“CAT RAPS” is my debut solo album. I have been rapping and making music for just over a decade. I took a four year hiatus when I became the owner and operator of the once contemporary art gallery in Toronto known as gallerywest. With that experience behind me, my efforts have shifted to making things of my own as opposed to representing things other people make. The album thematically characterizes cats as creatures who are symbolic of an acute and “wondering” mind in addition to their spectacular “chilling abilities”. “Chilling” is an important staple of hip-hop, and one I enjoy bringing myself back to. I have lived with two cats for eight years, and they have inspired me so much, that I consider myself a “human cat”. The cat mask that I wear acts as my uniform in music. We all wear uniforms, the cat mask is mine. I like bold music that holds no punches, but leave room for nuance. The songs on “CAT RAPS” offer vivid imagery: places, things, times, sites. Other songs are grounded in ideas like falling in love with a laptop, or probing hysteria described as “just overly dramatic”. You won’t go far into the work without hearing a cat reference or one of my cats, Piewackett or Miss Priss, purring, hissing or shrieking over the tracks. You will hear them on the intro and the outro. |