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Concert reviews Music

Matthew Progress pushes the boundaries of the new Toronto sound

MATTHEW PROGRESS at the Drake Underground, Thursday, January 21. Rating: NNNN


New music showcase The Hustle is a bit like the Wavelength for Toronto’s flourishing hip-hop and R&B scene – a reliable place to catch a diverse mix of local and international rappers, singers, DJs and producers operating at the indie level.

The 13th edition was headlined by Toronto’s Matthew Progress, a gruff-voiced rapper whose music transposed the menacing energy of the prevailing trap sound into glistening, sometimes jazz-tinged house beats. After DJ Bambii woke up the previously stiff-looking crowd with a quick warm-up, Progress took the stage dressed in all-white and kept the mood elevated.

The narrative around Toronto rap is sometimes fixated on the existence of a “Toronto sound,” but Progress pushed back against that notion with a voracious volley of unexpected musical and lyrical references. He opened with an a cappella verse that name-checked Wynton Marsalis, Malcom X, Edgar Allen Poe and Optimus Prime. 

From there, the spirituals, cosmic mythology, Madonna and Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless) song snippets switched the mood from serious to satirical and playful in a few bars.

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