Cadence Weapon Aims At Dancefloor
Source: By Joshua Ostroff
Posted: 04/23/08 4:27PM
Filed Under: Music
For all of modern rap’s ringtone-friendly “club bangers,” hip-hop’s beats-per-minute ratio has always trailed way behind that of dance music. But lately the two genres have been hanging out and hooking up—think Kanye West and Daft Punk’s “Stronger”—and one of their offspring is Cadence Weapon’s aptly-named Afterparty Babies.
“It’s a natural thing. Music moves in cycles and hip-hop was originally more dance-oriented. It was like you’re having a party so let’s put this disco record on and rap over it, y’know?” he says. “Socially-conscious lyrics with a party beat is not a new thing. But I think it’s about time it comes back into the mainstream. I’m not surprised a lot of people are doing it right now."
Born Rollie Pemberton in Edmonton, Alberta, Cadence Weapon emerged onto the rap scene in late 2005 with his groundbreaking, electro-influenced debut Breaking Kayfabe which made him a critic’s darling.
“Before I came out, there was a hive mind feeling about the hip-hop scene in Canada—everything was sounding the same. People were just excited about something different. I feel like a lot of people wanted to rally behind me.
“Maybe it’s because I have a winning smile.”
While touring his breakthrough and building a cult following in the U.S. and the U.K., he started learning about dance culture. Having been too young to enjoy the pre-millennial rave scene, it took a while for him to realize the scene was more than cheesy clubs.
During his home sojourns he would DJ parties, inspired by his friend Nik Kozub of dance-rock outfit Shout Out Out Out Out as well as his late father Teddy Pemberton, a pioneering radio DJ.
“It’s mainly a lot of pubs. I do a lot of dance parties when I’m in town. But in Edmonton there are not a lot of places to do these parties so we do them in weird places. Like I threw a party at a steak house and I recently did one in my friend’s old art loft space.”
He moved out on his own, got really into the club scene and wanted to make music that could be beat-matched into a DJ mix.
“The emotional range you can apply to dance music is totally different from what you can apply to hip hop format,” he adds. “I like experimenting with different styles of music.”
He had tried combining “the hip-hop ethos and the house music format” before—on the still-unreleased live show favourite “Everyone Is Trying To Sell Me Something”—but Afterparty Babies was a more cohesive effort.
“I didn’t make a conscious decision to make it like that. It was just that the beats I kept making were four-on-the-floor pounding house beats. So when it came all together, it seemed to have a uniform electronic sound. It’s the same as with the first record where everything felt more claustrophobic based on the way I was feeling.”
Cadence looks on this album as “a time capsule of my coming of age” which captures his newfound late-night lifestyle as well as the challenges of dealing with the music industry and “just getting older and meeting more people and experiencing the nature of rumours and how things work in the real world.”
The result is a lyrically dark and occasionally defensive album that slags poseurs and lashes out at “people talking sh-t about me.”
“The [lyrics] were about disappointing experiences and some people might consider the lyrics more jaded,” he says. “I don’t want to sound like I completely hate my life or something—obviously I know I’m in a really good position and lucky to be where I am, but it’s never going to be all good.”
That said, it’s not a downer album by any means. The beats keep it moving, the inventiveness of the music is often inspiring, the personal lyrics continue to impress and it all ties into the album’s positive rallying cry: “keep making mistakes!”
Of course, he included himself in that statement, only to discover “after the album came out my mom told me I wasn’t an accident—I was planned—but I was conceived at an after party.” But his point was really about enjoying youth while you’re still young, to take the opportunity to experiment and try new things, without worrying if they’ll pan out or not.
“This is our time to f--k up and have it be socially acceptable because you can’t f--k up forever.”
Cadence Weapon tour with Buck 65 hits Hamilton, April 23; Toronto, April 25; London April 26; Regina, April 30; Saskatoon, May 2; Golden, May 5; Victoria, May 8; Tofino, May 10
0 %
0 %
