Articles tagged with Shad

I don’t blog or Twitter

April 28, 2010
TSOL by DAHS
That title is a lie. I actually have both a blog (you’re on it) and a Twitter. But this seemed like a good chance to plug my Twitter, since I don’t have very many followers yet, and it’s making me feel like I’m sitting at the uncool table in the cafeteria. This is the same reason I switched schools after grade five, except we have the internet now.

The title is actually a line from “Yaa I Get It,” the new single by Kenya-born/Canada-raised rapper Shad. I interviewed him over the weekend for Chevrolet On Scene at the TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival, and our conversation including a tangent about Lost, which is always a favourite subject of mine.

This single comes from his upcoming album TSOL (’lost’ backwards), due out May 25 via Black Box.

MP3: “Yaa I Get It”
 
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Said the Whale teams up with Shad

October 23, 2009
Said the Whale
Said the Whale is officially kicking ass, with the new album Islands Disappear spending all of last week in the top 10 on iTunes. This success is well deserved, since the album is one of best of the year so far, local or otherwise.

Barely a week after the release of the album, another new Said the Whale recording has hit the ‘net. This time, however, it’s a far cry from the shimmering indie pop that the group is usually known for. Instead, the new tune is a rap/rock crossover, based on the sugary folk pop gem “Gentleman.” The mashup begins with a keyboard riff from “Lovely Allen” by Holy Fuck, which is overlayed with “Time to Pretend” by MGMT. Soon, the band enters, singing the chorus of “Gentleman” over a pounding chord progression lifted from “Baba O’Riley.”

The real treat comes at the thirty second mark, when London, Ontario rapper Shad enters, offering a charmingly romantic verse that matches the sentiment of the original song. His verse lasts under a minute, but it features plenty of memorable tongue twisters, most notably “I’m trying to buy you a swimming pool with an inner tube in it and an entire Ikea living room.”

The track ends with a reprise of the “Gentleman” chorus, with snippets of a few other Said the Whale songs also slipping into the mix (I caught “Love Is Art” and “Strong Swimmers” from The Magician EP).

mp3: “Gentleman Remix” (feat. Shad)

Be sure to check out Islands Disappear, out now via Hidden Pony.
 
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You can slouch on the futon instead

May 4, 2009
shad_toflo-for-web12
I very rarely listen to hip-hop, which explains how I managed to go almost two years before hearing The Old Prince, the Polaris-nominated album by London, Ontario-based rapper Shad. But now that I have, I’ve become completely addicted to the single “The Old Prince Still Lives at Home.”

The song could scarcely be more different from the materialistic excess and hyper-masculine bravado of most mainstream rap. As the title suggests, it’s about living with your parents, and gives Shad the opportunity to offers plenty of money-saving tips: “Why’s a brother need a dentist? It’s expensive!” It’s laugh-out-loud hilarious, and pretty much every word is instantly quotable. It’s even kind of sweet, with Shad’s boasts about penny pinching tempered by self-deprecation: “Like students do, ‘cept I’m grown and it’s not dorms, so it’s a bit more pathetic—okay, a lot more.” The song finishes with an a cappella verse, after Shad claims that the royalties made the beat too expensive to use for the entire song.

The beat—before it’s cut off—is upbeat and funky, accented with keyboard blips and sampled horns. It sounds a bit like mainstream ’80s rap, evoking the feel good grooves of DJ Jazzy Jeff, so it’s only appropriate that the video is a recreation of the classic opening to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Shad plays the role of Will Smith, getting tossed around the basketball court and yelled at by his mom. It manages to be funny without needing to change much—they have some fun with the credits at the bottom of the screen, but it’s mostly a pretty faithful recreation.

Watch the video here.

The Old Prince was released in 2007 via Black Box Recordings.
 
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