MAESTRO FRESH WES and friends at Massey Hall (178 Victoria), Saturday (September 21) 8 pm. $29.50-$69.50. RTH.
Maestro Fresh Wes is aging gracefully. I don’t mean physically – though few would put him at 45 – but musically.
“I promised myself two things,” the Scarborough-bred rapper born Wes Williams says of his 25th year in Canadian music. “One, I’m never going to be a grumpy old man on the hip-hop tip two, I’m not going to be Samuel L. Jackson on a skateboard.”
Which is to say, he’s going to let the kids be kids. “If they want to pop mollies and they’re ‘on one,’ that’s what the young cats do. Picture me rapping about that – ‘I’m on one,'” he laughs loudly at the thought.
These days, Williams is in the midst of final set list changes and rehearsals for something decidedly more mature: his Saturday night Massey Hall show as part of the three-day, three-show Canada’s Walk Of Fame Festival, for which he’ll be joined onstage by Classifed, k-os, Kardinal Offishall, Shad, Lights and more – most of whom contributed to his latest album, June’s Orchestrated Noise.
The concert requires a lot of prep and serious downtime. So much so that the night of our interview, when his sister, DJ Mel Boogie, texts to see if he’s going to make it to Big Daddy Kane’s Kool Haus show, he has to decline even though he’s a big fan.
“It’s so funny – the last time I ever performed in a concert hall was Christmas Eve 1989, opening up for Big Daddy Kane. How cool is that, that the week before the Canada’s Walk Of Fame Festival Big Daddy Kane is here tonight?”
That year, Williams had the first-ever Canadian top 40 hip-hop hit, the now iconic Let Your Backbone Slide, breaking him into the American-dominated field and garnering him the “godfather of Canadian hip-hop” title.
Another coincidence: Burton Cummings performs at the festival two days before. (Williams famously sampled Cummings’s song These Eyes on his last major radio hit, 1998’s Stick To Your Vision.)
Or not. “The universe doesn’t have coincidences. Things happen when they’re supposed to happen,” he says.
“It seemed natural. I put out the Black Tuxedo EP it got nominated for a Juno – how cool is that? I put an album out the next year, it happens to be the 25th anniversary of when I came out. And then it’s the Walk Of Fame Festival. It’s a blessing, I thought that was fresh.”
Fresh and refreshing. Williams is far from jaded, as excited about the younger generation of emcees as he is about his own.
Among Canadians, he’s most inspired lyrically by Shad and Adam Bomb. And at a recent video shoot, he was borderline giddy at the prospect of discussing Kendrick Lamar’s then just-dropped Control verse.
That kind of unaffected, naked enthusiasm – to study bars, to dissect rap songs, to hear new releases – is rare anywhere these days, let alone among hip-hop pioneers.
That paved-the-way tag, however, is not something he’s completely comfortable with. “If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else,” he says more than once.
Williams hasn’t been a constant Canadian hip-hop presence, focusing for years on other pursuits, including acting in a bunch of Canadian TV shows (he currently stars on CBC’s Mr. D).
It’s been a very long time, for instance, since his last studio album (2000’s Ever Since). But it doesn’t look like we’ll have to wait another 13 years. This particular comeback has been met by critical acclaim and a lot of industry love.
“I’m working on the next one right now!” he says.
So can we expect something new every couple of years, as per the industry’s current accepted pace?
“I don’t know about all that, but I have some good music coming out,” he says with another big laugh.
“I have to make up for lost time.”
Interview Clips
Maestro Fresh Wes on taking a break from the music scene:
Maestro Fresh Wes on missing Big Daddy Kane’s show in order to prep for his concert:
Maestro Fresh Wes on Toronto neighbourhood rap rivalries:
julial@nowtoronto.com | @julialeconte
