Classified

0:36I love that class Luke. Thanks so much for doing this. Appreciate it. I'll be right back to see you. The new record drops today. Today. Tell people what they're going to hear. They haven't heard yet. This is what I've been working on the last seven, eight months. If anybody who knows my music and knows what I'm about, knows where I come from and what I talk about. But it's kind of me where I'm at now. I think I kind of stepped it up production life. I'm a father. I'm an MC. I'm a hockey player. I'm a Prag Canadian. I'm a weed smoker. I'm a movie fanatic. I hear all the regular do things and I've heard all these things on the record. It is. I try to put it all out there, the music. So yeah, it's kind of just where I'm at now. I think I'm trying to become more of a song. I think that's the difference from this album, The Last One. Before it was always the beats, the raps. Now I'm really trying to just mix them all together and make it more about the song and

1:22not so separated from rap time, beat time. You know what I mean? And how do you do that? How do you accomplish that? Just more musical I think is one thing. Like playing music? Totally. It starts on the drum machine for me still nowadays and usually it's sample. But then I've been bringing a lot more small orchestras and horn players, food players and stuff like that. And just trying to build more of a musical foundation. So it's not like every, you know, it's not a three minute loop of a beat. It's every four bar or something, switches and comes in and out. Just that aspect of it. My production I've been building on for years, working with more folk artists and stuff like that and just outside of the hip hop world. So just doing that to kind of open my eyes to just new ways to create something. Well last time we talked on the red carpet, I think it was much or June it doesn't really matter which one. But we were talking about David Miles and being on in Ninja. And I'm wondering for a song like that, does he come in, do you have him come in like an

2:10MC where they just they say whatever they want to say or do you have a hook written and ask him to say? No, no, that one was David Miles, me and him set in the studio for like five, six hours. And he was on the last album. So I knew I wanted to have him on this. And he always little guitar riffs or little one line or things that he's like, ah, this is kind of cool or something that couldn't finish you like this. And we have one thing that I was working with. And at the end of the day it was, you know, we were wrapping up. He's like, oh, I got this other one. And then they started singing the first line. I was like, it just caught me off guard. It sounded like nothing else we were working on for the rest of the day. So I was like, that's the one he left. I kind of just hit his four bars record and his guitar. And then I wrote my verses built on the beat and kind of built it all up and everything. And he came back and we spent about three days arranging it, getting the kids on it, bringing in some other who else played out. We had another guitar player and play on it too and just kind of working on the track.

2:56So that one was totally a collaboration. If not, David Miles even more than me. Because he's the one that started the guitar and kind of started the spark of inspiration to get it going. There's a lot of live instruments on this record. Going through the booklet from things we used to call CDs. I don't know what those are anymore. But there used to be a booklet where you could find out where people play stuff. That was the good thing. I know when I'm on a CD it was you pop it in, you read that book and you learn everything about the album in the next 20 minutes. So yeah, no, I had a lot of, like I said, violin players. One song where I just put a beat and a guitar up on the internet and had fans just play anything they wanted to. It's called Wicked. Oh yeah, okay. But basically it was a drum and a guitar I put on the internet and said I don't care what your play, send me something. How much time back it? How much you have to assist? Hundreds. Hundreds. And 90% of it was rap versus rapping which I was looking for.

3:43I was looking for instrumental and singing and stuff like that. But yeah, I used probably about 20 different people's things. There was a guy who played hand drums, a guy who played acoustic, a girl who sang. A lot of different stuff and it was cool because it was basically digging through samples but everything was played to the beat I'm working on. So it was easy to pitch everything, line it up and stuff like that. But I thought it was a cool way to do something. What did you do again? That sounds like almost the music of the future. Definitely. Totally, yeah. Because you're just even from a fan perspective. I know if like snoop or something and say, hey, you want to get on my album and put it in something. I'll be like, oh, this is great. You need to be a part of an artist that you're a fan of. So it was a cool thing to do. And for me it was one of the easiest songs on the album to do because everyone else did all the work. And I was like, oh, this is the song of being a fan. Big Wu Tang for you as a kid. Yeah, yeah. Ray Puan on the street. He was like, oh, I saw that when he was featured. He was like, oh, that must be for you.

4:29Well, I met him at King of the Dot last year and him and his manager were there and they're like, yeah, we heard your music, big up and what you're doing. It's like, oh shit, okay. So when I started working on this we reached out and they were all about it. That's cool, man. Did he come by your studio? Did he have to keep you on the album? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He did the New York. So yeah, yeah, it was all over the phone. So I was like, oh, this is the song that I'm doing. Okay, cool. Here's the beat. You like that one? Cool. I send the verse and I kind of finish the song. Can I have a put a verse on it from D12 and wrap it up? Cretia's on that one too, right? Yeah, yeah. Just a little part. Just like, that's basically what she used. But that's kind of how I made a lot of these songs was like Cretia sang a bunch of stuff. I had Divine Brancin on a couple beats. And like I said, a lot of musicians and stuff. So I'd just throw a million things on a song and then just start stripping everything away and be like, I like this little piece and use that here and there. So it's cool.

5:14How long have you been playing? I've been playing piano all your life. No, I don't really technically play piano. You're all over the record. Cretia is a key. I play, but if you play the song and say, hey, play this, I'd be lost. I have no idea what I'm doing. But yeah, it's more. You find a note to look for it. I sit down and when I find some keys that work right and it's like, oh, there it is. But I'm sure a trained piano guy can sit down in five minutes and do what takes me two hours. But I can get what I'm looking for. So it starts with the drum machine, then you add maybe a little keys to it. And then write lyrics? Usually, yeah. But a lot of the lyrics too will come from being O driving and getting gross, you see something, you get an idea, write down your phone. So you write it down in your phone? Write down the little ideas. Yeah, you just little one-liners or something. And then you go back, make the music, maybe the musical spark an idea for a song or maybe it's just, I love this beat. What can I write about going the phone for ideas and kind of go, oh, yeah, I have this

6:01idea. So it's usually a lot of back and forth. Sometimes it'll start with a rhyme, but usually it starts with the beat and then kind of bounce it back. Or the beat and spire theme that you want to talk about? Oh, okay. So I think the beat, the music, the melody is usually what sparks the vibe of like, is this a laid back track? Is this something more upbeat, energetic, positive feeling? So usually, yeah, the soundscape of the beat kind of dictates what the vibe's going to be. My favorite beat on the record at least, and no one cares my opinion, but I'm just saying it anyway. I do. Yeah, thank you. Is the Jackson 5-esque one? Because even at the drum run-ups they do all the stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that whole stuff. Like when I made that beat, we had the piano, the dint dint dint dint dint dint. I was like, this just sounds like old Motan. And I rhyme about like Motan, Jackson 5- And that's just reminds me of this old classic 70s, but still feel good, upbeat, you know what I mean? You can jam through this, but still trying to say something.

6:46As being a father changed the way you think about themes to talk about, are you more selective in your words knowing that you're doing it? Not so much that I had kids, I'm not going to say the F word anymore, type thing, but just my values in life. Just even seeing people, you know what I mean? Like, you know, a girl at a show that might be acting like a nutcase, you usually be like, get the fuck out of here. But then you think, man, that's somebody's daughter. You know what I mean? Like that, it kind of opens your eyes and goes, just makes you treat people a little different sometimes. It's on with the live show, what are we getting, winning? I know you got a secret show tonight. A secret show tonight, then we're coming back in March and April, it was a big tourist. They were doing a cross-cannon. Like 40 dates right across. 40 dates. Like we had two dates at the Opera House here in Toronto. Okay. Last time we played the Opera House was like probably five, six years ago. It was one of my favorite shows. So I went to my management because it's a little bit smaller than what we've been playing,

7:33so I was like, let's do two nights there and do something special. So we're going to bring somebody in special for each one of those nights and make it a little different, but should be good. I was watching The Art of Rap. So you're from Nothing the Icey Documentary? Yeah, I watched it a couple months ago. Okay, so he was talking about in the movie how when he falls off he always looks for the person in the crowd who knows all the words and who will hold the mic out and pretend like nothing's happened. Do you have tricks when you're playing live? If we fall off. I've been playing at Snowboard Festival and go back on Saturday night and I did okay in Canada and I could not remember the last four birds. I don't know why I blanked out, but I was just standing. Y'all feeling good? You know, he's covered up kind of playing off. I don't think anybody else noticed it. My brother knows he's obviously like what the fuck happened. But yeah, you watch The Crad or you just kind of talk to a more freestyle and just hope to God no notices. Has that something you've learned over the course of I guess 15 records?

8:21Yeah, it's just doing shows and stuff. There's always those moments where it's an awkward like what do you do and just after you do you kind of okay I'm just going to do this, cover it up and keep moving. I guess before we end 15 records deep this one is called classified. Yeah. Why? First like it wasn't on purpose. It wasn't like I made this album and said this is going to be my self titled album. I kept trying to come up with names something that I thought described the album and it was nothing for me that described it. I was like you know what I'm not going to just pressure and make an album name because you have to. You know to me it's not about the album name it's about the 13 songs on the album and that's kind of why I just said you know what? You have it self titled and then yeah even more thinking about it. It almost did feel like a refreshing start. We moved to a new label just having my kids and stuff now and talking about my views changed. It kind of almost felt like a refresh or restart kind of here we go again. So we do like a first album called a self titled.

9:07Cool. Five quick questions one more answers. Let's go. Roder studio. Studio. Leninger McCartney. McCartney. Parker Biggie. Biggie. When you hear a song usually it's you first lyrics melody or rhythm. Hip hop or what type of music? Okay well let's go hip hop because this is hip hop record. The lyrics. Song of written you're most proud of. I can't answer that. That's like picking a favorite kid. In one word classified. Luke Boyd. Thank you very much man. Thank you. Appreciate it. Sean L. Tanner the big shot. Thank you guys for having me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's good. What's up? It's a noise from 100 crores. Jake Boyd.