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By Mike Bell - Calgary Sun, Canoe.ca
Many people consider it a shameful chapter in our country's history.
For well over a decade, the Canadian music industry refused to acknowledge and accept that the hip hop scene is a healthy one.
The labels refused to sign acts, radio refused to play the music, and the media refused to give any publicity.
If you were an outsider looking in, you'd think Canada's only contribution to hip hop culture was Let Your Backbone Slide.
"Which was a great song,by the way," says Mad Child, one of the MCs from West Coast hip hop act Swollen Members.
"But anyways, let's try and look at the good things. We're caught up and everybody's accepted it, and let's just be happy that we've gotten there."
Swollen Members is one of the acts at the forefront of hip hop's healthy upswing on the homefront. The group's 1999 release Balance, which was released on Mad Child's own Battleaxe Records, took home the Juno award last year for best rap recording.
"It's pretty overwhelming the way our own country has embraced us," says Mad Child. "We're really fortunate."
Ironically, to hone his skills, Mad Child was forced to leave Vancouver for San Francisco where he subjected himself to poverty -- he was homeless and slept on pizza boxes for a spell -- while immersing himself in the Bay area scene.
"At that particular time, it was a different story," he says. "I did leave for the reason of going where the culture was more experienced at the time -- 1993-'94.
"Since then, I fully believe and stand behind that Canada is fully caught up."
Enough so that, upon returning home for a vacation, he hooked up with fellow Vancouver MC Prevail, thus laying the foundation for Swollen Members.
The group's latest release, Bad Dreams, has kept the act climbing and even earned them a deal with Nettwerk Records, as well as an opening spot on the current tour of last year's big Juno winner, Nelly Furtado, which stops at the new MacEwan Hall tomorrow night and Sunday.
For Mad Child, the fact it's doing so well at home -- not to mention internationally -- is extremely gratifying because that success has come without compromise.
"It's pretty exciting because we definitely made this album with the same underground mentality that we made the last one."
February 01, 2002 [Canoe.ca]