Underground hip hop from all over the world, but especially from Canada. Old school and new school rap like NWA, Public Enemy, Ultramagnetics, LONS, Black Sheep, Ice-T, KRS-One and much more. Independent DIY esthetics. Bicycles and urban fixed gear cycling, as well as bike polo, low riders, and tall-bike jousting. Life.
Download the .pdf of the rest of the EPK, which includes past performances and photos!
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0c9yv0
Toronto's hardest working underground emcee, Red Sonia is a hybrid of many worlds: music, poetry, sport. After her first five years earning stripes on Toronto's underground live hip hop circuit, she started paying her dues as a bicycle messenger and she hasn't slowed down since. Having explored and refined her rapping and singing style for the last ten years, her lyrics are striking – at times funny, prophetic, heartbreaking. She is all things an artist should to be – outspoken, original and honest.
The product of a one-parent family in working-class Scarborough, Red Sonia started performing at a young age. Too shy for an audience, she spent her formative years either freestyling to herself while riding her bicycle, or performing alone for her stuffed animals. Her family had no idea that she was just rehearsing for a life to be spent on stage.
Red Sonia's turbulent teenage years were spent with her nose buried, pen in hand, in her countless journals. Free verse poetry and random written abstractions, along with the odd rap and graffiti-style drawing provided her escape from the six long years spent couch surfing, struggling to graduate high school. Having fallen in love with hip hop in the early '90s, the leap form prose to rap was destined to happen.
She began competing locally in Toronto's slam poetry scene, but rap offered her a fresh way to articulate her experience, and it seemed to catch on with audiences. At first, she just threw down a couple verses in small cyphers outside of clubs, representing for the females that were mostly absent. Then, as word was starting to get out, she she met a local underground hip hop hero of hers who gave her the courage to rap live on the radio, on stage, and wherever was necessary. The rest, as they say, is history.
Under her first performing alias “Sunny D”, she graced the stages of Toronto's Lee's Palace, the CNE Grandstand and the Reverb, and was a featured host at the first-ever ladies night at Toronto's popular In Divine Style hip hop showcase at the Hooch. Since then, she's performed in Pontiac and East Lansing in Michigan, as well as in Buffalo, New York, in Dublin, Ireland, and Sydney, Australia. She's collaborated with Toronto's Masia One, D-Ray from the Rhythmicru, and Sydney, Australia's Mez. She was featured, both performing and cycling, in an episode of the Discovery Channel documentary series called “Tribes of the 21st Century”.
Forever defying the odds, Red Sonia - a severe asthmatic - started competing in messenger races called “alleycats” in 2005. She is the first female to finish in Toronto's alleycats, and she's won trips to compete and perform overseas. 2009 will see her travel to compete and perform in Ottawa for their huge Canada Day alleycat, and to Japan for both their annual Kyoto Loco competition, and the Cycle Messenger World Championship in Tokyo.
Red Sonia is active in both the underground hip hop and bicycle messenger communities, planning events that fuse her love of old school hip hop with her love of cycling. She helps with the Toronto Cyclist's Union, the Toronto Bicycle Messenger's Association, as well as Streets are For People. Most recently, she founded and hosts a monthly talent showcase, called VeloSocial, in Toronto's vibrant and lively Kensington Market. Through her event hosting, she encourages her audience to open up and grab the mic to join the movement.
A strong voice for women's and cyclist's rights, Red Sonia's music combines her street-wise cheekiness with her no-nonsense attitude, creating a unique brand of hip hop that the world finally seems ready for. Her subject matter is varied, frequently going where no one else dares to, and with ten years of practice and experience under her belt, there is no challenge too great, and definitely much more to expect from this unusual and dedicated emcee.
Buy your copy at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sunnyd
Filmed 25AUG07 at the Boat in Kensington Market by Stro1 Multimedia and uploaded 24JAN09. Sunny D performs Alleycat Scramble to DJ Serious' instrumental for X-Ray remix and a first draft of Bicycle Bushi to an instrumental from the Samurai Champloo soundtrack.
Tribes of the 21st Century: The Tribe of Bike Couriers
Part 1: the producers saw that shit on Youtube and forced dude to take off the other 4 parts. Maybe one day they'll put it up on the Discovery Channel site for all to see. One can only hope...
THANKS FOR THE ADD FAM ! RESPECT FOR SUPPORTING THE NORTHSIDE MOVEMENT , STAY IN TUNE FOR NEW MUSIC COMING SOON,STAY BLESSED AND STAY CONNECTED,1LOVE...
