As I grow increasingly disillusioned with the state of hip-hop music, I find myself ever more willing to sample new musical flavours.
By Christian Pearce
Recently, I opened my ears and mind to the exploding rock-rap genre, mixed together in this case by Ontario's own Project Wyze. PW's eleven-course serving: Misfits.Strangers.Liars.Friends -- its first LP on a major label.
How did my aural taste buds react? I'll tell you this much, fatboy: PW's sound is as sweet as the first sip from a Slush Puppie and just as cool. Since savouring Misfits... for the first time early last summer, I've been pulling PW's CD out of my shrinking pile of regulars on, well, a regular basis.
From hip-hop heavy tracks such as 'Jakobz Ladder,' to the Wyze guys' version of the 'Girl is Mine,' and 'Erica,' to the more rocky 'You Can't Deny,' Project Wyze's sound on Misfits... reflects the diversity of the group's influences, which include everything from Black Sabbath to Swollen Members.
I chat with Yas, one of PW's two MCs (the other is Bobby), who is in our nation's capital the day after performing in a show with Blink 182 at Ottawa's Civic Centre. It's also the day before the release of Misfits. Strangers.Liars.Friends, and Projectin' Wyzdom are admittedly anxious.
Like an artist who has yet to garner the recognition that's become his due, Yas is surprised when I let him know that I've heard Misfits... a few times and am impressed.
"Seriously, you like it, man? Man, that means a lot to me. That's wicked! We're all pretty happy with it. We got to take the time to do the things we really wanted to do with it... and not [fall]
in the path of anybody else. Everybody
can feed off it -- whether you look for the rock, punk, hip hop, metal."
PW has been cooking since a bold experiment six years ago became the blueprint for the group's sound.
"It all started around '94, '95 I got into punk music a lot... One day [my buddy Ty and his punk band] were doing a show and he's like, 'dude, why don't you come up -- you and Bobby -- come up on stage and just rock a freestyle with us. Kids here like Beastie Boys; they like rap.' So we went up on stage with this punk band at a punk show -- y'know, [goth] kids and mohawks, things we never experienced before -- and we just kicked freestyles over beats, and the place went bananas!"
Since then PW have released two successful indie albums while touring like De France, including an insane stretch of 57 shows in 65 days. According to Yas, PW are more than just another by-product of rock-rap's present popularity: "We've paid dues because we're not manufactured -- we weren't brought up by a studio. We weren't given a style or a sound. Me and my partner Bobby been rhyming since 1988; doing shows with bands like Public Enemy in a small town called Sudbury. We've been doing this style of music for the past five, six years now. Before it had a name -- before it was called 'new metal' or 'rap core,' or whatever you want to call it -- for us it was two poets and a punk band... Before there was Korns and Limp Bizkits and Kid Rocks out there, there was us."
Asked about the meaning of the title of PW's album, Yas says: "That's basically a representation of everybody we know -- including ourselves... It's basically just people we've had a chance to encounter, work with, and become friends with. It's about everything. There's something for everybody."
Still not convinced PW's album is for you? Take Fuel's Misfits.Strangers.Liars.Friends test to be sure Misfits...
is up your alley:
The results so far
