CBC News Documentary: Street Rappers
www.worldstarhiphop.com version
Street Rappers: The Official MuchMusic Vibe Video Version*Dirty*
HSM Soundtrack Disney Review
By Maria Dinoia:
Parents need to know that the soundtrack is questionable for younger kids in a different way than the drama of the same name (the movie has far more sexuality and drug overshadowing than the CD does, for example). The soundtrack is laced with some profanity and a few sexually suggestive lyrics, and jealousy, social climbing, and discrimination are the prevailing themes.
Families can talk about movie soundtracks in general. Are they important to a movie's success?
Common Sense Media Review
The digital-only soundtrack to this urban drama of the same name is only available online at places such as itunes and amazon. It's an interesting mix of different musical styles from hip-hop to pop ballads featuring Lil'Mama, Montell Jordan, Smugglaz, Fenom, Carl Henry, and Kadar, and more.
http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-she-move-soundtrack-feature lil.html
The Smugglaz latest interview for SWAGG Newspapers by Chris Mckee
http://soundpollutionmagazine.wordpress.com/
In the film the Last King of Scotland, Dr. Nicholas Garrigan sat in his room and spun a globe around, closed his eyes and decided that he would travel to wherever his finger landed on when the globe stopped spinning. On his first spin, his finger landed on Canada. From time to time, it seems the hip-hop powers that be get together every 18 months and do the very thing Dr. Garrigan did in hopes of deciding where the next “It” city will be for hip-hop. In recent years, their fingers have landed on Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago and of course Houston. Could their fingers have landed on Toronto, Canada during that last meeting?
There is a saying around Toronto that goes “Hip Hop isn’t dead, it just lives up North.” There may be some truth to that saying based on the recent success a few Canadian artists have been making south of the 49th parallel. Toronto born & bred MC Kardinal Offishall had one of this summer’s biggest club anthem’s in “Dangerous” featuring Akon and now another Canadian, Drake has the rumor mill buzzing around him about where he may end up signing. Some have said Lil Wayne’s label, others claim Interscope is ready to ink the young actor/rapper. However, the streets of Toronto have been buzzing for some time about a group from the cities roughest neighborhood “Jane & Finch.” The group consists of 2 cousins who call themselves The Smugglaz and go by the names Benny Blacc & Stick Up Kid (aka Sticky Green). The Smugglaz hail from the Driftwood area of “Jane & Finch” and have the type of street resume that would garner respect in even the toughest of American “hoods” (Google “Driftwood Ave” just to get an idea of the area).
Stick Up Kid has been shot an astonishing 15 times (4 the fist time and the 11 more, one year to the day later) and both him & Benny Blacc have done what seems to be mandatory bids in the penitentiary. So in a day and age when many of the biggest stars in hip-hop are having their resumes exposed as frauds, The Smugglaz resume reflect that which Stick Up Kid seems to be himself….bulletproof. Regardless, it’s not their street antics that have the city of Toronto and the internet buzzing about The Smugglaz, it’s the heat they’ve been banging out of stereos, youtube and local radio stations for the past few years. Their Toronto anthem “Jane & Finchin” was placed on the soundtrack to the film “How She Move” and gained them some radio support on local Urban station Flow 93.5 FM. Their 2007 single “Break Out The Party” also gained some heavy spins on Flow 93 and had the song in their daily Top 9 countdown for some time. However, just as the momentum of the group was in full swing, Benny caught a case that had him locked up for 6 months which seemed to halt all the steam the group had at the time. However, since his release earlier in 2008, The Smugglaz seem back on track and poised for bigger things.
The group released solo mix tapes in the spring of 08 which have the streets & message boards buzzing about their upcoming mixtape release “Revenge is Street” coming out in November. The Smugglaz will also be hitting the road this fall with opening slots for another of Toronto’s street legends in Point Blank who have just released their own self titled album in September through Koch. Benny and Stick Up will also be opening up a hand full of dates on the upcoming Obie Trice, D12 & Royce Da 5’9 Canadian tour and the group is in talks with video channel Muchmusic about an up coming reality TV episode.
We sat down with Benny & Stick Up for a Q & A to chat all things Smugglaz:
Q:A lot of Americans don’t seem to know a lot about hip hop in Canada. What do they need to know?
A:There is great talent up here and we really do live what we spit in our rhymes. We’ve got a new story to tell out here that people haven’t heard about before. Although there are a lot of similarities between Canadians & American’s, our culture and history is still vastly different than the US and you can hear those differences through our music.
Q: Kardinal seems to have a lot of people paying attention to Toronto these days. What makes the Smugglaz the next one out of the Tdot?
A: We’ve been doing this for about the same time as Kardi, but the street life has put a pause on us going main stream. But sometimes the bad things in life are the things that make you great. We’ve put our lives back on track and the streets know it. We are next because we rep’ Canada to the fullest and we got the real Canadian story and we have a unique sound…two different styles that that make one unique sound.
Q: You had a song of the soundtrack to the MTV film “How She Move.” Do you mind when they use your music for something like that?
A: Not at all… we loved it. It has helped alot and we’ve been getting good feed back at alot of shows and alot more people know ’bout the Smugglaz. Plus the song that they picked was a block anthem in Toronto so we never thought it would have gone main stream but it did. Every body use to tell us stop the street rappin and all that gangsta shit, but look at us now, that song is what got us on the main stream tip.
Q: With the record business in the state its in these days, do you think having a record deal is necessary to be a successful artist anymore?
A: Depending on who you are…if you are an artist that had some sort of main stream fame in the past, then yes you can be successful with out the help of a major label because you already have that fan base. But if you are up and coming artist with no team then its gonna be a tough ride to get your name out there. However, if you have a good team of people behind you helping you with your grind, the you can be successful without a label. Because all a label is…is a good team that covers all business networks…..if you already have that good team in place, then do your own thing & it will work out.
Q: The Smugglaz have a great presence on youtube www.youtube.com/smugglaztv
with 500,000 views for your video’s. Talk to me about the idea behind doing those videos.
A: (Laughs) It’s a Secret. Watch and Learn. Basically, it doesn’t matter what your budget is for a video. We know they aren’t going to shows those on BET or Muchmusic but we just did most of our videos out there for a few hundred dollars because we felt it was so important to just have something “out there” that you can constantly be hitting your fan base with to keep them constantly interested. That’s one thing we’ve done better than most, keep our fans coming back for more.
For more info on the Smugglaz:
www.myspace.com/thesmugglaz
www.youtube.com/smugglaztv
The Smugglaz Management Contact:
chris.blueprint@gmail.com
Influences
All The Shit we've Been Through.
Sounds Like
The Next Big Thing,
Straight Street!!
Listen to my track Street Rappers - ringtone - Play it
About Smugglaz-New Revenge Is Street THE VIDEO Online
The World Wide SMUGGLAZ are an integral part of the growing T-Dot hip hop movement. The duo represents the streets of Toronto and touches aspects of society that affect the world at large. The media covered The Smugglaz from news print(Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, NOW Magazine, etc.) to television news(CBC The National News, City TV News, CTV). The duo is on the How She Move Soundtrack with the hit song "Jane & Finchin". Request "Street Rapper: the video" on MuchMusic. Request Deejays to play music of The Smugglaz in your area/clubs and on your radio stations. Stay tuned to your websites, radio, and television on the World Wide Movement of The Smugglaz. !!
The duo first burst onto the scene in 1997 as special guests on a track entitled "Norpo" by Rocstone as teenagers on MuchMusic and have been pushing the underground T-Dot movement ever since. In 1999 and 2000 the duo gained national fame or as some called "infamy" through their controversial music video and single "Street Rappers" that got banned from MuchMusic and later documented on CBC's The National program with millions of people watching. The SMUGGLAZ! Arguably the most respected and popular street rap group coming out of the Jane-Finch section of T-dot! (Toronto you dun know). Stick Up Kid has been shot 15 times. A ridiculous total, by all accounts. Even 50 Cent and his nine bullet holes can't match it. "It was two different occasions," he says slowly and reluctantly. "It was like years ago, five, six years ago, Nov. 11, 1998. I got shot four times." He pauses. "Then, the year after that, Nov. 11, 1999, I got shot 11 times." And that's all he says about it. Ask him if he knows who shot him, or why, and you'll get a flat 'No'. There's no bravado, nor does he seem to exploit it to inflate his street cred. "It just made me take this rapping more seriously," Stick Up says. "I could've been gone two times but I'm still here, you know? God has me here for a reason. I think it's to do this rap music." Words from Stick-Up Kid of the Smugglaz from newspaper giant The Toronto Sun for a cover story on the group. "The project that we're doing right now, it's gonna guarantee us the power to do a lot for our city," Blacc says to the media outlets. And ask anybody in their neighbourhood about the thriving Jane-Finch hip hop scene, and invariably the first name to leave peoples' lips is Smugglaz. Younger MCs in the neighbourhood say they grew up listening to Tha Smugglaz, that if you want to know about Jane and Finch rap, start with Benny and Stick Up. "They're the big ones to us," says Burnz, an 18-year-old rapper who lives in the area. "I grew up listening to their music. I remember people like Stick Up and Benny told me, 'Hey, you're a rapper, keep doing your thing.' I took that to heart." Having been rapping, performing, and releasing albums on the street for a decade, Blacc says it's almost time for him and Stick up to put Jane and Finch and the TDot on the hip hop map in terms of reality rap. The group has released music videos nationally on MuchMusic("Street Rappers"), but due to the hardcore content it was deemed "2 Much 4 Much". Blacc says when he first started rhyming at age 12, he would be on the corner spitting lyrics about the kinds of things he'd see growing up there. For instance, on Jan. 11, 1993, his older brother's best friend was shot dead in Blacc's family townhouse at 15 Shoreham Ct. Only 21 at the time, the young murder victim had been affectionately known as GR8 1. Blacc didn't want to disclose his old friend's name out of respect for the family. However, Toronto Sun archives show that Landale Walters was killed when a gunman fired five shots from a 9-mm through a window of the basement townhouse. "It just made me know that you could be here one minute, gone the next," Blacc says. "The best thing to do is to make a mark." But along the way to making that mark there have been a few obstacles. Blacc ended up doing a two-year bid in Joyceville federal penitentiary north of Kingston for gun-related charges. Locked up for a period of time, he came out two years ago a "stronger" man, having done a lot of reading, exercising, and even some recording in the jail's small music studio for inmates. "I'm a lot stronger, you know what I mean?" Blacc says. "I'm just trying to keep legit, I'm doing this music thing, I'm trying to bring a better name for my neighbourhood and city."
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