Rising Toronto rapper scores big-name help
Online encounter leads to collaboration with a pair of acting giants
Toronto’s Connor Price may have an unlikely source to thank for his entertaining new hip-hop video featuring a couple of Hollywood A-listers: COVID-19.
While the Markham-born Price’s song is called “Courteney Cox” — which he describes as “an homage” to the “Friends” and “Scream” actress whom he labels “a cougar” — the catalyst to getting the tune recorded was none other than her fellow actor Idris Elba … and the unwitting COVID-19 connection.
Both actors appear in his song and video.
“The stars have aligned to make this happen,” said a grateful Price, 26, over the phone from Las Vegas, where he’s living with wife Breanna.
The story begins with Elba, who has appeared in “Luther,” “Thor” and “Hobbs & Shaw,” announcing last March that he had tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a WE Charity event in London. (There he met, and hugged, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wife, who tested positive before Elba.)
Elba, who doubles as a musician — he’s known in EDM circles for his DJing skills and has also appeared on Jay-Z’s “American Gangster” and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s “This Unruly Mess I’ve Made” as a rapper — later announced he had made a full recovery.
Enter Price. If he seems familiar, it’s because you’ve seen him on both the silver and small screens: he made his acting debut at the age of 10 as the celluloid son of Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger in the Toronto-shot film “Cinderella Man,” directed by Ron Howard.
He also played a leader of a vampire clan for two seasons on Syfy’s “Being Human” and spent three seasons on the CBC Second World War spy drama “X Company.”
Lately, he’s been trying his hand at music, with encouraging results: his 2018 song “Starter Pistol” received some airplay on 93.5 The Flow.
“I’ve always been a huge hiphop fan,” he says. “My brother and I shared a room growing up and that was all he’d listen to, so I fell in love with the genre. I always wanted to rap, but I was always afraid to due to judgment and being another actor who wanted to rap — I felt that it was a little cliché — so it wasn’t until 2018 where I just sort of went for it.”
How did Price connect with Elba? “I’m following him on Instagram and last year he put out this rap — this freestyle that he did about his experience with COVID — and he had left an open verse, inviting others to join in and rap about it,” Price recalls. “I rapped to it, recorded a video and put it up that night. I was really hoping to catch his attention.”
Price also had an ace up his sleeve. “What really helped me out is that we had a mutual friend: one of my ‘X Company’ castmates was Warren Brown, who worked with Idris on ‘Luther.’ Warren saw my post — and he didn’t tell me this till later — but he encouraged Idris to check it out.
“I woke up the next morning and found that Idris had commented on the post. He followed me and then DM’d me saying, ‘Hey, I like this. Let’s do a song together.’
“I freaked out. That was the best morning ever.”
Price and Elba began sending ideas back and forth and, after consulting with Breanna, Price sent him two tracks, including “Courteney Cox.”
“I couldn’t believe how quick he works. Within 45 minutes,
he had already sent me back his verse. He sent back a MP3 and I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way he already recorded it’ … we played it and Idris was rapping on my song and even references my name in the verse — it was surreal.”
It was Elba who suggested reaching out to Cox herself.
“Idris made a comment, like, ‘Hey, if we ever do a video for this, we’re going to have to try to get Courteney involved.’
“I sort of laughed it off, thinking he was joking. I asked if he really thought he could make it happen and he said, ‘Give me a second.’
“We both sent her a video and a publicist passed it on to her. She watched it, listened to the song and said, ‘OK, I like the song. I like these two guys. Let’s do it!’ ”
Price filmed his part (even the segment marked “Toronto”) in Vegas and Elba filmed his contribution in Australia where he’s making a film (“Three Thousand Years of Longing” with Tilda Swinton) and Price edited the footage. A few days later, the trio struck up a phone conversation.
“She was so cool,” says Price. “I know I was intimidate, and
maybe Idris was a little intimidated — because she’s such a legend — I grew up watching her and my mom was such a huge ‘Friends’ fan. But we had this idea to ask for her to be a part of the video where she just pops up and surprises us onscreen and that was it.” However, Cox had other ideas. “She was the one to include a skit and have her rap — she brought that to the table,” Price says. “Like, ‘If I’m going to be a part of this, I want to have the last word. I want to throw jazz at you guys and I recorded my own rap.’
“She was such a trooper.” With the assistance of her boyfriend, Snow Patrol keyboardist and Ed Sheeran producer Johnny McDaid, Cox assembled the rap and played it for Elba and Price.
“I don’t even know how he recreated the instrumental … we just laughed hysterically, it was so funny.
“It was so good, we were in shock.”
Fittingly for a collaboration rooted in COVID-19, it came to- gether without Price ever meet- ing Elba or Cox in person. “That’s why I wanted the video to show three iPhones onscreen
at all times, because that’s really how this whole process happened,” he says.
Price, who got his start through Cindy Weedon’s Twins Talent Agency, said he caught the acting bug while attending the commercial auditions of his two younger brothers. The profession allows him a lot of spare time, which he devotes to music.
“You work like crazy and then you wait around like crazy,” Price says. “So now I’m trying to do acting and music at the same time.”
At the moment, no albums are planned, but that’s not to say that Price doesn’t have an ambitious game plan.
“My favourite artist is Russ and he was releasing a song a week, which was insane,” Price says. “I’m hoping to release a new song every two weeks.
“I’m still figuring out my sound and how to present myself in hip hop. It’s so saturated and there’s so much going on. I’ve been trying different things, different styles, more R&B, more rap, more singing, just to see the results and how people respond.
“Once I feel more confident in who I am in this genre, then I’ll definitely approach an album.”
He’s hoping “Courteney Cox” provides a bit more musical traction.
“I wasn’t expecting anything and now that I have Idris on it and Courteney involved with the video, I’m sure a lot of people who haven’t heard my music before will hear it now.
“Anything that happens now will be a plus for me, because I genuinely wasn’t expecting any of this. Courteney had mentioned that if she liked it, she’d put it on her Instagram — (where) she has a following of 10 million — which is insane. It would mean a lot of eyes and ears on the new music.”
“I always wanted to rap, but I was always afraid to due to judgment and being another actor who wanted to rap.” CONNOR PRICE MUSICIAN/ACTOR