MySpace a place for friends

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