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Music

Queen City Stoop Kids Carry a Hip-Hop Legacy in Their Blood

The Canadian crew pays tribute to hip-hop history in the new video “LITCH.”

Queen City Stoop Kids: L-R James Worthy (James Gordon); Okmoz (Amoz Newkirk); Kav the Bruce (Ivan Anderson); Kid Kris (Chris Habte); and Voodoo Doll (Joey Werapitiya). Photo by the author.

Regina rappers Queen City Stoop Kids have a history that goes back to hip-hop’s earliest years. The group consists of Kav the Bruce (Ivan Anderson), Voodoo Doll (Joey Werapitiya), James Worthy (James Gordon) and Kid Kris (Chris Habte) and Okmoz (Amoz Newkirk). Okmoz’ career as Stoop Kids’ main producer begins with his father, Reggie. As hip-hop in Canada took off in the ‘80s, Reggie served as one of the country’s earliest rap radio DJs. Or so the legend went. After moving from Brooklyn, Reggie got his start spinning rap on the radio in the least likely of places: Whitehorse, Yukon. Published documents do confirm Reggie was doing human rights work in Yukon during the late 80s and early 90s. Over the course of several weeks, we reached out to Stoop Kids, the Newkirk family, and anyone who could confirm Reggie’s past.

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In an emailed statement—in which he refers to himself in the third person—Reggie discussed a show he had in the late 1980s called Reggie’s Rap on CKRW Radio Whitehorse. He said the show was broadcast nationally following an industry expansion by the parent company, CanCom, which was hungry to deliver content to new markets. In Reggie’s words: “A human rights director for the government of Yukon at the time, Mr. Reggie Newkirk, was known to be a big fan of numerous early rap music artists. Reggie was originally from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in the New York borough of Brooklyn, so he came by his love of unique music from an early age. And the rest, as they say, is history. Reggie's Rap was the first syndicated satellite rap radio program not only in Canada, but in the world. CKRW was, during the [late] 80s and the [early] 90s, rebroadcasting its signal on over 50 Canadian radio stations as a satellite feed syndication service … CKRW Radio regularly received calls from every continent on earth when Reggie's Rap was on the air.” Photo courtesy of the Newkirk family. It’s hard to definitively say Reggie’s Rap was the first of its kind. Statements from the Newkirk family indicate the show ran until about 1991. Details of Reggie’s part-time radio career were backed up by Glenn Darling, CKRW’s former vice president and general manager. In a Skype interview, Darling said he hand picked Reggie for the new weekly, three-hour rap show. The decision to hire Reggie came when the station received “an inordinate number of requests for rap music” after going international. Darling said, “Reggie's Rap was a true pioneering spirit for rap music.”

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Reggie’s oldest son Tallis would eventually walk the rap path his father paved. Tallis said he watched his dad work in the radio booth for a few weeks in 1989. “[Reggie] was more than a DJ. He was an old dude clinging to new and innovative sounds from his stomping grounds. He DJ'd like your pal playing tunes off his new playlist. With a touch of documentary-like commentary.” Tallis would eventually emcee under the stage name Tallisman with his group, Plains of Fascination. The old school hip-hop collective from Regina gained some shine in the late ‘90s. A clip from MuchMusic’s Going Coastal shows Plains of Fascination in all its underground glory and also references connections to Nelly Furtado. Back then, people were amazed Regina had a hip-hop scene, a sentiment that still holds true in 2016.

Queen City Stoop Kids mourn the passing of that bygone age of hip-hop by dressing like the Wu-Tang Clan surrounded by acid visuals for their music video of “LITCH.” The Saskatchewan-based rap collective, along with featured emcees Kav the Bruce and Kid Kris, can be seen standing in front a green-screen-generated desert to pay their respects to a generation of music that came before them. At least, that’s how Kav the Bruce described the video in his downtown Regina recording studio. “LITCH” was filmed by Johnny Keys aka Deadkeys, who also did the beat for the track. I met Stoop Kids, the day before they left for a UK tour in May. They talked about their come up under Reggie and Tallis’ direct and indirect mentorship, Kav the Bruce’s past as a former child actor turned drug-fueled rapper, and the new video “LITCH.” Watch the premiere below:

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Noisey: Tell me about “LITCH.”
Kid Kris (Christopher Habte): [Kav the Bruce] said to come dressed as if we were Wu-Tang Clan attending Kanye’s funeral on acid.
Kav the Bruce: We’re at the funeral of the old guard of hip-hop in Saskatchewan. We’re there, we’re paying respects, but we’re moving forward.

It’s interesting you’re doing this new video about the death of hip-hop when the old guard of hip-hop in Saskatchewan is Okmoz’s family in a lot of ways.
Kav the Bruce: In that respect, we almost have the right to do this … All these guys like Pimpton and CJE [Crown Jewelz Entertainment], DGS Samurai Champs and Trifecta—they’re changing the definition of what hip-hop is here. There is a generation that came before us like Def3.

You were also a child actor, correct?
Kav the Bruce: Yeah, that’s not something I talk about too much. [I worked with] Lots of other people who came up in Regina, like Tatiana Maslany and Elyse Levesque, and Amy Matysio.

Which films could we see you in?
Kav the Bruce: Sins of the Father also called The Unsaid, starring Andy Garcia and Teri Polo. Vincent Kartheiser from Mad Men, I played his friend in it. We used to hang out in his trailer and he would pop his chest zits into the mirror and talk about how he would spend time at the Playboy mansion. And Andy Garcia would only come out of his trailer wearing a big fur coat because he said it was cold, even though it was mid-September. [I was in a] Drew Barrymore flick that was shot in Indian Head [called Skipped Parts] … Pretty much [did that] until I was 18 and then I went crazy.

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Queen City Stoop Kids hanging out in a Regina alley the day before their UK tour.

What happened?
Kav the Bruce: I feel like it’s a formula. People work on TV when they’re young, make some money and then go crazy … We left town and went hitchhiking. I had a buddy with me and we picked up whoever we could.

Were you on drugs?
Kav the Bruce: Whatever we could get ahold of. I went for a few years. We went all the way out to [Tofino] Island. We were living in the wilderness, on the beaches, or wherever we could … Taking acid on Weyerhaeuser land outside of Nanaimo was the turning point. I still apologize to people who knew me before I dropped a bunch of acid in the wilderness. All that hate seeped out of my heart and was replaced by love and drugs [laughs].

How did hip-hop happen for you?
Kav the Bruce: When I met Amoz, he was looking for something new to do. His brother [Tallis] was in hip-hop and spent a lot of the early time doing something different, but then we embraced the destiny… We put together a super collective. We wanted to change the way people thought about hip-hop here in Saskatchewan.

Okmoz is Stoop Kids main producer. His father and brother, Reggie and Tallis, have deep connections to Canada's hip-hop history. Photo by the author.

Wasn’t your dad a DJ?
Okmoz (Amoz Newkirk): He was a DJ at a little radio station in Yukon … I saw him in the studio and went and visited him. It doesn’t seem that crazy to me, but I guess it is … I don’t know if I can say [he was the first], but there probably weren’t too many hip-hop DJs in the 80s in Canada, let alone the Yukon.

What about your brother Tallis aka Tallisman? I saw him on MuchMusic. How old were you when that was happening?
Okmoz: I remember being six or so. I just remember hanging out in his apartment and his rap buddies would come.

He put Regina on the map.
Kav the Bruce: MuchMusic’s Going Coastal segment would always skip us. They would show a shot of Winnipeg and then a shot of Calgary, but we weren’t there. You’d always die a little bit inside.
Kid Kris: When Tallis was working at [the music store] Long & McQuade, I would go in and see him cuttin’ the fuck out of a record in the corner. I would go there when I was 15 and think, “Yo, I wanna do that.” That was before I knew these guys.

Who else knew about Tallis?
James Worthy (James Gordon): Tallis would come [to our community centre] and record people who wanted to record. He started a prairie roots mixtape and would find talent. He recorded everyone. I was probably 12 or 13. Did your dad’s work have an influence?
Okmoz: I’m sure it did for my brother. I can’t really tell if [my dad] influenced my music directly, but I’m sure it did subconsciously.

Devin Pacholik may have just unearthed some serious rap history. Follow him on Twitter.