ETERNIA with DJ DOPEY , ABDOMINAL , ZAKI , MASIA ONE , MINDBENDER , VAN KHANH , SHAD , ISIS , DARP MALONE , DREX , PANGEA PROJECT , AROWBE , SKANDALIS , ADAM BOMB , FRIDAY , GALACTUS of EMBASSY , JUNIA-T and NOTES TO SELF as part of The Academy Presents… HipHop History Club ‘Live Mixtape’ Tribute Show, Part II, at the El Mocambo (464 Spadina), Saturday (April 29), doors 9:30 pm, show 11 pm. $15. www.thecyberkrib.com, www.eternia.ca.
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As Eternia learned recently, contrary to popular opinion there is actually something less fun than watching the Junos: attending the show.
And it’s not because the introspective Toronto-based rhymer didn’t score a wicked new paperweight for winning in her category — rap recording of the year, for her album It’s Called Life — that night in Halifax, as she wrote in a feature for the Ryersonian not long ago.
Eternia went to the show hoping only to win a little media shine for her worthy latest project, the very personal video for her Love single, which raises awareness for Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign.
It didn’t go down like that. She and other rap nominees (including Kardinal Offishall) got no air time on the show and were awkwardly ignored by reporters and cameras on the red carpet. Reasonably, Eternia, who has things to do, felt like turning up had been a complete waste of time.
At home missing two rehearsals on account of a bad case of the flu, she comments that the total lack of attention afforded her during the lengthy televised tribute to Chad Kroeger’s “Alberta waterfall” mane is not a problem specific to hiphop artists.
“A lot of music genres weren’t shown love on the air date — and that includes international music and soul music. It was just an issue of having the decency and common respect to let people know before they fly all the way to Halifax that that’s what’s going to happen.”
But the MC, who recently rocked shows in Copenhagen, Berlin and Paris with Supastition and Cesar Comanche, admits jadedly that she should have known.
“I’m not gonna look at the Juno judicial committee and say it’s their fault. Numbers alone dictate that hiphop artists will probably never be able to gain huge success in Canada, just period.”
“K-os really isn’t a good example. He sings. You’re introduced into a whole different world out there when you sing.
“But when it comes to what hiphop artists generally do, which is to rap, not sing, realistically if you look at the numbers — take the population of Canada and divide that by how many people might actually be the ‘urban market’ for hiphop music — you can’t really have a positive outlook, you know what I’m saying?” she laughs.
Fortunately for hiphop lovers, Eternia’s continued energy arises from nothing but a positive attitude, one shared by enough others to spawn rap love-ins like the surefire one Saturday at the El Mo: the Academy’s second HipHop History Club “Live Mixtape” Tribute Show, a continuous live homage to 90s classics.
Eternia will rock her own version of a surprise banger, as will a host of rhyming incredibles including Abdominal, Zaki, Masia One, Mindbender, Van Khanh and DMC World Champion DJ Dopey.
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