Photo by courtesy / courtoisie CBC-TV

It’s Anyone’s Game, in rap and in basketball

Story by Nick Krewen | Saturday February 13th, 2021

At least they didn’t have to jump through hoops to get on the show.

Thanks to the involvement of Wracket Music Supervision Inc.’s Everton “Big Easy” Lewis Jr., a several young, promising Canadian rappers have landed their joints on Anyone’s Game, a 30-minute, six-episode CBC high-school basketball docu-series following one of the NBA’s most promising talent pipelines, The Athlete Institute.

Everton Lewis Jr.

Everton Lewis Jr. (Photo: Will Selviz)

Based in Orangeville, Ontario, the institute builds its Orangeville Prep team as the players pursue the NCAA Division 1 scholarship, and hopefully an eventual shot at a pro contract; the accompanying doc showcases the talents of such up-and-coming rappers as Toronto-raised, Montréal-born Patrik, Ghanaian-Canadian Friyie (pronounced FREE-yay), and GTA MC collective Lunch Room Poetz.

Lewis Jr., who served as music supervisor for Vice Canada for three years, said he was mandated by the CBC to feature Canadian music, though he shied away from established talent in favour of rookies. Some of the placements were artists that Lewis Jr. had previously been aware of, or whose music he had included in Vice documentaries.

“These guys – especially Patrik – have been building a buzz,” he says. “I stage-managed him years ago at Canadian Music Week; he was really hustling, working, and coming up from the bottom. And his song ‘High End’ was selected for TikTok Canada’s music campaign, which is one of the same songs that’s licensed in the show. I felt it was appropriate to include him and his sound and provide him with additional exposure, while simultaneously riding his coattails.”

Patrik

Patrik (Photo: Laizlo)

Lewis Jr. says he worked with Friyie for the 6ix Rising: Toronto’s Rap Ascendance doc – Friyie’s “Money Team” served as pro boxer Floyd Mayweather’s theme music when he confronted Conor McGregor at a press conference – and found the Lunch Room Poetz collective through a lifelong association with the quintet’s Phil “Philly Regs” Rego.

“They’re more of the underground and the raw, true art form of hip-hop,“ Lewis Jr. explains. “I always felt that was really important, because a lot of what basketball was framed around, it didn’t start with this newer age kind of music – it started with the KRS-Ones back in the day, and  the Nas influences, things like that. The Lunch Room Poetz are five battle MCs, and they’re  vicious! I thought that original Toronto-New York City gritty kind of sound needed to punch through on Anyone’s Game.”

The  artists involved are grateful for the opportunity.

“It means a lot to be a part of  the basketball culture in Canada,” says Patrik. “As someone who took basketball growing up, and had aspirations playing in a league, playing in university, it’s nice to be in that atmosphere… The involvement of my music makes me feel like I’m an extension of the story of what’s happening in Orangeville.”

Lunch Room Poetz

Lunch Room Poetz (Photo: Kenzo Ferrari)

When creating flows like “High End,” Patrik says the rhythm is the initial grabber. “I always go for the beat first,” he explains. “I’m not a producer or a beat-maker, so usually I work with multiple producers and beat-makers, to find a vibe, or the mood I’m in. In terms of writing [lyrics]… I start off by just praying and asking for understanding and wisdom, or the right wording to express what I’m going through.”

In the case of Lunch Room Poetz – Young Stich, B1 The Architect, Lotus James, KP, and Philly Regs – their previously released song “The Grind” just happened to align with an Anyone’s Game episode also called “The Grind.” “It’s perfect, man,” says B1 The Architect. “It talks about the struggle, the grind ,and the hustling, and it’s something very akin to [our experience] in our group. It’s not easy being an independent label and trying to launch your own product, just as it’s not easy to be  an independent basketball player trying to get recognition and actually making it to the NBA or NCAA.”

Lunch Room Poetz’ key to creativity is to enter the studio with a batch of beats. “Someone will kick it off with a verse, and then everyone will write together and try to stick to a concept,” says B1 The Architect. Philly Regs and B1 both says that the group’s appearance on Anyone’s Game only heightens their credibility. “It gives our group a bit more notoriety within the rap community, because proving that you can do this is big,” says Philly Regs.

Friyie

Friyie (Photo: Ennrick Thevadasa)

Friyie is still enjoying his relationship with Mayweather, whom he calls “a mentor” and “a big brother.” He says the placement of his song “Pushin’” “is a great opportunity for my music to be featured on its own, because as an artist you’re trying to get as much placement as possible. I played basketball myself in high school, and I’m a real big fan, so… it feels like an accomplishment.”

Friyie – who worked with rapper Tory Lanez and Roddy Ricch on his debut album ANF (Ain’t Nothing Free) – says he starts off his creations by freestyling. “I tell an engineer to just record me in the booth,” he says. “I’ll go in there with a blank slate because I don’t like to over-think songs… I’ll listen to the beat for a couple of seconds, and when I start to freestyle, I’ll record the whole song twice, or three times, just spitting out whatever comes into my head. Then I’ll listen back to it and pick out the parts that will make the core foundation of the record, then just build onto that.”

Anyone’s Game will no doubt help Friyie, Lunch Room Poetz, and Patrik in the long run, and might even make them future contenders.

Photo by Bill Miller

Sound Advice from multi-Platinum songwriter / producer Rob Wells

Story by Perry Stern | Wednesday February 17th, 2021

Sports analogies are songwriter/producer Rob Wells’ go-to when explaining his preference for co-writing music rather than going it alone. “When you co-write, it’s like how you discover the game of tennis,” says Wells. You start out alone, hitting a ball against a wall. Eventually, “you get to know how that ball’s going to come back,” he adds. Once you start playing with someone else, “you have no way of knowing how it’s going to come back at you. Whether it’s going to go left, right, up, down, or into the net,” he concludes.

Wells has earned three SOCAN No. 1 Song Awards:

* “All About Me,” performed by Matt Dusk, in 2006
* “Comme Avant,” performed by Marie-Mai, in 2011
* “Un coup sur mon cœur,” performed by Marc Dupré, in 2013

Speaking from his home in Pickering, ON, where he’s quarantined with his five-kid family, Wells expounds further. “The moment that I started co-writing with other people, and lots of different people,” he offers, “I began to really find the true joy in songwriting and production.”

That joy has been accompanied by several armloads of awards and accolades, including three SOCAN No. 1 Song Awards, several multi-Platinum, Platinum and Gold sales certifications, and a discography that includes stellar work with a cavalcade of international and Canadian superstars in a rainbow of styles, from Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Corey Hart, and Randy Bachman, to The Backstreet Boys, Serena Ryder, and Selena Gomez.

For nascent songwriters, Wells again resorts to sports. He likens the songwriter’s process to that of a body-builder. “You head to the gym and on Day One you’re lifting two-pound weights, and it feels really ridiculous and stupid, but after half-an-hour you find that, ‘Wow, my arms are actually getting a little bit sore.’” You increase the weights over time until, “after a couple of years, you’re bench pressing 250 pounds. It’s a slow process, there’s no way to get from A to B really fast.”

You work on that first song, as he says, “coming up with a melody, coming up with chords, coming up with simple lyrics, and then not dwelling on that song but moving on [to] write another. Finish that in a day, then move on to another one, and another. After a year you’re going to look back and you’ll say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe how horrible those are, but look at what I’m doing now!’” Then the quality of your work increases exponentially once you start collaborating with others. If you work like Wells, the “wows” keep on coming.

“The quality of your work increases exponentially once you start collaborating with others”

Inevitably, you’ll want to extend your control of the song to producing it yourself. “When I first got started,” says Wells, “I would write songs and the artist would choose the producer. Quite often. I was very disappointed with the results I got back. It’s not an ego thing. It’s just that, for me, music is just so emotional and so communicative. For me, holding the reins of production, I’m able to emotionally communicate what the song is supposed to be.”

But even with his producer hat on, Wells always puts the song first. “I don’t think about production until the song is done,” he says. “Once I have the song written, I focus on the chorus first. The chorus, for me, is the most important part of the whole production, and I try to make it as big as possible, using as minimal instrumentation as possible. That way you can create this great-sounding chorus without being over-produced, and then work backward and start to strip away for your pre-chorus, really strip away for your verse, and really strip away for your intro.

“If you do it the other way,” says Wells, “where you start with the intro, then add more instruments for the verse, and then more for the pre-chorus, by the time you get to the chorus you’ve got this crazy, massive amount of sound going on, and it’s totally over-produced.”

Wells has teaching gigs at the Harris Institute and Lakefield College School, but novice producers and songwriters can learn more from him directly via his series of YouTube tutorials (like the first one, embedded in this story).

Photo by Dominic Berthiaume

Vanille : Never-ending Seasons and Eras

Story by Élise Jetté | Thursday February 11th, 2021

The cover art for Vanille’s album Soleil ’96 looks more like it came out in 1968. Admittedly, the young Rachel Leblanc, the person behind Vanille, can boast being born in the mid-90s – but she totally owns the “old soul” label because of her passion for the stylistic richness of the past. Come along for some time travel aboard the ‘96 machine.

Vanille, Rachel Leblanc “I’ve always thought I wasn’t born at the right time,” says Leblanc, with sunshine in her voice. “On the other hand, romanticizing the past is really fun, and it’s even better because I can go digging into so many different eras. Everything we’re acquired throughout the history of music, I hold in my handbag.”

Launched in January, Soleil ’96 is her first Francophone LP, following the release of an Anglophone EP three years ago: My Grandfather Thinks I’m Going to Hell. Since then, Leblanc has clearly avoided hell, and instead, the summer sun appears on the cover of her album. But the LP evokes more seasons than one. Each left its mark,” Leblanc says. “We mostly talk about the time we need to get over something,” she says. “The song ‘Les jours manqués,’ that closes the album, reminds us that love may be defeated, but we move on. There’s progess, just as there is with the weather, and the seasons going by.”

Emmanuel Ethier (Pierre Lapointe, Corridor, Peter Peter, Chocolat) saw Leblanc live at Brasserie Beaubien in 2019, and wrote to her the next day to let her know he could help her fine-tune her material. “That album is a great lesson in perseverance,” he laughs, recalling how he had to juggle several of his own projects to work on Vanille as well. “She could’ve given up, or asked another producer. It took a long time.” Yet, the producer also perceived in the project a desire not to move things forward on a whim.

The impostor syndrome is felt on both sides. While Leblanc is aware that she’s still young, and has a lot to learn, Ethier – who has accomplished so much – doesn’t feel that he’s done something special. “I never make music for myself when I work for an artist on their project,” he says. “My job as a producer was to think like Rachel. If I end up imposing something, I think it creates an ethical problem.”

Although Leblanc was petrified by Ethier’s presence at her Brasserie Beaubien show, she jumped at the opportunity he extended. “He allowed me to kick my own butt,” she says. “I figured that if I deserved such an opportunity, I had a duty to seize it.”

It helped that most of the songs were already written, almost fully formed, pretty much in a single session. “I always write alone in my room with my guitar and spend a few hours telling myself that it’s not good, and finally, after a bit of work, I like it,” she says with a giggle. “I just let the song be. It preserves a de-constructed aspect that is a good representation of who I am.”

The influence of the sixties can be felt throughout the album. Even before hearing a single note, the cover art takes us back. Rachel’s influences stem from that era, but also from the heart of the ’90s, with a hint of garage rock, on top of which sits her melancholy – yet not quite sad — voice. “I often cite Karo as an influence, and it’s true. And Stereolab, too. British music from 30 years ago speaks to me,” Leblanc. “We spent a lot of time talking about and listening to her influences,” Ethier remembers. “I wanted to capture that ‘yé-yé’ side, and her desire to anchor herself in the newer British psychedelic movement at the same time.”

There’s a running gag in Rachel’s entourage that she only listens to albums released in 1968. “I know, it’s super-specific,” jokes Ethier. But what if that bygone era still has things to teach us? Maybe everything does deserve a second life, in which case, Vanille fits the bill.

“My second album is going to be totally immersed in the hippie/Mother Nature philosophy,” says Leblanc. “The pandemic had a negative effect on my morale, and I want to express all the many ways I managed to escape, thanks to the forest.”