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Music

The Legend of Saukrates

Toronto legend Saukrates gives us insight into his new EP, standing the test of time, and mentoring the OVO crew.

It’s the March 2014 edition of a monthly hip-hop showcase for Toronto artists taking place on the Wrongbar stage, and Saukrates is closing the show. The "Scarborough ‘til I die" MC has the crowd in the palm of his hand and is gleefully cherry-picking tracks from his back catalog, inducing rueful winces every time he cut off a crowd favorite to cram in another jewel. “Hate Runs Deep,” “Money Or Love,” and “Comin’ Up” all get deployed, as well as the funkadelic strut of “Pimpin’ Life” and the devotional house of “All Of You” from his days as the lead of Toronto hip-hop/funk super group Big Black Lincoln. The crowd rides with Big Soxx through every rhyming and singing excursion he makes, underlining his near-impeccable legacy in the world of Toronto hip-hop.

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Despite his legendary status, this reaction wasn't a given. when Saukrates finally dropped a full-length follow-up to 1999’s revered The Underground Tapes—13 years later—in the form of Season One, some longtime fans were not as enthralled with the material. The album’s sound, leaning heavily on the classically trained artist’s vocal stylings and penchant for musical exploration, drew indifference and skepticism from those wanting to hear Saukrates’s unforgiving baritone lyrical presence.

After that release, Saukrates took the time to reflect on where his career might go next, and now he's back with a new EP, Amani. The four tracks he has selected from his sizable vaults feature the co-production of Rich Kidd and Snaz, who lays the beat down for opener “Kingdom Come.” Alongside that song is the introspective “Amani,” with lyrics that read like a Saukrates FAQ web page, the lustful gaze of “FYEO,” and the "one take" statement of intent of “The Big Bang.” With the project, Saukrates proves to naysayers that his mic skills haven’t wavered at all, which, given that he released his first single “Still Caught Up” 20 years ago, is no small feat.

The fact is very few Toronto MCs could have pulled off a performance spanning as great a time frame and sonic range as that Wrongbar show. But Saukrates has had a strategy for his return, and he's been gauging reactions. He took some time to chat about his new EP, regrouping after Season One, and contextualizing his place in Toronto’s hip-hop history.

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Noisey: Why an EP and why now?
Saukrates: It’s a way to break up the material that’s eventually going to be the Season Two album. So me and my team wanted to find an interesting way to not have me record for two years and take the best 14 and put that out as an album. It’s a way to not only stay current but to get started earlier and get focal points. So I decided to call them chapters, and this is Chapter 1. And it’s called Amani. Due up next is another cluster of songs.

Basically we think it’s a way to build momentum, a way to "leak" music. In our initial meetings, it was like 'how can I find a way to be constantly recording, and when we trip over hot shit we put it right out instead of waiting on it eight or nine months while we mix it and get everything we need?' This way we not only stay current [snaps fingers], we keep it fresh, we keep it coming out. And start the campaign now.

That’s it from a strategic point of view but from an artistic side it’s called Amani. That’s your middle name. Is this supposed to be a bit more of a personal record?
That song is. But the collection of material is not necessarily [meant] to be more personal. That song was, to find a way. I came up with the title before I started writing everything else. I was just kind of mumbling the chorus. Like ‘Hey Amani.’ I was like that would be cool if it was like a conference. People asking you questions. So I play the other perspective. If you listen to the song, I don’t necessarily answer any questions directly by the third verse. I more say what my name means, which also means what I stand for. And move on. So that was just a way to move up on one song. And that done well can help to bring attention to everything else which isn’t as personal.

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But I did get the sense when I was listening to that song that when people think of Saukrates if they’ve been following his career closely these are some of the questions they would ask.
That’s right.

You take on a number of personas, and there’s a lot of third person referencing, which I’ve been told not to do.
[Laughs] When you see the video, you’ll see that it’s all about perspective. So I wasn’t doing the Dwayne Johnson, The Rock thing speaking in the third person. I’ll say ‘Sauks is hot’ even in third person. I’ll say it straight like that. Once you see the video it helps you’ll see that there are other people taking on these perspectives. And I think they’re all good questions or statements that…but yeah, not to lean on one song too much, but that was fun for me to lean on and if you’ve heard the song, obviously the second verse is supposed to be a lot of fun and be funny. And realistically it’s a godfather or uncle [adopts a West Indian accent] who don’t know nothing about rap, but he calling you and he want to talk to you about rap. You know what I mean. And I thought that that would be fun and funny to keep it entertaining. It can get to be a serious topic at times.

So your background is…
Guyanese.

This is like the first full body of work, even though it’s a bit of a smaller one, after your album Season One. In terms of coming off that sonically it’s a little bit different in the approach. What space were you in creatively?
I wanted to get back to the basics. Me and Rich Kidd, we’d sit on the phone earlier this year. It’s like ‘OK, I’m getting started again.’ We got a bunch of beats that I made, he sends me a bunch of beats, and I’m starting to feel how the body of work is coming together. From there it ends up being it’s about getting back to basics. Rich, from being out there more in the clubs and the street than I am—I used to be out there, but he’s out there.

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[I'm like] ‘What are people saying? How do they feel?’ Well, he’s like ‘You should do this, you should do that. Try this, try that.’ Basically, it was that that Big Black Lincoln type funk was always something that was always loved. And then the original sample-driven, gritty hip-hop that was represented on The Underground Tapes. A combination of those, starting from there, he suggested would be good, and I’m listening. It’s not news to me, but it’s good to survey and kind of get people’s thoughts and see what they think, what they think will work well out there. And with the music we were collecting, I was like, ‘Yeah that’s perfect.'

It was pretty much what I had in mind. I just wanted to know we were heading in the right direction. And that’s what kind of differs it from Season One because I kind of just went into myself and wanted to do what I wanted to do at the time—very musical and very rich, all these different sounds and a lot of singing—and see how that goes. Season One was more of a feeler for me and my [label] guys at Culvert, which is Frostbyte and EOne. And we said ‘Oh yeah, let’s get it out. We haven’t had a record out in a while’ and we’ll move on to the next. But at least we got a feel for what people want from Saukrates. Third person [laughs].

There’s an OVO connection you mention on “Kingdom Come.” You’ve been on the scene a long time. When you look at the era you came up in what is your sense of the similarities and differences in the Toronto sound now and the hip-hop of what you emerged into?
The similarities for those that have been able to turn heads outside of Toronto, outside of Canada—the similarities I find were just being fearless. Because Canadians at times can be too polite, not cocky enough to take over the world, and I found that those who were turning heads had that sense of fearlessness. And it started back from Maestro, Dream Warriors. That was big, getting into the UK and headlining and playing Top of the Pops in the UK. Rarely do people get that opportunity. And then myself, Kardi, and Choclair breaking into the US.

It takes guts to put yourself out there like that. Not physical guts where you’ve got to fight hand to hand and fight a fair one. No, it takes guts in your spirit to get out there and that’s what I see in these guys have. And also coming up through the ranks with Gadget, Yoda of the Canadian rap scene. The guru. I think we’re probably responsible for giving them that faith in themselves. That fearlessness. Letting them know that the music is good enough to go, probably better than most music out there, and the boys took that and ran with it.

I shout out OB O’Brien for having the guts to now have moved on and stayed close with his friends. Stay close with Drake, stay close with 40, stay close with Boi-1da, T-Minus, and get it going. I had to shout him out because he started by himself doing production with his brother and whatnot. I was introduced to him by Dominic and Albert Zgrka who run the label [Frostbyte]. They signed him [and] asked me what I thought of him. I thought he was amazing, and I collaborated with him a lot before all this OVO stuff. But it reminded me of working with 40 and introducing Drake to 40. It reminded me of that whole scenario. So I had to shout them out. OB I believe is the next one coming out of OVO that can make a lot of noise.

Partynextdoor is doing pretty good. I just like the way these guys move. They don’t move in a large unwanted group. It’s more like they keep it tight. They’re on their way, and there’s potential. People expect artists like Kardi and myself to hate, but that’s really not the case. If the public could see the meetings that we’ve had in the studio sharing information, and Young Drizzy is picking our brains for any info that can help him down the line. And me Solitaire and Kardi are there willingly, just having a blast just having a good time. People expect us to hate like we’re not connected or partially responsible for helping that along the way. But we are. And we’re proud.

Del F. Cowie is a hip-hop writer and the assistant editor of Exclaim - @vibesandstuff