Hey people all everywhere, did you know that you can buy my albums digitally from Zunior.com in 192kbps, DRM-free MP3 format or FLAC lossless format? Maybe you didn’t know that! It’s possible a lot of people don’t.

You even get PDFs of the cover art so you can read along with all the lyrics and everything, and each album is only $8.88. Why do I mention this right now? Because they were just kind enough to add Verba Volant to their store this morning! So if you don’t give a crap about holding a physical copy in your hand (or don’t mind burning and printing your own), this is the solution for you!

CDbaby (and therefore iTunes) doesn’t have the album yet, so far Zunior is the only way to purchase it online. It is also heck of cheap this way. I am just letting you know about the facts!

Here is the other thing: Zunior has a place for customers uh listeners uh just anyone to write reviews of the albums on their sites. If you are a devoted friend of the Jesse Dangerously organization or you have any sort of opinion at all (it could even be negative if you have no feelings!) about any or all of my songs… I sure would feel special if you would go to that site and post up your take on what I do! I think there are separate review sections for each album, so if you thought different things about different ones you could even write in each relevant one. If it’s just about me in general, maybe go for the newest one?

Pretend you write for a respectable alt-weekly and use every cultural touchstone at your disposal… I feel like if you compare me to other artists, then people who like those artists will find me through internet searches and fall in love. Don’t you think it’s possible? Almost?

So that’s what’s up. I will certainly be extra-friendly to the kind souls who undertake to help me out this way. There could perhaps be a really big hi-five coming your way! I CAN’T SAY FOR SURE!

thanks,
rljd

ps oh right here are the links:
Buy Verba Volant?Review Verba Volant!
Review Inter Alia!
Review Eastern Canadian World Tour 2002!

Jesse Dangerously
Verba Volant
By Thomas Quinlan

Just like his last album, Jesse Dangerously collaborates with two Backburner producers, in this case crew coordinator Fresh Kils and Toolshed member Timbuktu, for what is certainly Jesse’s best work to date. Kils and Timbuk create a unified beatscape of up-tempo productions perfect for political party raps and posse cuts, and for Jesse’s rapid-fire delivery. He sounds clearer on Verba Volant but in case his speed and slight lisp interfere with the understanding of his lyrics, he kindly includes them in the CD booklet. They’re certainly worth a look, as Jesse is a very technical writer whether he has something important to say or he’s just reinforcing his status as “your least favourite rapper’s least favourite rapper.” While all three posse cuts — “Verba Volant,” “Butchershop Quartet” and “Safe No More” — mix a different variety of Backburner MCs over banging beats for some of the best songs on the album, it’s opening song “Aw Shucks” that’s the highlight. The fun Fresh Kils beat might be dope but it’s Jesse D’s slow, melodic flow and switching of the rhymes to the beginning of each line that has it standing out from the rest. Also worth checking out: “Celebrity Nudes (Timskin Moon Mix),” a groovy party jam with a superhero call-out chorus; “So! Much! Fun! (Unh!),” a smooth, sun-baked ode to love; and “Naming Names,” a fast-moving, name-dropping concept song. If you’re a fan of lyrical MCs and have yet to discover tongue-twisting rapper Jesse Dangerously, now is definitely a good time to start, and Verba Volant is the perfect place. (Backburner)

original here

Listen to Aww Shucks, So! Much! Fun! (Unh!), Naming Names and Safe No More here!

Listen to Verba Volant (You Listen Too Slow) here!

I remember the summer leading up to grade 7 for a few reasons. I got my ear pierced and almost learned to skateboard. Cypress Hill and Naughty By Nature were rearranging my understanding of rap music, but also there was… commercials for Disney’s Darkwing Duck cartoon, set to start airing in the fall.

The commercials featured clips from a dance/rap video and I figured the show was going to have a hip-hop theme or something. I don’t know, I was eleven, but I was excited by anything to do with RAP. I was, I must admit, pretty dismayed when the show turned out to have a theme that was exactly like all the other half hour Disney cartoons - sort of dancey, dorky pop - but I only just this minute discovered that the full-length version of the original promotional rap video was included on VHS collections of episodes. Eleven-year-old JD would have flipped to know that!

I’ve just now checked for it on YouTube after all this time, and the thing that strikes me the most is not that it’s corny or terrible because like… no kidding… but what I never realized in all these years is that the rapper sounds EXACTLY like New Brunswick expatriate Brockway Biggs (p/k/a Pimp Tea). Despite my many criticisms of the guy, this is not meant as a dig - I kinda still love the DW rap. I just can’t believe how much the performer’s voice and inflection resembles Biggs’! Compare for yourself:

YouTube Direktvideo link

YouTube Direktvideo link

Yo anyone in the following cities - please come through and peep the realness that is me and AA Wallace on a tiny tour this week. It goes like this:

July 25 - WATERLOO - Trepid House (130 King St N) 8:30pm

July 26 - TORONTO - Teranga African Restaurant

July 28 - HAMILTON - Casbah Lounge

July 29 - LONDON - Alex P Keaton

July 30 - BAYFIELD - The Black Dog Pub

July 31 - PETERBOROUGH - Spill Cafe

AA just put out his solo rap EP, Death. You can check some of it out on NewMusicCanada. Go for it!

Here is some of his realness:

YouTube Direktvideo link

Here is some realness of me being a little too real in Portland, ME last month.
The excessive realness is due to me trying to change keys mid-croon.
I got you stuck off the realness…

YouTube Direktvideo link

Basically posting youtube videos on my blog is what I am doing with the rest of my life. You?

YouTube Direktvideo link

MTV Live is MTV Canada’s version of MTV’s Total Request Live or MuchMusic’s Much On Demand. The other day, they featured a segment on Nerdcore rap, and thanks to a little prodding from Audra, their producer asked me to write and perform a rap to introduce and provide some history for that scene. If I’d been able to stick around for the actual show I would have got to meet YTCracker and Nursehella who were being interviewed for the spot along with Dan Lamoureux. But I didn’t, instead going on a whirlwind road trip to and from Toronto in one day with Audra’s ex-roomie Jason who was great to chill with.

Anyway, they edited those lines down from the full (a capella) performance of the lyrics below:

Hip-hop… started off in the parks of the bronx
and when it blew up, it sparked a response
A renaissance of sorts, and not just in New York
But all across the world and the geeks and dorks
Were no exception. Rap tapes would drop, we’d go and get them
An eager audience for things that no-one said then
I thought my 2 Live Crew tape could really get me put in jail
For a sheltered kid, the lawless allure couldn’t fail
But more than that, nerds they loved the wordplay and deep crates
We’d play one another mixtapes on sleepdates
And when you cool kids were out where ever you’d hang out
We were holed up at home reading the Wu-Tang shouts
Liner notes became the new comic books for certain children
Studious indoor kids would put in work on building
Skills and as rap’s influence spread
There was nothing kids like me were really into instead
RAOW RAOW, we played dungeons and dragons
And old computer games down in someone’s basement
But some kids would never be content to just listen
So what could have been a small-time thing became a mission
Around the time the internet stopped being just for smart cats
When half of it was animated GIFs of dudes in hardhats
A teenage, Nova Scotian lard-ass named Jesse D clocked
Close to ten thousand visits to his MP3 dot
Com page, while down across the way in middle America
A speech synth was being used to add a little character
To Stephen Hawking’s resume by an amateur science buff but they didn’t
Know about the guy that was shy enough to stay hidden
Down on the west coast, a web designer
Was winning every battle of whose head was shinier
And whose frames were thicker. He says he’s humble not
A bit… he boasts the name of MC Frontalot
Nerdcore used to be just a made up word and now it’s
still just a made up word but one you’ve heard because
Frontalot’s fans were so enamoured of his clamour
That even with his stammer he attained a certain glamour
After languishing in anguish and spending many dark days
Obscure, he got praised in a comic called Penny Arcade
And before you could rattle off a routine in COBOL
Frontalot’s profile started to snowball
To seize the moment’s momentous monentum, he had to hawk a memento
To not go down as a joke you’d hear on Dr Demento
So he rocked instrumentals and manufactured a physical disc
Far more Star Wars than hardcore, but scored a critical hit
With no saving throw to help preserve your vital stats
But everything changed once someone else had heard the title track
“Nerdcore Rising” was the name of the record
And that’s were Front and Hawk and Jesse D all came together
To proclaim in clever assonant couplets to a passionate public
That Nerdcore ought to be an international subject
Of interest and amazement…
and soon enough the internet was blazing
With not just imitators, but overlooked contemporaries
Who also were innovators and had their own emissaries
The efforts of others soon came to our attention
But I’m running out of time and there’s too many names to mention
Any frame of reference would have to include YTCracker
And mc chris, but somehow it all went dumber than hyphy rappers
A new generation grabbed the banner and ran with it
Some were dope but they got drowned out by spammers in the bandwidth
Damn kids, get off of the lawn of the house you never built
Or better still, smarten up and work on higher level skills
I worry that the current crop won’t find their potential
when the beats are dime-a-dozen and the rhymes are torrential

YouTube Direktvideo link

In 2002, I made the original Righteous Bad-Ass as part of what was supposed to be an EP called Get Fresh Shall Be The Whole Of The Law where I finally stopped only rapping about my wussy feelings and concentrated on what I really love about hip-hop - proving you’re a total genius and showing off unheard-of prowess. Instead of that EP ever coming out, I shunted the tracks slated for it to the hastily arranged “album” Eastern Canadian World Tour 2002 which was in fact just a desperate bid to have something to sell when I went on tour with Backburner for the first time that summer.

A few years later, Fester undertook to remix one of my previously released tracks as part of our Inter Alia album. He settled on Righteous Bad-Ass and in alarmingly short order, created a new beat using top secret Canadian jazz records and his prized recent find - a 7″ of Synthetic Substitution by Melvin Bliss. Those drums may be technically considered played-out, but there’s no denying their undying sweetness so a remix is the perfect opportunity to throw ‘em down on people and not have to justify their use to anyone.

Aside… remember back when a hip-hop remix was the same vocal recording on a different beat? Now ever since Flava In Ya Ear, it means the same beat with a bunch of hot guests. Bad Boy didn’t invent the remix, they ruined it.

But yeah so the Fancy’s 45s Mix of Righteous Bad-Ass has turned out to be one of the more lauded tracks on Inter Alia, due I’m certain in no small part to the fly and classic beat. The title of the remix was created by me kinda behind Fester’s back - somehow we got to calling him “Uncle Fancy” (I think it has something to do with his inimitable and often jarringly spontaneous dance moves) and there was a legendary show on CBC Radio called Finkelman’s 45s (I wanted to find a link to more info for you but I can’t!) so since Fes is employed by CBC Radio in Halifax and used a notable 45 to produce the track… really the remix named itself. I am but a vessel.

The two kids whose voices you hear at the end are Audra’s little then-preteen cousin Ava and her best friend, Sam. The girls were visiting Halifax in the summer of 2005 and we took them with us to CKDU 88.1fm, the college station where I used to host The Pavement Show, and helped them host an hour-long fill-in. They were awesome and hilarious on the air, and helpfully repeated the URL of my website to every person they encountered in the city. Obviously since they were on my album they are now superstars and the TV movie about their lives will be out soon.

The album dropped officially in November of 2005. In late 2006, we here at Dangerously Inc finally got our act in gear enough to beg talented local filmmaker LEGEND Heather Harkins to apply with us for a VideoFACT grant from Much Music. You might not know about VideoFACT if you’re reading this in the USA or even further afield, but it’s a foundation that Much Music/MuchMoreMusic/MusiquePlus contribute to in order to foster the creation of Canadian content for their (steadily dwindling) music video programming. It is kind of like magic candy for Canadian indie artists who would otherwise never have videos at all if no-one invented YouTube.

We had a brainstorming session a few nights before the application deadline and couldn’t think of anything fresh until Audra looked up from her knitting and suggested a “hip-hop Ice Capades“. We got all excited and started imagining a saturated, day-lit 8mm film shot on a frozen pond in Dartmouth, with all kinds of my rap friends trying their damnedest to remain upright on skates while I rapped. We asked for a tiny amount of money for film, processing and Heather’s time… and we got it. We were ready to roll as soon as the ponds froze.

As soon as the ponds froze.

Our plan was to shoot in January. Our completed video had to be turned into VideoFACT by March 3rd, all closed-captioned and colour corrected on Beta tape and everything. You know what never happened in January? NOTHING FROZE. Al Gore sabotaged my video shoot with his wretched global warming. We had to regroup and revamp our strategy - no cute frozen pond with trees and natural light and squirrels. We were going to have to rent ice time at a rink, shoot under fluorescent lights and just pray that the colour didn’t come out too insanely unnatural.

It turns out that ice time is difficult to rent on short notice. It turns out that rappers are difficult to corral into a skating rink at 10:00 on a Monday morning. It turns out that despite those things, my people are the dopest people and the shoot happened. NSCADU students/budding art legends Kate Walchuk (Happy Birthday! She just turned 19 yesterday) and Wes “Buzz” Johnston designed and built our few but gorgeous props (except the boom box, which I found at a Cash Converters for $11 in 2003 and never looked back) in the midst of their gruelling art school workload, and also came through to dance all cute on the ice. This is basically the cutest rap video I know of.

Kate’s “J E S S E” letters are staying in my possession forever… I have a plan for making them into a future t-shirt. Sadly, the Chuck-faced “volleyball” (actually a rubber ball with cardboard glued to it) was shattered when I threw it during the take of the Castaway line that we used, which is why you see me double over laughing immediately after.

My favourite thing about the video, once we assembled the footage (the whole thing was made using only seven minutes of raw footage… one single reel of 8mm film. That’s economy!), is the cameos. Especially in the larger group shots, if you watch again and again you’ll discover something new and amusing in the background - whether it’s Spesh K looking disappointed, Dexter Doolittle almost dancing, Kate & Buzz spinning in circles, Tomomi Endo (designer of the cover of Origami!) skating like a toddler, Unleavened and her friend actually knowing how to skate, Tacktishion and Darla Kitty having a dance-off, Uncle Fester making a face like he’s fed up with me (I know that face), Wordburglar skating backwards with eerie shoulder motions or just mere proof that Rez Villain exists… nearly every shot is hilarious to me for some reason.

The version on YouTube looks a little dim - that’s because it’s not taken from the final, colour-corrected version of the video. When the nice version is viewed, the colours are a lot richer and the whole thing (due to its 8mm provenance) looks like archival footage of Canadiana you’d have seen on CBC in the wee hours of the morning when I was growing up. The nice version is in the rough, yet capable, hands of Much Music here in Canada, so if you feel at all inclined to do ol’ Jesse D a favour, you might consider requesting that they play it! Try repeating your request about a thousand times a day, for improved results. You can e-mail them or take an even greater chance and try requesting it from MuchMoreMusic instead.

I’d love it if it got played, but I know it’s not a flashy video that really fits in with modern programming. I’m just happy it exists, and grateful to everyone who helped to make it happen.

Here’s a really convenient way to buy MP3’s of my tracks!

As you can no doubt imagine, I get caught up in a lot of arguments about various things in the world and on the web. Often these points of contention are considered trivial by people who don’t concern themselves thusly, and I find that I’m asked as often by people who wish I would stop for the sake of my own lifestyle and prosperity as by people who wish I would just shut up and leave them to go ahead and live blithely the essential question, “Why bother?”

And look, this is the part where in the cartoon I would say something that reveals that the issues I’m so passionate about are things like whether Greedo ever had a chance to fire a shot at Han Solo or the new Transformers movie is likely to do anything but trample the fond memories of my generation… but this isn’t a hackneyed webcomic, and those are the sorts of arguments that nobody minds me getting caught up in. People are plenty ready to fight about Star Wars, but challenging assumptions about what constitutes racism, sexism, homophobia or other antisocial behaviour is the kind of thing that invites a few bursts of defensive vitriol and then endless cajoling to just let it drop, stop wasting everyone’s time, quit being so sensitive.

So in the face of that, why bother? And when I try to answer, often the best I can muster is, “Because I think this stuff is really important to address.” which satisfies no-one. But this morning I read Kurt Vonnegut’s response to the same question, from when he asked it of himself in the introduction to his last novel, Timequake. He asked himself why he should bother to continue to write, and his subsequent answer to himself doesn’t only explain why I get so much out of reading his work, but provides me with words to explain why I occupy myself with such seemingly sisyphean projects as I do. It goes like this:

“Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.’”

That’s exactly why I grab seemingly petty political arguments by the throat and won’t let them drop. It’s not about felling giants or it being so all-important to shake privileged cranks out of their ivory towers. It’s about providing a demonstration of certain arguments and attitudes, which are all too easy to hide under a bushel when the terrain gets rocky. As that mixed metaphor may indicate, I don’t do a perfect job. I get into fights which are too personal for no defensible reason and sometimes I comport myself unbecomingly. But what I’m trying to do is what’s crystallized in that quote above, and when people send me e-mails or private messages to let me know that I’m not entirely failing in that goal… I feel like a good thing.

Your reward for sitting through that sermon is a link to a video Audra took last night of my at-long-last reunion with Johnny Hardcore at The Ship Pub in St John’s.

Outfox’d (When Pacifists Attack) live!

I got a letter from the government the other day
I opened and read it, it made me an offer
They wanted me to have some money in the bank
Picture me turning it down? I said, “Thanks!”

Nova Scotia’s Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage has elected to kick in a chunk to help me deliver Verba Volant and The So-Called Solo Album to more fans. Or rather, to deliver more fans to those albums. It’s exciting. I hope you’re exited. I’m excited.

As I tour with the new record this summer, think of me as an ambassador for Nova Scotia. Also, grant me diplomatic immunity so I can do whatever I want and laugh. That’s all I ask.

If you have been to a Halifax hip-hop event in the last three years, the odds are favourable to your having seen Christina Stefanski dancing there. Even when the event is relatively low on estrogen, she’s a mainstay – I remember she once announced that if hip-hop was a sausage party, she must be the mustard. I would advise against trying to interpret that too carefully, I’m pretty sure she just meant an indispensable component.

She’s a very familiar sight, off-stage, all compact and voluptuous and dressed to emphasize and dancing so vigorously only a few have the courage to stand nearby. Having made a mark that way in no uncertain terms, it’s not surprising that she make the transition to an on-stage presence. The enthusiastic but silent and anonymous dancing chick becomes Kool Krys when she holds the microphone (“Krys” is pronounced to rhyme with “quiche”, it’s an abbreviation of her real name, Krysia, which she anglicizes to Christina so as to not have to constantly spell and explain it), and that transformation is significant.

Halifax has had only a very few female rappers in its history, and although a fair number of them have been talented and interesting, none of them have been prolific performers or gained much prominence. I’ve never seen an album from a female rapper who hailed from east of Montreal. We have more visible female DJ’s, but even they get patronized and reduced, and even they don’t have an opportunity to speak their own, unmediated language.

When I ask her what her goals are, Krys’ words unconsciously echo those of – I’m serious – Jackie Robinson’s and Shirley Chisholm’s. She says it’s not that she thinks the most important thing was for her own album to come out, but she wanted to provide an example to other female hip-hop heads in Halifax – or anywhere! – that women can be more than passive fans or eye candy. She says women have value that isn’t just aesthetic, and she hopes that by putting out an album that competes with the dudes, she can challenge the boundaries women set for themselves, as well as the assumptions that male hip-hop fans may make about what women can or are likely to do in hip-hop.

I had an argument with her a couple years ago about feminism. By my definition, her attitude is feminist. By hers, it isn’t. Semantic disagreement aside, we both agree that it’s healthy, progressive and smart. She’s aware of the danger of being pigeonholed as a political or activist rapper, so her goal is to make rap that’s overtly catchy and fun, a spoonful of sugar to all but conceal the pill containing meaningful messages.

I will give you two reasons to make certain you attend her album release show at Rogue’s Roost this Saturday, May 12th. One is to support this endeavour and all it signifies, not just for abstract political purposes but to reap immediate personal gains – Krys’ album is damn good and the sooner you grab a copy, the sooner you benefit from that. The second reason is that it may be quite some time before you get a subsequent opportunity to see her perform in Halifax, for just as she completes this transition, she also completes her schooling at King’s College and shall be continuing her education (and rap career) in Ottawa henceforth.

Not only that, but she’s spiriting away half of the rhyming and beatmaking contingent of Alpha Flight as well! Jared “Bix” Devine will also seek to further his education in Ottawa, him in the field of interactive multimedia while Krys expands her credentials in journalism. They express their laments and excitement in nearly identical terms – both have friends so close in Nova Scotia that they feel like family, both are looking forward to the opportunities that more populous areas can provide, both intend to continue working with their Halifax homies and Krys goes so far as to say that she wants to develop a network between the scenes in Halifax and Ottawa, to foster crosstalk and open the respective indie rap markets to trade.

So what we have here is two hip-hop artists hitting their stride at different points in their careers – Bix is an established performer but has been quiet and low-key in his public persona. Krys is just now building her foundation as an artist but has always been a gregarious and unmistakable presence. Both see opportunities to grow, both have a lot to offer as ambassadors and emissaries, neither will soon forget the city of Halifax. I think it’s wonderful when talent fostered in Nova Scotia hits the road and spreads the word – why hide your light under a bushel? I hope more locals take their example to heart – not just so more women might try rapping, not just so more beat makers will aspire to Bix’s calibre of excellence, but so more artists will recognize that there is a huge world outside of Halifax that is eager to benefit from our disproportionate store of talent. We can take this show on the road.

Also – someone’s going to have to fill the gaps back home. I’m excited to find out who that will be!