. A tale about Winnipeg’s infamous ‘North Side’ Central neighbourhood, Hometown is produced by Boogey The Beat (see below). Kidd is considered by many to be Winnipeg’s breakout star, and Boogey’s track is heartbreaking. The video is directed by Wab Kinew (see below), another hip hop artist who daylights as a CBC reporter.

Winnipeg’s Most, What You In It For?

Winnipeg’s Most recently won the best artist and best CD honours at the APTN awards held in Winnipeg earlier this month. The band’s performance of All That I know has garnered nearly 465,000 YouTube hits. Loud, gruff and angry, Winnipeg’s Most best typify the city’s hardcore rap style.

Pip Skid, Pip’s Kid

I know I’m supposed to post something from Skid Row, Pip’s freaking amazing new album, but this video is just too great to miss. Pip is a (non-Native) native of Brandon, Man., and has about the coolest day job on the planet: he teaches rap to disadvantaged kids in Winnipeg.

Lorenzo, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

Originally a country singer, Lorenzo now raps about his life in Little Saskatchewan, a reserve north of Winnipeg. He had one of my favourite quotes from the trip. “On the reserves, I’ve had friends who were killed at parties. There’s a lot of violence. Maybe that’s what’s inspiring people to try to change, to send a positive message. That’s what I try to do. What’s me rapping about a gold chain going to do?”

Drezus, Never Be The Same

I like this track because Drezus, another heavy hitter on the scene, manage to sound both hurt and menacing as he raps about growing up without a father. “I hate your fucking guts/Call me stomach acid/You the only reason they always call me bastard.”

The Lytics, Big City Sound Girl

The members of this three-brothers-and-a-cousin band have Jamaican/Sierra Leone roots. Their music is catchy, poppy and relentlessly positive. Great stuff.

Wab Kinew, Last Word

Wab is a CBC reporter by day, hip hop artist by night. I love the chorus on this song, and dude can rap. “They ask me why I’m rapping/You really want the answer?/My mind is full of cancer/The relief is in the stanza/Advance the cause/For all the people who’ll never have the chance to pause.”

Magnum KI, No Way

Old school production, tasty scratching, addictive hook, killer track.

Boogey the Beat, The Making of a Beat

Not a song, strictly speaking, but this gives you an idea of how one of the city’s best producers operates.

Straight outta Winnipeg

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, December 3, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 115 Comments

Brooklyn, Jon-C and Charlie Fettah (left to right) of Winnipeg’s Most | Photograph Marianne Helm

The West End Cultural Centre’s home is a former church located in the not-quite-gentrified Spence neighbourhood near downtown Winnipeg. The band posters lining the wall confirm the pedigree of the venue: everyone from Montreal’s Planet Smashers to Loudon Wainwright has played here. But the music of Winnipeg’s Most, a three-man native rap crew, is beyond even those eclectic boundaries.

On a recent Wednesday night, Charlie Fettah stomped around the stage, spitting tales of drugs, money and the dangerous allure of both into the microphone held tight against his lips. “The game got a funny way of pulling me back / Try to stay on the right side by making these tracks / Get away from the bad life, pushing it back / But I’m addicted to the fast life, I gotta get stacked.” Fettah and band members Jon-C and Brooklyn sported standard-issue rap gear: gold chains, tattoos, baseball caps turned sideways, oversized pants and T-shirts.

RELATED: A selection of videos from some of Winnipeg’s rappers and groups

The crowd of about 200 was almost entirely native—young kids, women pushing strollers, entire families and, in particular, teenage girls in crop tops and too much makeup. They bumped to the thick, droning beats and crowded the stage, mouthing the lyrics and shrieking whenever these included the “Northside,” the poor neighbourhood in the city’s north end mythologized on the band’s first album, Northside Connection.

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Chuck D and me, 20 years later

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Liam Maloney

Public Enemy’s Anti-Nigger Machine begins less as a song than a sledgehammer, a collection of seemingly random noises punctuated by a snippet of a soul singer wailing what sounds like “bing” over and over, faster and faster, until the whole thing collapses. Chuck D comes in after a brief interlude, his voice booming and sustained: When I’m talkin’ rhyme time / To blow your mind time some say / It’s nothing worse than a verse / To hear some nigger curse.

Within days of its release in 1990, Fear of a Black Planet, the album on which Anti-Nigger Machine appeared, became the accompaniment to just about everything I did.

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Is Wyclef Jean what Haiti needs?

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 9:54 AM - 0 Comments

Ramon Espinosa/AP

Wyclef Jean, the hip-hop singer who last week announced he is running to become president of Haiti, is not the first musician to seek elected office. Nor is he the first aspiring leader to return to his homeland after spending the better part of three decades somewhere else and expect to be welcomed back as its political saviour.

But most political neophytes start with smaller ambitions, or more impressive qualifications. Jean wants to run a country still reeling from an earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people earlier this year, and manage its multi-billion-dollar recovery effort. He has never before held elected office.

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Drake: more than famous

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, June 21, 2010 at 8:24 AM - 10 Comments

Alex Hoerner/Icon International

The trappings of fame aren’t that hard to get used to. Aubrey Drake Graham was driving a leased Rolls-Royce around Toronto even before he signed one of the richest first-record contracts in music history. For more than two years now, he’s been hanging out with sports icons like LeBron James, partying with Jay-Z, Kanye West and other rap royalty, and making the gossip rags for his “romances” with Hollywood starlets (rumoured) and pop divas like Rihanna (confirmed).

There’s been a No. 1 single, a couple of nominations and an on-stage performance at the 2009 Grammys, and the inevitable deal to shill for a soft drink. It’s a heady life, but to hear the 23-year-old tell it, it’s only now that he’s realizing what it means to be a global celebrity.

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'That to me is what governance is all about'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 5:42 PM - 4 Comments

The prepared text of the Governor General’s speech on hip-hop, young people and urban arts in Edmonton last week. Continue…

MC GG

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 4:11 PM - 3 Comments

Michaelle Jean sings and dances. Michie Mee officially put on notice.