It wasn’t supposed to happen. Message boards are full of wannabe rockstars, dozens upon dozens of guitar-slingers, warbly singers and guys rhyming over fruity loops beats. Some of them are alright. Some are even pretty good. Some end up having fulfilling careers on the local club circuit. Some open for a next-level band once or twice and catch a fleeting glimpse of fame before settling into grad school and losing their touch. But, generally speaking, guys who are actually going places in the music world don’t spend their days on forums, photoshopping Terry Schiavo onto album covers and discussing in great detail their top 10 albums of 1972.
But it did happen. Rollie Pemberton, Edmonton-based former p4k writer and PFMS/Hipinion boarder, stepped into his metaphorical telephone booth and emerged as Cadence Weapon, a rapper who walks that wide and often unbridged line between backpacker hip-hop and the world of mainstream, high-gloss beats. His new record, Breaking Kayfabe (buy), incongruously but brilliantly blends self-aware, literate lyrics with the kind of huge beats and synths you’d find in an exceptionally imaginative Three-Six Mafia (or even Dizzee Rascal) song. And he was only 19 when he made the record, working as sole producer and vocalist. Makes me wonder what I’ve spent the last five years doing. Oh, right… photoshopping Terry Schiavo onto album covers.
The impetus for this post came when I saw the new video for the album’s lead single, “Black Hand”. Part of a series of videos funded by a VideoFACT (a Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent), it does a lot with a very limited budget. Check it out.
- Cadence Weapon — “Black Hand”
- Cadence Weapon — “Sharks”
(Rollie’s also got a pretty sweet blog called razorbladerunner, which we’ve got over there in the hot shit bin.)
User
Joel
/ June 2, 2006rollllliiieeee