Movin’ on up
Ottawa hip hop crew making a dent in Toronto music scene
Philly Moves moved away to move up.
The Ottawa hip hop crew moved to Toronto last year, amid growing buzz around the disc How to Drink Yourself Famous. Now comes a new disc, Creators of the Lost Art, and it’s the last blast before a major change for Philly Moves, one prompted by a lesson that all young rappers need to learn: clear your samples.
“Our sound has always been sample heavy, and thus highly illegal,” says MC Tynan (Tragic) Phelan, who makes up Philly Moves with producer Jonny (Rockwell) Desilva. Hassan (DJ So Nice) Hamdan is onstage DJ.
Their music, like most hip hop, makes liberal use of samples lifted from all sorts of musical sources, not always with permission. There’s a cost to using uncleared samples, Tragic says.
“We’re missing out on lots of opportunities,” he says, in an email interview from Toronto. “We’ve had labels straight up tell us they and no one else will touch an emerging act that rocks with uncleared samples ... Luckily, we’re coming to our senses before things got too serious. It’s a lesson most young kids should already know. We knew about it but didn’t take it seriously.”
After this week’s release of Creators of the Lost Art, a free “mixtape” download for fans that includes unreleased beats from Rockwell’s catalogue, it’s time to “tackle our first all-original/live instrument album, which is the next step for Philly Moves,” Tragic says. “We’re going to release another full-length in the summer that’s going to be totally sample free.”
The pair have already made some of Philly Moves’ best music without samples. The Big Beat list of best Ottawa music in 2012 included It’s Too Cold, an infectiously catchy rap about, of all things, needing a sweater. Other all-original tracks include Little Brother, Ass Back Home and Oh So Good.
“We’ve kind of set the stage for the transition,” Tragic says.
“I don’t think hardcore fans will be too disappointed. Jonny is a talented multiinstrumentalist ... We’ll still keep that hip-hop flair, just going to not steal other people’s work now.”
What won’t change is the emphasis on “positive” lyrics. That doesn’t mean it’s all candy canes and unicorns, but you won’t hear any of the hateful, materialistic boasting and glorification of violence that plagues too much hip hop.
“It’s unfortunate when it’s a negative message, because we are all role models when we perform, even on the smallest stage,” Rockwell says.
Tragic adds, “It’s the consumer’s responsibility to show love where it’s deserved ... Until more people start to respect music and realize that you can get famous and be entertaining without having to sell your soul, we’re going to have people acting like idiots and getting rich doing it.”
Rockwell cites the influence of “conscious rappers” such as the Roots, Mos Def and Public Enemy.
Following those leads has already brought Philly Moves measurable success.
The duo played almost 50 shows in Ontario and Quebec last year, and two releases — the full-length How to Drink Yourself Famous and the EP Peace and Carrots — did well on indie, college and even national charts.
They played Canada Music Week, the big showcase in Toronto. They’re booking acts for a monthly hip hop show at club 3030.
Rockwell and Tragic are intent on diversification and helping to build a hip hop community.
“We can’t really afford to only focus on the music,” Tragic says, “No point in having the best album ever if there’s no infrastructure in place to get it heard.”
Rockwell says Ottawa is still home, but the move to Toronto was necessary.
“We made the transition with the intent of extending our network, playing in front of newer and bigger crowds and just making a dent in the Toronto music scene and we have done just that,” he says.
“Ottawa is still our home, and when people ask we always say we’re from the capital city.”