Party Of None

Date: November 26^th, 2008
Venue: The Kathedral
Series: n/a

You know it’s all about the music when Mel drives all the way back from London, Ontario, to Toronto on a Wednesday to play a gig on a dingy-ass stage in front of literally four people. But we knew what we were getting ourselves into: we knew three weeks ago when we booked this show that after having done the Opera House on Friday night that we’d be too promotionally exhausted to drag out numbers for tonight.

You’ve seen (actually, likely not) the fruits of our labour when we give half of a damn about pulling a crowd out. They’re meandering, to say the least. In fact, if they were real fruit, it would be the Department of Agriculture’s top priority to put a product recall on them.

Tonight, our land was plagued with locusts. No fruit for anyone.

It’s cuz the farmers are retarded.

This became apparent when everyone in the band and then some came over to my downtown residence to session and get smashed before getting on stage. It is, at this point, worthy to note that we have never collectively gotten this degenerated as a band. Not even for MuchMusic. And that was ridiculous, even by our standards. We were barely coherent by 9pm, and when we arrived at the venue around 10 15pm, most of our cognitive abilities were a cause more lost than feminism. Mel was so destroyed that she forgot her lyrics as she was rehearsing them to herself in the car, and she started begging me to ask the promoters to see if they could pull our set... 15 minutes before our set was to begin. It was hilarious.

The worst part of tonight was that I almost chopped off my crotch, thanks to Soul Plane drummer Aaron Mellet. Literally 5 minutes before showtime, this guy realizes that he forgot the noise-cancelling headphones he needs to hear the metronome he needs to keep the band together in Kevin’s car, parked at least 10 minutes’ walk away from the Kathedral. It was unanimously decided that I should go fetch – their reasoning was that I had no equipment to set up. For definitely not the first time ever, I hated rapping in a live band. After some obscure and ambiguously babbled directions from a very distracted Kevin, I smelled like team spirit and bolted out the door. Down Queen St. I flew, past at least two parking lots that were closed down – just my luck. I duck right on a street that looks like lots of people get raped on every day, and somehow, I see his silver Passat station wagon just sitting there under a streetlight.

You know how when you’re in a rush, and you’re running, and you see your objective destination from afar, you start picking up speed towards it, right? Right. So I’m probably running a healthy 15km/h by now towards the car when suddenly I get this sharp and rapidly increasing pain in my scrotum, as well as the wind knocked out of my chest. But who gives a shit about wind when your balls are getting cut off. I look down to see this thin-ass chain-wire barricade that these low-rent lots use to seal off their property wedged into my legs and dick. I had run nuts-first into this thing and not seen it in the dark. It hurt a lot. My skin, the cotton fabric of my boxers, and Rocawear denim have never gotten to know each other so intimately. Seriously, I almost cried. I was, in all honestly, way too terrified to do a feel-check. But who cares about never being able to have sex again, because we had a show to do.

When I made it back into the Kathedral 45 seconds to show time, I was in pain, out of breath, and sweaty. Usually I save the “just-had-a-miscarriage” look for after the show.

When we got on stage, for the four bars of the intro to “Soul Playin’,” the first song of our set, I actually managed to do a headcount: our crowd consisted EXACTLY of two bouncers, one bartender, all seven people on the promotion team from the high school we were supposedly fundraising for but really just losing money on behalf of because we brought no one, our (potential) new bassist Alex Lam and one of his buddies, one of my roommates, and Jade.

Our set saw more debauchery than I’ve ever been associated with in my life. Mel was forgetting lyrics, Luke was playing the wrong bass riffs for songs we didn’t write, and everyone just plain sucked. It hardly mattered, though, because we kept it gangster and played our hearts out. We had the time of our lives.

Along with gangster, the other thing we keep it is real. This MSN conversation between Gideon and I sums up the evening comprehensively:

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

Yo we are so bad

Golden Giddle says:

yea i knowwww

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

How did we even make it through that gig

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

Without having something thrown at us

Golden Giddle says:

there weren’t even people there to throw something

I don’t give a shit about anything but our Spring Break Tour in Panama City, FL. right now. None of us do. Let me make this real easy: if you’ve made plans with Melanie Goldman, Gideon Litvin, Kevin Nanni, Luke Rust, or Aaron Mellet between now and Feb 21^st, you are wrong. They will be learning songs up the yinyang and having exactly not enough time to see you. They are to officially reappear in the public eye on Feb 21^st, on the tour bus. Find out how to join us – see UPCOMING EVENTS section for details!

Garbage Times Band

Date: Nov 21^st, 2008.

Venue: The Opera House

Series: S&S

Shortly after our MuchMusic episode aired early on around mid-September, a local promotion called S&S got in touch with us and asked if we were interested in playing at the Opera House on Friday, November 21^st. Thinking that our success on TV would help us draw out numbers to fill the Opera House and given the amount of time between now and show night, we went for it and within a week, we had tickets in our hands to sell to our fans.

In mid-October, Mel found out that she would have to represent the University of Western Ontario’s hip hop team in a province-wide dance competition in Hamilton on Saturday, November 22^nd. The event was a huge deal and there was no way she would be able to miss it. We understood, and, after talking amongst ourselves, we decided that we’d go ahead with it since we still had a long time to promote the gig, and because of this grace period we would also have time to practice with Conor, who would have to fill in as DJ and scratch over most of Mel’s parts. It would be a different sound, a more gritty sound, a less practiced sound… but a sound we definitely had heard before when our former vocalist Blythe got sick the day of a show we were performing at the El Mocambo (see In One Ear Throwdown Showdown blog – Sept 7, 2007). The result of this spontaneous experiment was rather stellar, given that we had rehearsed an astounding total of 0 times before throwing it together on the El Mo’s first floor stage. In any case, it worked out before with no prep time so there was no reason why, logically, it wouldn’t work out BETTER with SOME prep time and ALL this month and some change left to sell tickets.

False. We still blow chunks like fellating fatties.

The promotion for this show was riddled with tell-tale signs of our usual “too little too late” approach. Vlad, Conor, and I ran around the Eaton Centre handing out tickets to the gig to people who generally just forced a smile and tried to seem as genuine as possible while bold-faced lying to us through their teeth: we heard everything from “Sorry, bro, I got a thing,” to “Oh… yeah, sure, I’ll see what’s up with my friends and maybe we’ll come check you guys…” to “Soul Plane? I love Soul Plane! I’m coming for sure!” No, are you not, you’re full of shit and I can smell it from here. Wipe your mouth; you’re starting to skidmark a bit under your lower lip. Aside from this and the usual website/MySpace/Facebook post/text-blast, we didn’t give a shit and it showed. It was a shitshow.

The fact that Mel wasn’t at the gig hurt more than just our performance; only when our set started did I realize that we had completely overlooked the fact that the Opera House stage was like a fucking football stadium compared to the cubicle that was the El Mocambo. With Mel, it would have been at least two bodies moving about constantly onstage to the rhythm to get the crowd going. How the hell was Conor supposed to help with stage presence with two big-ass turntables and a mixer on a stationary banquet table in front of him? I’m not Jay-Z… filling a stage the size of the one at the Opera House by myself was something I was not accustomed to having to do. Whatever, I did my best to get the crowd going, but the effort seemed more like putting a wet blanket over a pile of puke and hoping that no one notices the smell – hardly anybody moved during our entire set. This almost NEVER happens. Usually people are hopping after our first song, but this time, the complete change (or lack) of dynamics was not suitable for our audience. It seemed like I was rapping to a bunch of nursing home residents. It was the slowest suicide ever without actually getting to die. My girl Jade swears that there were some loud-ass cheers coming from the section where the 19+ concert attendees were quarantined with their alcohol, but I don’t remember hearing anything. I would have remembered a cheer, since there were so few of them at such small volumes that night. Instead the only memories I have are of me wishing the set would hurry up and end so that I could get off stage. But I digress, because a dead crowd is still better than no crowd. A dead crowd means that we fell off for that one particular night. No crowd means we’ve sucked forever and now even less people care to notice.

Mel not being at our show ruined our entire turn out. You have to understand something: look up Melanie Goldman on Facebook. Go on, just do it. When she adds you, look at how many friends she has in her list. She’ll tell you she doesn’t talk to all of them all the time, but I’ve seen her on her Blackberry and I know much better. Before Soul Plane got on national TV, during my promotion runs for the band, I’d tell random people on buses and in malls around Toronto that I rapped for a local band called Soul Plane and one out of every 15-20 people I talked to would be like: “SOUL PLANE?? DO YOU KNOW MEL G??” In short, all the girl has to do to bring 20 people to ANY EVENT SHE IS AT is send out a couple messages on Facebook – I mean, she’s the reason we can even call our crowd a “fanbase.” Needless to say, her absence at the show translated into a crowd of maybe 20 people. Luckily it was a Friday night and there were some people at the Opera House. Otherwise I would have left.

To the fans: seriously, more of you guys gotta start making an effort to come out to these things. You’re all we got. Without you our music falls on no ears (we’d be grateful even for deaf ones – Vlad actually gave a ticket to a deaf guy at the Eaton Centre on Friday afternoon before the gig), and really, you guys are almost the whole reason we do this. If you want to see Soul Plane blow up, this is your chance to become part of the solution. If you love us you will show up to our next gig.

For the love of God.

Anyway, I don’t know whether I’m getting more bored or more depressed as I’m writing this, but I’ve decided to just stop because I hate dwelling on garbage. Bottom line: the band will never be playing another gig without some sort of female vocalist/counterpart for me to play off of on stage. Not to say Conor didn’t pull his weight on the wheels of steel because he did and then some, but he shouldn’t have had to. It was a shitty night and no one should have to hear any more about it. In conclusion, Soul Plane learned a hard lesson: prepping for important gigs is like having unprotected sex; you gotta know when to pull out.

Much Chronicles Pt. VIII

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 8 – August 9^th, 2008

Location: MuchMusic Headquarters
Time: 9 30am

Read the blogs. If there’s anything the track record of this band can tell you, it’s that everything that could ever go wrong will. So, naturally, you can understand my worry about how today was going to unfold. A lot of factors had to come together and fall in line perfectly for the main event to go smoothly, a lot more factors than most events of any sort involve (just think – it’s MUCHMUSIC).

Let’s put it this way: we’re usually the only factors at most of our other events, and that rarely goes well. This could be the ultimate worst.

Today was the day Soul Plane was to stand under intense scrutiny by a panel of Canadian music industry professionals who each had the role of judging whether or not we had what it takes to make it somewhere in the industry. Harrison Hennick, owner of Reservoir Recordings and Soul Plane merchandise sponsor, was to arrive by 10am with t-shirts and demos along with Louis Saturnino, Soul Plane’s in-house cameraman who was to come in and snap away for a photoshoot inside the Much environment. The band itself has six members and a manager, as well as a promo team to bring together at what is generally considered an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning, with heavy-ass instruments and amps the size of bar fridges to carry, load, and unload. Let’s not forget the drive downtown Toronto from Thornhill.

Side note: 8:50am, Kevin calls me as I’m on the road on my way to Aaron’s, where we were to meet before we headed down together: “Yui, we have a slight problem, buddy. One of the Long and McQuade amps is fucked. It like, refuses to play.” Okay, I’m not an expert on amps or anything, but I’m pretty sure that if an amp DOESN’T MAKE SOUND, this problem is anything but “slight,” Kevin.

And so it begins.

After nearly swerving into the police cruiser in the adjacent lane, I slowly regained my composure and we managed to confirm after a series of calls that Steve’s Music on Queen St. would have a Marshall stack available for us for pick-up well before soundcheck was to happen.

Your move, Fate.

Call time was 10am. We were there by 9 30. Hector had told us to arrive as early as possible and to call him when we arrived at the front of the Much building so that he could have a crew come out to film us unload and set up for soundcheck. Imagine the kind of burn-out we were in for: we weren’t supposed to be playing until 1pm, and our fans had been told to stay away from premises until at least 12 30pm. The day was set to be longer than most university convocations. And it was raining. How gay.

Whatever, the show will go on no matter how many death threats I have to make and carry out. We have worked our asses off for two solid months on this ONE song. And I swear if I have to hear this song ONE more time after today I’m going to punch my next door neighbour in the mouth. “Impossible.” I don’t even like that word anymore. I’m so sick of my verse – these two months have made me lock down my material so hard I can rap it backwards mid-coitus. We had consulted the best in the business: Greig Nori was our main go-to guy for the whole thing – he was the man behind the complete re-vamping of the song. Over the months, “Impossible” had evolved into a mainstream-able single under Greig’s supervision, and the hope was that the judges would think so as well. Bishop, legend of Toronto emcee, had been enlisted by Much producers to work with me on my flow and delivery for my verse on “Impossible.” Saukrates, Canadian rapper extraordinaire who’s toured world stages with Nelly Furtado, crashed one of our rehearsals to give us advice on how to put our best foot forward in terms of visual presentation. July and August saw us going through rockstar boot camp – don’t let the episode fool you, they only want you to THINK we did it in a week.

By 10 30am, Louis walks in and immediately gets to work. Before long I’m posing in all corners of the Much environment and definitely getting in the way of everybody doing way more important things. I started to worry, though, when Harrison was still a no-show by 11am – our fans needed shirts for national TV and for the judges – we had to absolutely make sure that it looked like people liked us. If you saw the episode, you’ll know that for just one day, we had the entire world fooled: when Harrison finally showed up by 11 40am with a boatload of cargo on him, I immediately worried much less – everything was coming together to help us A-town stomp Fate in the scrotum. The only thing that could ruin us now was the judges, or someone calling in a bomb threat to MuchMusic.

We had an anticipated 100+ or so people who had confirmed that they would be at the show, but track record told us that maybe 65% of them would actually come out. It’s never as good as it sounds where crowd size is concerned. As the boys plugged shit in left and right, Mel and I hung around outside trying to lure people into the Much building, in the same way that repeated sex offenders try to lure hot women into dark alleys.

Most notably, two gorgeous girls happened to be walking around Queen St., totally oblivious to our predatory instincts at work as they stopped in front of the Much building and started taking pictures. I jumped right on it: “Hey, if you come back around noon, the view will be much nicer…” She looked at me like I just asked her to wash my asshole. “I mean, my band’s going to be playing here, and if you wanna come in for the party and be on MuchMusic, all you have to do is show up back here at 12 30pm.” Look at me, shamelessly baiting the hook like a pro.

We struck up conversation, and I discovered that the pair was friends from Halifax who were in Toronto for a vacation. I also discovered that getting on MuchMusic was like, the second most exciting thing ever to people from Halifax next to eating delicious lobster, so needless to say, they agreed to return. Glad I could help, ladies. Since the airing of our episode, Jamie and Alex have emailed us to thank us for a memorable Toronto experience, as well as to let us know that we kick ass and to not stop making music. Well, thanks for all the love, and I’ll holler at you both if the Plane ever makes it out of Toronto.

This means we’ll never see each other again – you have nothing to worry about.

As we set up and ran soundcheck, the realization that we could be told to shut the hell up and get the hell out on a nationally-televised program in the form of a “thumbs down” from the judges set in. As I went outside shortly before 1pm to greet our fans lined up screaming outside the Much building with signs waving (Katherine actually had glitter all up in her shit. Glitter. She’s 24. Also my favourite), I was overwhelmed by the amount of people that had come out to support us and show us love on national television. They were all wearing Soul Plane shirts (Shain, Conor, and Harrison ran around outside the Much building handing them out, we had most of downtown Toronto clad in Soul Plane apparel), holding copies of our demo. People I had never met, people off the streets, people I grew up with, friends, family, acquaintances… everyone was excited to absolute shit for us. They had come out on this fine Saturday afternoon (even though it was raining) to stand behind us, in front of a firing squad of judges. I sighed as the thought of the possibility of letting all these people down crossed my mind, but thought better of it and immediately wiped my mental board clean to focus on what was to come. Nothing else in this world mattered right now other than the people in this building… it was time to take it down.

As we gathered in the green room before they brought in the panel of judges, Hector was quick to pull the camera out to get in on our conversation. He asked us what we would do if we were told to disband today after our performance. I told him that if the judges said “no” to us, they’d also be saying “no” to Greig Nori, to Saukrates, to Bishop, to everyone who had put in effort or contributed in some way to make today happen. The general attitude in the green room was that we had done our very best for these two months, and that it was damn near impossible to do more. This was us at our maximum potential; by now you guys have seen the episode – “if they tell us to disband, fuck them.” I meant it entirely. They introduced the judges: Jen Hirst, an A&R from EMI Music Canada who signed Billy Talent; Colin Lewis, a booking agent for The Agency Group; Matt Wells, host of MuchMoreMusic; Hannah Simone, the Much VJ who tore us apart in the interview; and, just for me, JDiggz – one of Canada’s most well-known rappers. This oughta be good.

This was about when Greig Nori dropped what I consider to be the quote of the entire Much experience on us, a byte which was incidentally on record and aired with the episode: “If today goes well, and you get the thumbs up from the judges, and everybody is loving it, and seeing how well we worked with each other over the last little while, would I be able to get first crack at producing Soul Plane?” Again, you guys saw the episode; we were floored. Please believe we are in the process of following up on this…

And performing… don’t even get me started. Clad in grey, black, and pink (yes, pink), we looked nothing short of majestic as we took the stage. The lights in the environment matched the colour scheme we were running, and as Aaron tapped the band in, you could feel slabs of momentum just get stacked one on top of the next. Honestly, I could write a whole ‘nother blog about the three minutes during which we played live at Much. It was easily the best three minutes of my life – I loved the challenge of trying to decide which cameras to make eye-contact with out of the 15 or so moving around us simultaneously. I rapped my heart out, and for the first time in my entire career, forgot about my fans (in my defense, they were behind me and thus out of sight). For the entire show, I could see nothing in that room but the judges, as if rather than performing at MuchMusic I was conversing with each one of them individually. Like, damn… how many musicians or bands actually get to do this shit, get this level of exposure on Canada’s most wide-spread entertainment network, and how many of them aspire to taste this just once in their decade-long slow-grinding careers? Trust me, I know exactly where they come from – I’m that same starving artist who just happened to get a lucky break here. If you still can’t understand how much this moment meant to me and how much I cherished it, then I can’t help you because you don’t understand English, homeboy.

After the fans rocked out with us and cheered us on louder than we’ve ever been cheered on. I waved to the judges (especially Hannah, just to let her know I deep down still love her even though she ruined my shit on national TV), introduced them to our fans, and went back into the green room while the judges were to deliberate amongst themselves (in front of our fans) over whether or not we had what it takes to make it in the music industry. Except instead of deliberate, they decided deliberHATE. I am not ashamed to say that several of my friends were text-messaging me with various summaries of what the judges were saying. JDiggz wasn’t down with my swagger. Several judges on the panel thought Mel should leave Soul Plane and do her own thing. They hated the band name because of the negative associations that automatically come to mind linking us with that flop of a Snoop Dogg flick. They picked apart Aaron’s pink scarf and the hated all month long on Luke’s tie. Jen Hirst loved Mel’s voice and stage presence but ripped on her looks. Colin Lewis thought we needed much more practice, and that we still sounded like a basement band. Hannah Simone brought back the “f-word-that-rhymes-with-‘maggot’” issue and used that to illustrate the point that we weren’t ready for the industry’s hardships. I don’t remember getting any positive feedback relayed to me in any of the text messages I read; obviously I wasn’t telling any of my bandmates about these messages I was getting, either. I silently prepared myself for the worst.

I could hear Much VJ Sarah Taylor’s voice announcing our return into the environment for the pronouncement of the verdict. Again, our fans were cued to roar until their lungs got sore. I was numb on the inside, no lie – our careers, our livelihoods, the life of this band… depended on this verdict. I knew what I was hoping for, but I had no idea what to expect. I also knew that no matter how much we try to fool ourselves into adopting that “no matter what, we should be proud of ourselves because we did our best” attitude, a “disband” verdict would likely be career-ending. At least for me – how the hell would I live that one down? The judges now sat in a row in front of us, smiling like cannibals do after eating an elaborate feast of roast human. They looked like they all just knocked back double shots of sheep’s blood and chased it with a bag of gunpowder. Everything pointed to the fact that this was about to suck a lot.

After we settled around the mic stand, Sarah gave us the goods without too much delay. To paraphrase her: “Okay. So. The judges love your guys’ sound, and they thought that Mel G was great.” Pause for cheers. “BUT… but, the judges also thought that your image wasn’t authentic, and that you guys may not be ready for how tough the industry can get.” Pause for acknowledgement. “Bearing all this in mind, and considering that there are countless bands out there trying to make it, the judges have agreed that Soul Plane…”

I could have made coffee in the time Sarah paused here. Like, picked the fucking beans and roasted them and all. I almost had an aneurysm.

“…HAS WHAT IT TAKES!!!”

The fans erupted in a roar that probably caused an earthquake in Australia, but I barely heard them. Mel, Kevin, Gideon, Aaron, Luke, and I folded into each other in what was perhaps our first group hug ever as a band – it was long overdue, and no other occasion would have been more appropriate. By now, you guys should have seen the episode – homegirl broke down, and I don’t blame her, we had really given this single moment everything we had. Don’t let TV fool you – during the two months we filmed, we experienced hardships that would not suit the PG rating MuchMusic gave to the show – this victory was nothing short of hard-fought. We held each other, and obviously it was a huge frenzy between the six of us as we each burst with elation, but one clear moment amidst all the blur was when Gideon and I grabbed each other and came within make-out distance of each others’ faces only to yell “OH MY FUCKING GOD GREIG NORI’S GOING TO PRODUCE US!! HE’S GOING TO!! HE HAS TO!! HE SAID SO ON CAMERA!! HOLY FUCK, WE’RE ON THE WAY!! LET’S TOUCH EACH OTHERS’ BALLS!!” We deserved it, no doubt. I ran over to Conor, Shain and Harrison standing in the shadows off to the side and hugged them harder than I’ve ever hugged my own mother. This must be what it feels like to win the World Cup, to win gold at an Olympics event, to have sex with a porn star, to be on top of the world, to be Barack Obama. I don’t even remember what happened later that night – I don’t think any of us do. All that mattered was that we had been tried, tested, and proven true by MuchMusic, in front of all our closest friends and family members, in front of our fans, and, perhaps best of all, on national television.

What more can I say?

Much Chronicles Pt. VII

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 7 – August 1^st, 2008

Location: Senior’s home across from Much building
Time: 3pm

They had warned us that today’s interview was going to be the toughest one of our lives. We were ready, though – we had spent several weeks dodging questions on camera with answers that would inevitably lead to drama, or something that looked like drama, or something that could be edited way out of context to be used as something that resembled drama. Much VJ Hannah Simone would have to do her worst.

And boy, did she ever.

After some general warm-up questions, Hannah started talking about the fact that she checked out the tapes of my freestyle battle with Bishop and noticed with much distaste that I had used an “f-word that rhymes with ‘maggot’” at the very beginning of my verse. Just to put things in context, the minute Greig Nori gave me the go-ahead to start freestyling against Bishop, I rhymed: “You fucking faggot, you couldn’t get it up at the Playboy Mansion/ but you were halfway there when you saw Hanson.” Or something like that.

She commented on how saying words like that on camera would immediately offend an entire population group and how it could, in a situation where we were established, ruin the image and credibility of the whole band as a group that was trying to promote clean music. I think she expected some kind of overreaction, or maybe a show of remorse and regret; hopefully not, because she got neither from me. I casually explained to her that several factors contributed to my having uttered it: first of all, it was a freestyle battle. Nothing is off-limits in this arena – all the lyrics used in a battle like this are fresh off the dome – spontaneous (at least they’re supposed to be). In that context, the point is for one emcee to degrade the other as badly as possible, and whether it’s acceptable or not socially, in the hip hop world it is considered a blistering insult to question an emcee’s heterosexuality, especially if it’s done cleverly. “Faggot” helped emphasize the Playboy and Hanson references – the word itself was a set-up for the two lines that followed. Secondly, I noted that the battle was, in effect, pulling me out of a four-year retirement from the scene; I was rusty, and they were forcing me into a war of unpremeditated words I never asked to fight, but that if I declined, it would make my entire band look weak on national TV – what did you expect? Eloquent poetry? Please.

Hannah Simone was relentless, however – she continued to insist that the general public would judge my usage of the word “faggot” as inappropriate. She said in the best battles that she had witnessed, even if they involved usage of that term, the emcees implemented it creatively into ripping punchlines that made you go “whoa.” But apparently, the way I used it would make everyone hate me and bring about an ugly reflection on the rest of Soul Plane. I coolly stated that anything could be taken out of context and be spun to sound terrible, but in the rap battle context and environment we were in, I could make no apologies for anything other than maybe for being too unprepared to think of a different word to question his sexual orientation with. In the battle-rap world, you don’t make apologies for lines you spit (no matter how obscene) because these are battles – supposedly full of exaggeration and hyperbole in its degrading nature, never meant to be taken in any other way other than with a grain of salt. You’ve all seen 8 Mile by now...

Besides, it’s not like the person who I directed the insult to, Bishop, took it personal, so why should anyone else? I was clearly not looking to offend ALL homosexuals of the past, present, and future – this was not the intention. It’s a battle – I’m rapping before I’m thinking here – there’s no need to read deeper than that. People taking things said in battles way out of context and way too seriously are the very reasons I left the scene behind. I’m no longer a battle emcee by trade, and as far as MuchMusic was concerned, they had no idea that I had ever even taken part in any type of lyrical spat in my life. They threw me into the ring without thinking that I’d be bringing a certain level of experience with me. They had expected me to back out, or at the very least stutter through most of a shitty excuse for a battle verse – both of which would have made for excellent, embarrassing drama to be aired on national television. Surprise, assholes!

On the real, though, you wanted a battle, right? This was a reality show, right? Well, this is the grimy reality of the battle scene, and part of why I bounced from it so long ago in the first place. I said that our real fans would know how out-of-my-element I was and they would take that into consideration (along with the fact that it’s a F-R-E-E-S-T-Y-L-E where, again, you’re rapping before you’re thinking) before condemning me – if they’re smart enough to appreciate our music in the first place, then they’re smart enough to realize that a freestyle battle is night-and-day of a world’s difference from a written, musical composition. Furthermore, one of the major selling points of Soul Plane’s music has always been that it’s uplifting in spirit. With the Bishop battle, MuchMusic had driven me all the way over to the other end of the spectrum with one mission statement to bear in mind: defame Bishop’s character and demoralize him as heavily as possible – the worse I could make him feel the better it would look on me. So, whether you judge me for the clean, positive music I make voluntarily, or whether you judge me based on a word I used (in context, might I add) during a freestyle battle that I was virtually forced into by MuchMusic against one of the world’s most formidable opponents in the domain of battle rap, the decision is ultimately yours.

Mel interjected here and said that people should not judge us based on my usage of that word because I was by no means representing the mentalities of anyone in the group during that battle, and probably not even my own. It was strictly between me and Bishop, and that in any setting we must allow for slip-ups and mistakes. Mel went on to assure Hannah that she personally loved the gay community and had a lot of gay friends so obviously she didn’t condone any use of that word in any context, but that on behalf of the band she apologized for my mistake. However, Mel did acknowledge that it was a freestyle, along with the possibility that I might have been initially overwhelmed by such a formidable opponent as Bishop which made me throw caution to the wind, to paraphrase. I was later questioned during my confessional on how I felt about Mel stepping in and offering up the apology despite the fact that I had said myself that I was not remorseful, and I said: “I think that Mel is definitely entitled to her opinion, and if she honestly feels that an apology is due, and that’s her true belief, then who am I to argue? I firmly encourage her to voice her opinion.” This is 100% true, and I agree with the fact that “faggot” is a word that implies hate towards a whole community, but let’s be honest, no one who knows how to look at the big picture and the context of things here would take offense. And if you did, I apologize now – I thought better of your judgement than to assume you were petty and oversensitive about a word that has literally zero meaning when used in the context of a rap battle. NOTHING has meaning in a rap battle – anyone who thinks otherwise needs a serious reality check.

As for Gideon, he displayed remarkable indifference when he was asked about how he felt about my saying “faggot.” If a 16-year-old kid who sits around picking his asshole all day and doesn’t even listen to hip hop can understand the context, then so can just about anyone else. Life is not that serious.

After thoroughly exhausting the topic, Hannah finally shifted gears off the topic of demeaning gays and asked about band dynamics. She tried to imply that because Mel was the only female in the band, one of the guys was bound to start liking her as more than a friend. I playfully said that I already did. Mel handled this one quite well: “Soul Plane is too much like a family... Yui’s like, the dad, I’m the band mom, Gideon and Aaron are the two kids, Kevin’s the grandpa, and Luke’s the crazy uncle... there’s a lot of love in this band, but not anything like that. Never anything like that. It would just jeopardize everything we’ve worked so hard to build up.” Hannah persisted: “Well, you never know, these things do happen.” Trust me, lady, not over here they don’t, because if they did, that would definitely get in the way of making music in too many ways to bother noting, and this would be illegally unacceptable. We have no time for trivial matters like emotions and feelings in this band.

Hannah eventually gave up trying to find out about (and create) band dynamics and moved forward to putting us on the spot about how we would handle getting famous down the line and the cliché path of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” (she actually said this) we could end up walking. I fielded this question by explaining that our goals at the moment involved none of the above, and that the path we were pursuing was leaning more towards ensuring that as many people as possible get a chance to hear our music. All we would have to do to avoid deviating from this objective is focus our energy on passing around our product by any means necessary without getting caught up with all the bells and whistles and unnecessary extras.

Finally, Hannah dropped the most ridiculous question of the hour in my opinion. She asked us which band member we would drop if a label told us that six of us were too many to promote properly. At first Hannah wanted to hear it from Mel, but Mel told Hannah that she didn’t feel obliged to answer the question. So I did: “Wait, it doesn’t really make sense that a label would express interest in us based on the strength of our music, and then come back around to tell us that someone needs to be cut. Any label would realize that the loss of any single one of us would take our music in a completely different direction, that it would irrevocably change the very concept they were digging in the first place.” Obviously, the chances of this scenario ever unfolding in real life are slim to none. Good try, though, Hannah.

One of the last questions of the interview was, “What was it about Greig Nori that annoyed you the most?” I don’t think Hannah thought out the question clearly before she asked it. Between Mel, Gideon and myself, we couldn’t think of a single thing about Greig that pissed us off, other than us not having more time to work with him and get his feedback before the big show. I don’t get how anyone could get annoyed at someone of Greig’s status in the music industry offering his help and support to cut a smash hit single for your band. Next question please.

Hannah Simone concluded the interview by asking if we felt we were ready for the performance in front of the judges. We acknowledged that there was a lot of work to be done in the visual presentation department but that we were confident about being able to muck through it and come out on top, and that musically we were good to go. She thanked us for our time, we thanked her for hers. She wished us good luck, and we parted ways.

I can’t wait ‘til they air me saying “faggot” (albeit censored) on national television. It’s gonna be funny.

Much Chronicles Pt. VI

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 6 – July 24^th, 2008

Location: Rehearsal Factory

Time: 3pm

All we knew about today was that Greig Nori was supposed to come in and check on the progress we had made on fixing up “Impossible” according to his suggestions. We left nothing to chance – no one else I know has ever written a hit single that circulated the nation’s airwaves and music channels; this alone explains why Soul Plane decided ultimately to play sponge to every piece of Greig’s advice. Try to follow me here:

We had taken measures to cut the song into a manageable 3:45 in length. I took out my first verse completely and replaced it with last verse I spit, which was incidentally 12 bars long, as opposed to the tedious 16 I was rapping before. The new version also included a shorter chorus of eight bars, cut in half from what it was previously, and the chorus’ melody line was re-written by Greig to give it a more attention-grabbing vibe. After the first chorus, Greg suggested we kick right into the “reggaefied” riff that I used to rap over, except now Mel would be singing her verse on it instead. It would then go back into the revised chorus, followed by Gideon’s solo for 12 bars. After Gideon gets done showing off, I come back in and do a call-and-response exchange with his guitar for 8 bars. Finally, it was to end on a bang that is the new chorus. Get it? Good. Explain it to me.

Once we got set up and tuned, we started practicing. Before long, Greig Nori strolled into our rehearsal space and took over our lives. We played our song for him and he was immediately positive about the changes we had made in his absence. He made a few more suggestions to bring the song’s catchiness up another notch: Gideon’s solo would have to be shortened even more, Mel’s verse could use some trimming as well, the chorus ended a bit too abruptly, and the chorus still lacked something despite already having undergone re-writing. It’s okay, he assured us, there was still time to keep working on the track.

Greig then told us that making good music as a band was all about musically playing off the different band members and finding a consistent, common groove between each of us. This would happen only if we were actively listening to each other as we were playing. Bearing this in mind, he told us that our next exercise would entail switching instruments/roles with another Soul Plane member – Kevin was then put on the drums, Gideon picked up the bass, Luke grabbed Kevin’s guitar, and I took Gideon’s. Initially, Mel refused to do anything but sing, but Greig eventually convinced her to try rapping. Aaron was then made lead vocalist. Greig then instructed Kevin to start banging out a rhythm, and whenever the rest of us caught onto the groove, we should join in.

The results of the experiment could only be described as “reasonable.” We didn’t sound like complete ass, but it wasn’t worthy of replay, either. What we did get from it was a lesson on a concept that has, until now, eluded us as a band: in order for you to really listen to the sounds of your musical counterparts, you must first put yourself in their shoes. After the exercise, I was able to feel the music from (in my case) Gideon’s perspective, and now I appreciate his contribution to the song that much more. Everyone else’s reaction to the exercise was along the same lines – Gideon suggested over dinner later that night that we should trade instruments more often to get a more comprehensive picture of how we sound with each other. Man, does this Greig Nori guy ever know his shit.

After the exercise we got back to the drawing board with “Impossible.” There was still work to be done. But, of course, MuchMusic isn’t here to film Soul Plane arguing over how a chorus should sound (well, they are, but they have better shit to do with us right now). As we were innocently minding our own business and figuring guitar lines out, the door to our rehearsal space busts open and Saukrates comes running through wearing a whole lot of red. For those who haven’t heard of him (and you should be ashamed of yourselves), Saukrates is a Juno-nominated rapper from Toronto who has teamed up with the likes of Redman and Methodman, produced for Nas, and toured internationally with Nelly Furtado. What the fuck have you done lately?

Anyway, after we came out of celebrity shell shock, Saukrates told us he was here to help us on our performance value, to help us look good as we played in front of the judges. He illustrated the importance of looking cohesive, as a unit, on stage by telling us that even when a music video is on his television screen and his TV’s muted, he can decide whether or not he even cares to hear their music based on their visual presentation. I was so relieved that this guy had come to save our lives in this department: we had been complaining about our visual value forever and had done nothing about it for even longer.

Needless to say, we were more than receptive to Saukrates’ ideas. He told us that when I was rapping, I was to stand up at the top of the stage and do a simple two-step. The physical movement was to be kept to a pleasant minimum so that it wouldn’t take away from the actual rapping. Mel was to do more of the same when she was singing her parts. During our exchanges we were to stand together and find a movement to the rhythm that would make us look more synchronized, and during our off-time, we had to find a way to look like we’re interacting and having fun – Saukrates suggested that while Gideon was solo-ing, for example, Mel and I could come together behind him and provide a visual support, along with the rest of the band – he told us that even if the rest of us were doing something as plain and straightforward as bobbing our heads or bodies collectively in a single direction, it would do wonders for our performance. Greig interjected here and made a very valid point: if it looks like we’ve found that common groove he spoke of when we all traded instruments earlier and it looks like we’re having fun doing what we do, then the audience will have fun regardless of whether or not they fully appreciate the music. I, for one, agree wholeheartedly – at any given show, they see you before they hear you, and if they’re turned off at first sight, they won’t even want to bother with the rest of it. True story.

Saukrates carried on with more words of wisdom about figuring out how we wanted to look as a band. He told us that looking ‘together’ was as simple as picking a colour scheme and sticking to it. He cited his love for the colour red as an example – it stands right out, and if everyone on stage wore an identical colour or pattern, we would look much more like a group with some sort of uniformity to it rather than a bunch of sloppily-dressed friends playing music on stage. He said that although we each looked fine individually, it was much trickier to coordinate something that fits everyone’s sense of fashion and style all the while bringing the group together on stage aesthetically. However, he also stressed the importance of not completely compromising a personal style to fit in, because when it comes to the way we dress individually, being out of our own elements will have a big (negative) impact on our levels of comfort, and thus would inevitably affect our performance.

For the cameras, Greig asked Saukrates if he thought we’d stand a chance facing the judges in “two days.” Saukrates looked thoughtful for a moment, and then surprised us all by telling us that he thought we definitely had what it took as long as we continued to be open-minded about taking advice from people who had done and been through what we were trying to do and go through – in short, he said, if Soul Plane stays relevant in our subject matter and open to (qualified) constructive criticism, our success won’t stop at pleasing the judges. I repeat: Saukrates, in his professional opinion, has gone on record and stated that we, Soul Plane, have what it takes to make it. He also said that he loved the music, that it was “infectious” and “catchy,” and that if we managed to pull ourselves together to make Soul Plane look united and collectively presentable on stage in time for these judges, then we’d be giving the band an extra edge on everything else that’s out there. That’s Saukrates saying it, not me. Our job is to prove him right.

After Saukrates left, Greig continued to work with us on “Impossible.” Towards the end of his stay, he actually offered Soul Plane his time off-camera. We were stunned speechless, bewildered at the fact that Greig Nori, someone who had worked with the likes of Sum 41, Iggy Pop and Ludacris, believed in us and our music enough to want to genuinely contribute to it as opposed to just give off the impression of doing so for the cameras. He told us to get at him anytime we wanted some quick feedback on our progress. I then asked him the obvious question: how did he want us to get in touch with him when we needed to? He thought about it for a second, as most high-profile industry people would, and then told me to take down his cell phone number. Everyone was immediately alert – hold up, you really mean Greig fucking Nori was going to hand us his personal contact information so that we could harass him with questions about how to write a guitar line? Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Hector was instantly on cockblock mode: “Hey, you know, Greig, there’s an easier way to do this. They can email us, and then we can just forward it…” Greig cut him off and dismissed the idea with an impatient wave: “That shit takes too fucking long, by the time I get around to checking that email these kids’ll be in front of the judges.”

After I took down his number, he told us to call it anytime anything came to mind. After he left, Julie came right up to me and warned me not to abuse it. Thanks, Julie, I was just about to text-message Greig Nori to see if he wanted to go catch a movie and then have dinner. Obviously, due to the status he has achieved in his line of work, Greig isn’t the type of guy who can afford to just hand his personal information to every aspiring artist – he clearly only gave it to Soul Plane for one or several of the following reasons: 1) he likes our music and truly believes in the fact that we can make it in this dog-eat-dog music industry, and thus wants to be able to actively contribute his professionally adjusted ideas to the foundations we’ve built, 2) we’ve impressed him with our maturity and our ability to execute on his advice, and he trusts that with this maturity comes discretion in terms of how we plan on putting his phone number to good use, 3) we need a lot more work than we think and the time MuchMusic allotted for him to work with us is simply insufficient for us to hammer out anything worth performing, or 4) it was a fake phone number and we’ll never hear from him again.

Thankfully, it’s not reason 3 or 4 in any combination. I know this because Hector came up to us afterwards and told us how excited Greig was to be working with Soul Plane and how optimistic he was about this “Impossible” song being a smash hit radio single (and let’s not make jokes, the boy does know a thing or two about smash hit radio singles) as long as we kept all his tips and pointers in mind. Offering this kind of off-camera, behind-the-scenes help was something Greig had yet to do with other bands he’s been working with that Much has been filming for the reality series. I speak on behalf of Soul Plane when I say we cherish the privilege.

I want to have a romantic affair with Greig Nori.

Much Chronicles Pt. V

Over the summer, MuchMusic contacted Soul Plane and informed us that they would be invading our lives for a good couple months to film our band's debauchery and give us some national television exposure and to put us through rockstar training to see if we have what it takes to make it somewhere in the music industry. If you haven't seen the episode or heard the verdict yet, catch it online now at http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/disband/soulplane.asp (full-screen the window for the optimal in-yo'-face experience). These are my memoirs from our time on set with Much...

Day 5 – July 22^nd, 2008

Location: Orange Lounge Recordings

Time: 12 30pm

Based on the “clue” (a Polaroid photograph of the front entrance of Orange Lounge Recordings) given to me by Greig Nori the day before, it didn’t seem like it would require too much intellect to figure where we were supposed to be today. The “clue” was supposed to lead to a challenge that was mainly meant for me – I had no idea what it could be; trust me, I spent most of last night harassing everyone in Soul Plane to help me think of the possibilities (Kevin’s theory was that they were going to try to take me out of my element by making me dance, and Luke’s guess was that they were going to make me sing – either way I would have pulled pistols). By morning, as we made our way down to MuchMusic, I had stopped caring almost entirely and decided to just let them bring it on.

We were met by Julie and Chris (the same cameraman who filmed us yesterday, but not the one who was at Machinehead Studio) when we arrived at Orange Lounge. We were directed into the lounge seating area to wait for further instructions. During this time, Hector went around the members of the band asking them if they had any idea what today had in store for me and how everyone felt having been granted access to one of Canada’s most prestigious recording studios. We were all hoping we’d be able to record a track here or something, but obviously this wasn’t in the plans. Before long, Julie came to get us and told us to make our way down to Studio A.

As I opened the door to the recording room, I saw Greig Nori standing there with a huge shit-eating grin on his face. Beside him was somebody anyone who lived in Toronto and listened to hip hop would recognize: it was Bishop, one of the few rappers from Toronto who had made managed to make a name for himself beyond the boundaries of the city (the country, even – the boy’s worked with Snoop Dogg). Most people who know him do so because they follow the underground battle-rap scene in Toronto, and without a doubt, in these circles, Bishop was a force to be avoided as often as possible. He had bumped heads with the best of them all over North America and had lived to tell the story. I knew exactly what was about to happen.

Greig, still smiling like an asshole, turns to the cameras and goes, “Yui, welcome to Orange Lounge Recordings, I’m happy to see that the clue wasn’t too tough for you guys to follow. This is Bishop, one of the fiercest battle rappers in the world. Today your challenge is going to be to enter a freestyle battle with this guy right here. Do you think you’re up to it?”

Did I have a choice? I fought every instinct to run away screaming. I wasn’t about to pussy out in front of my band. I kept my composure and told him I was definitely up to it. I’m never scared to get my ass handed to me in a battle, especially by someone of Bishop’s caliber; my only regret was that I had removed myself from the battle-rap scene almost completely several years ago and had vowed not to go back. I had left because the concept of battling itself (where two emcees stand face-to-face and do their best to creatively degrade each other as much as possible in spontaneous rhyme and rhythm – see 8 Mile for more details) had gotten played out, the scene was dead, the competitors were generic, and almost every battle ended up in fisticuffs or bloodshed or death threats because someone couldn’t take a joke. Borrrrrrrrrring.

That was like, two or three years ago. Now Bishop was about to bring me out of retirement, and I would have come back for no less worthy an opponent.

Greig then asked me how I felt about having to battle Bishop on MuchMusic cameras. He asked me if I was nervous. To be honest, I wasn’t even nervous – I think I’m beyond the point of being shook over anything rap-related, I’m pretty confident in my ability to perform no matter who I’m being judged by. But now wasn’t the time to think, now was the time to freestyle. I looked Greig in the eye and said that I was just looking forward to being ripped apart by one of the game’s greats, and that although I’ve obviously heard of Bishop and have an immense amount of respect for his rep, I wasn’t too starstruck to bring my best. The battle emcee in me was ready to fuck some shit up despite knowing already what the outcome was going to be (come on, it’s Bishop… this guy could out-rap me in his sleep). Greig laughed, wished me good luck, then told me I had to go first, and acapella (that is, without a beat to help me keep my flow). I didn’t even wait for them to tell me “go.”

I did my best to hit him in the weak spots with my verse – I talked about how no one in Scarborough wanted him repping the city despite the fact that he had a “Scartown” t-shirt on; I questioned his sexual orientation, and his sense of fashion (I told him he looked more like he should be working on a golf course with the plaid shorts he had on, and that his rhymes were as played out as his all-white Air Force Ones). I even questioned his credibility, telling him that before his battles against Jin (internationally-renowned Asian freestyle battle-rapper), I hadn’t even heard of him. At one point I gestured swiftly to the camera and accidentally dropped the sunglasses I had clipped onto my polo – I made reference to this in my verse and told Bishop that if he kept “frontin’, he’d get ‘dropped’ like my glasses,” just to prove to everyone watching that my rhymes were a genuine freestyle and truly not premeditated. As I was rapping, I paid close attention to Bishop’s body language. He seemed taken aback at my ability to handle myself on the mic, and his eyes got real big at some of my lines, but at the end of the day, he still looked completely unfazed.

When Bishop picked up on his turn, it was made real clear, in living colour, why this man is not to be fucked with in the battle-rap division. His flow was smoother than most conmen, his delivery a hail of rapid-fire machine-gun bullets – it was like a perfectly executed mob hit: some of the shit he said, you just didn’t see it coming. It wasn’t so much that his verse was better than mine – in fact, he didn’t pick my visual presentation apart like I did to him; there was almost nothing personal about his attack. However, he blindsided me by tackling the battle from a completely different perspective, combining some hard lines with a consistent flow and delivery, and by maintaining that powerful and dominant tone in his voice and holding a steady rhythm, there was no way you could stay unimpressed. He came at me with lines like, “I ain’t talkin’ about drivin’ when I’m ‘poppin’ a Yui,” and “your name remind me of something gross… ‘ewwyyy’…” and that was pretty much the end of me.

I may not have won the battle, but everyone who was watching was at least impressed by my performance. Much cameras were able to capture everybody’s reactions (Soul Plane’s, Greig Nori’s, and Bishop’s), and the producers told me more of the same: they were not expecting to bring my business to Bishop’s front gates. Based on the lyrics I write for Soul Plane’s music, I seem like a pretty soft, reflective dude (and that’s how I’d like to come off – the alternative has been done and done again in the realm of rap music these days – it’s not cute anymore). There’s nothing aggressive in my verses, nothing that would indicate that battle-rapping was such a major part of my career history (it’s how I began rapping in the first place). As a result, they thought I would either choke or back down – on MuchMusic cameras for the entire nation to see? Bitch, please. Their thoughts:

“I definitely didn’t expect you to do as well as you did. I didn’t really think you were gonna choke or anything, but I was hoping you would struggle through your rap a lot more than you did.”

- Hector, MuchMusic field producer

“I don’t know too much about this battle-rap shit, but from based on what I heard, I’m not even sure I can just name a winner.”

- Greig Nori, Canadian music industry professional

“Yo, for real I got mad respect for this kid Yui. He came at me real hard… I mean, he really went in. I didn’t think he was going to get that deep, but yo, he really went in on me. I can size up most emcees just based on this… you know, this cocky-ass, arrogant vibe they give off but Yui wasn’t doing none of that. He just stood his ground and did his thing and he wasn’t scared to fuck with me. That’s what it takes to be a good emcee. That’s big, man, that’s big, so mad respect for that, though, for real.”

- Bishop, legendary battle emcee

“Bishop obviously won that battle... like, c’mon, he didn’t even stop [his verse] to breathe. It was just line after line. But Yui did a really good job holding his own.”

- Gideon, Soul Plane lead guitarist

“I don’t know how Yui did that. I was more nervous about it than he was.”

- Mel G, Soul Plane lead vocalist

Greig then told Bishop and I to adjourn to the control room of Studio A, where he was to give me feedback and work with me on my verse for the Soul Plane song “Impossible,” the track we had chosen to play in front of the panel of judges that would be evaluating us on August 9^th. When we got into the recording room I had a chance to kick it with Bishop before the cameras started rolling – he asked me the average “get-to-know-you” questions like how long I’ve been rapping, where I’ve performed, what my aspirations as a recording artist were, etc. I learned quite a bit about him, too – he was slowly shying away from music and gradually making his way into acting; he had been in “Narc” with Ray Liotta and Busta Rhymes back in ‘02, and he played Alex de Large in a theatre production of “Clockwork Orange” recently. I was thoroughly impressed at his credentials and how humble he was about honing his crafts and balancing his passions all the while slowly turning everything into a moneymaking career move.

When the cameras were on, we worked on my lyrics. After I rapped my verse out loud for Bishop, he looked up at Julie and Hector with a quizzical expression on his face: “What am I supposed to do to this right now?” Julie told him that he was supposed to hit me with some feedback, some pointers on how I could improve my verse and make it ready for the judges I would be facing “in a few days.” Bishop laughed and replied, “But yo, real talk, I ain’t even mad at this verse. It’s hot. I don’t know what else to tell this kid.” I took immediate advantage – I looked into the cameras and said “Ladies and gentlemen, I just want you all to know that this is coming from Bishop, Toronto’s most-feared emcee.” I wasn’t lying, and I’m sure he appreciated the compliment. Honestly, though, it wasn’t that my verse was flawless or anything – far from it. It’s just that it’s hard to critique a rapper’s flow, delivery and overall performance of a verse unless you hear the instrumental that is supposed to serve as a backdrop to the verse, and this was apparently something we couldn’t accommodate (the rest of Soul Plane had been dismissed after the battle and were out getting lunch).

Finally, for the cameras, Bishop pushed himself to find something to tell me to improve on in my verse: “Uh… if I were you, I’d try to go deeper into the topic, the concept. Like, you did a real good job here, but you could go further into the situation and really bring out ‘doin’ the impossible.’” You could almost tell he was saying it just to say it. I agreed, and I said I’d look into it and fix things up in time for our live gig in front of the judges. He then found more advice to throw my way: “When you spit a verse like this, it’s gotta make an impact. You’re the first thing in after the intro, right? You gotta punch them right in the face with it, dawg. It’s gotta come killer the first word you say – you gotta have conviction. The flow’s nice, I like it, and I wish I could hear the beat it’s on, but from what I can tell here, you gotta bring that energy.” I nodded and thanked him graciously for these tips, and told him I would re-work the questionable parts as soon as I got a minute to recover from the battle wounds he had inflicted on me about an hour ago. He laughed, wished me good luck, shook my hand, promoted the both of us on MuchMusic tape, and we walked out of the studio together. How touching.

What a best day of my life.