April 2, 2021
Disques 7ieme Ciel
In the song Pull up, the Brown Family and the young prodigy Raccoon take turns exchanging their latest comments through ingenious and hilarious punchlines! All this on a funky and impactful production by Shash'U. This song is a perfect balance between old-school rap and current hip-hop, between French and English, between Quebec, Haitian and Jamaican culture, celebrating the notions of diversity. It is the third single of the compilation ''Royaute'' which will be a compilation of 12 songs. Written and produced by about thirty artists, the "Royaute" project aims to highlight Black excellence through a musical project at the rate of one song per month starting in February 2021, The Black History Month. Thus, the project will take place over an entire year. The ultimate goal is to promote not only the artists of the black community working in music, but also the people who take part in the coordination, realization, production and promotion of the project as a whole. The profits will be donated to an organization that helps Black communities: Le Fonds 1804. This organization supports school perseverance and success in addition to granting scholarships to families in need. The money raised by the project will be used to award " Royaute " bursaries. For this large-scale collective project, the Disques 7ieme Ciel label will oversee the project and its marketing in order to not only highlight the musical culture of Black communities, but also to promote and spread Black excellence through a musical project. More precisely, the project ''Royaute'' is a compilation of 12 songs written and produced by about thirty artists from Quebec's Black communities. To make the project as inclusive as possible, there will be as many artists from previous generations and precursors of Quebec hip-hop/rap as there are emerging artists. Starting in February 2021, the songs will be released monthly and will be included in the compilation entitled ''Royaute''. The project will be launched in February since it is Black History Month. Dedicated to celebrations and activities that highlight black heritage, the symbolism of the month of February is a notable element for the release of our project. The ultimate goal is to promote not only the artists of the black community working on music, but also the artisans who take part in the coordination, realization, production and promotion of the project as a whole, not only during Black History Month, but throughout the year. Some of the singles will be accompanied by video clips in addition to small audiovisual capsules to support the initiative by presenting the universe of the project's stakeholders. The artists will be given excellent visibility on digital platforms, social networks and on the radio. The goal of the project is to properly remunerate the participating artists and artisans and to give the profits that would normally go to the label/producer to an organization that helps black communities and, at the same time, make this organization known through the project. The choice of the non-profit organization is "Fonds 1804", whose mandate is to support and recognize the academic perseverance and educational success of young people, particularly those from ethnocultural minority backgrounds. To this end, Fonds 1804 encourages the involvement of parents, families and the community, in addition to supporting its scholarship recipients in their efforts to become independent and integrate into society and the workplace. As a result, the money raised by the project will be used to award "Royaute" bursaries. Not only will the project allow the Black community at the heart of the project to shine, but also to contribute financially in order to work towards eliminating systemic inequalities. The intention is to provide an opportunity for black music workers, both administrative and creative (authors, composers, performers, photographers, videographers, press agents, etc.) to work, create and benefit from great visibility, in addition to contributing culturally to the development of their community. The objective is not only to develop the audience of black artists but also to allow professionals from black communities to work on the project. For example, Jocelyn Bruno, aka Dramatik, is at the heart of the project as Artistic and A&R Director, Myriam Joseph, aka La Dame, as Coordinator, Maliciouz as Audiovisual Artist for the cover, Jean-Herve Desire as Director for the music videos and vignettes, Martine St-Victor as a press officer, Spike Williamz as a mixing and mastering engineer, etc. As far as the authors and performers are concerned, here are the ones that will appear on the compilation: Gino Grey, Jennie Laguerre, Brown Family, Raccoon City, Marieme, Sans Pression, Webster, Imposs, Shreez, Izzy S, Leila, Jibre, Karma, Dramatik, Dan Fihaya Beats, Tizzo, KNLO, Farfadet, Naya Ali, Marco Volcy, Zach Zoya, Speng Squire, Barnev, Dunny Brazz, Papa Brown, Dame, Shashu, Klassified, Koudjo, Kheir and Yng Milly! The goal is to make sure to support and promote the black people who will have worked to make this project possible. In short, this initiative brings the black community together with a team of creators and professionals composed of about 30 artists, a director, an artistic director, a project coordinator, a videographer, a sound engineer, a visual artist, a press relations officer, a photographer and many others in order to offer them recognition in the eyes of the greatest number and to provide important financial support that will be redistributed between the 1804 Fund and all the actors involved in this project. Bio Brown Family: Brown Family is the latest effort to (re-)unite on record two brothers who have already left their personal mark on Quebec hip-hop - Snail Kid (Dead Obies) and Jam (K6A, Jam and P-Dox) - with their Jamaican-born father Robin Kerr (Uprising). At a time of language controversy and debate about Quebec identity and culture, Brown offers us the fruit of a family tree with a mixed core that celebrates the notions of hybridity and mixity through a dozen tracks that bring together the old and the new guard; roots-reggae and dancehall; golden age and new school rap. Reconciling the extremes against a backdrop of loud parties, Brown easily proves to be the best-kept secret in a burgeoning scene. Presenting their debut album BROWN in January 2016, the trio then travels the roads of Quebec, marking the crowds with their unifying music, engaging lyrics and family history. After participating in the historic Quebec rap tour L'Osstidtour alongside Alaclair Ensemble and Koriass, a tour nominated at the ADISQ in the category Show of the Year - Singer-Songwriter in 2017, Brown Family launches the POPLUV EP, presenting a few songs with a pop and summer flavor. Brown Family is back in the fall of 2019 with their new opus brown baby gone, once again pushing their introspection through all the nuances that define them, but this time tinged with a deep desire for escape and freedom. Bio Raccoon: Montreal's Shamyr Daleus-Louis, a.k.a. Raccoon, brings back the diaspora and mixes it into a colorful and powerful shockwave. He evokes memories of his teenage years and draws on old-school rap to bring out the best in it, which he then applies to the sound of contemporary hip-hop. His relaxed style and R'n'B atmosphere do not prevent him from expressing his emotions and deep thoughts in the form of clever and evocative rhymes. With Haitian ambiences, an American flow and a European textual refinement, Raccoon skillfully mixes his influences. As comfortable on stage as he is in the studio, this rapper, who has made his mark on the rap battle circuit, released a debut mixtape in 2018 titled Eternal and a second, Mettre les gants, tuer le Croc-Mitaine, in spring 2019. In addition to multiple performances in Montreal and Quebec City, he released his critically acclaimed debut album, Gentil pour un noir, in November 2019. Bio Shash'U: Afrofuturist B-Boy, remix alchemist, legit funk phenomenon... Montreal's Shash'U is truly one of a kind. He's been burning down stages from Boiler Room at SXSW to underground street dance competition "Juste Debout" with a mix of wild style remixes and audacious originals that sound at once alien and familiar, turning even the poppiest of radio hits into breakbeat battle weapons. This approach has won Shash'U a rabid following. Originally from Montreal - son of Haitian parents - Richard St- Aubin, best known as Shash'U, first saw the light of day in 1983. He was only 9 when he began to play the drums and then turned to electronic music composition in his late adolescence. He would soon thereafter develop a unique signature sound thanks to his mixture of avant-garde hip-hop, funk, r&b and electro acoustics. At the age of twenty and after a few years of practicing various forms of street dance, Shash'U adopted the turntables to become the DJ that we know today. He has since forged a solid reputation in the planet-wide realm of street dance. His musical career began to take shape through his performances as DJ-beat producer for his fellow street dancers, for whom he composes and plays his instrumentals in international competitions. This introduction to the DJ art is what allowed him to make the leap into the world of nightclubs. As of the year 2005, Shash'U - who already possessed a solid DJ reputation - starts building his amazing track record as a composer and songwriter, collaborating with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and electro beat both in Quebec and abroad. A-Trak (CA/USA), Lunice (CA), Kaytranada (CA), Chromeo (CA/USA), James DiSalvio (Bran Van 3000), Youssoupha (FR), Kutmah (UK), Gage (Fr), Gilles Peterson (UK), are some of the artists with whom he teams up. Now, with a musical career spanning ten years and having traveled throughout the world with his music, Shash'U has become one of the great ones in the international beat world setting the stage for his signing with the New York label Fool's Gold Records. Shash'U has been invited to prestigious events and festivals such as: SXSW (Boiler Room, Fool's Gold Showcase, Mad Decent x Fool's Gold Super Party), Be Street Weekend (Paris), Low End Theory (LA), Fool'S Gold Day Off (NYC), Francofolies de Montreal, Igloofest, etc. His online presence is also growing by the minute (34 000 followers on Soundcloud and almost 10 million plays, 34 000 fans on Facebook, millions of views on Youtube) and the demand for international touring is increasing proportionally. His numerous free remixes and EPs offered online and the millions of plays he has received on Soundcloud and Youtube have allowed him to build a fan base in the four corners of the world. His style, which he calls PWRFNK (Power Funk), is unmistakably identified by the character of his drums and by the omnipresence of his bass. PWRFNK revolves through synthesizers from the 80's, melodic bass lines and funk, which our Montrealer revisits with a contemporary approach to vintage-hip- hop/street beat with an urban flavour. Montreal beat king Shash'U kicked off 2015 with his debut Fool's Gold EP Thru Da Night, launching his inventive, muscular take on dance music worldwide, and racking up props from underground peers like Kaytranada, gatekeepers at MTV and BBC Radio, and sweaty fans around the globe in the process. Most producers would be content to repeat a successful formula on their follow-up release, but on the new PWRFNK EP, Shash'U blows up his own playbook entirely, blazing forward with a wildly self-assured sound that slaps futuristic, heavy bass over '80s-inspired electro grooves, a musical genre soon to be recognized worldwide as PWRFNK.