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Music

Premiere: Young Kazh Unites Western Canada with the Help of Stitches on "Remix The Work"

It ends just how we knew it would: With Stitches yelling at us about drugs.

Photo via Instagram

We all knew that the beef that was tearing apart Western Canada wouldn't last forever, but who could've guessed that Young Kazh and Stitches would be the men to end the beef between the Battleaxe Warriors and the Stompdown Killaz? Young Kazh recently released a song called "Remix the Work," and now there's an accompanying video that unites Battleaxe's top dog Madchild with SDK's Merkules, with a heavy psychotic sprinkling of Stitches' and his many regrettable tattoos. "I wanted to take the opportunity to do a project similar to my video for Canadian Ties featuring Onyx, Mobb Deep, JD Era, Merkules, and Snak the Ripper," said Kazh over email. "I planned to collaborate with a known artist like Stitches and create something unique with my choice of Canadian talent that, in my eyes, were worthy of standing beside me on a track. Madchild and Snak have quietly had tension for the last three years. Because of my affiliation with 100MAD and because I’ve been involved with Madchild and the Bax War family since 2009, I thought that putting Merkules and Mad together on my song would bring some positivity and unity between the Battleaxe Warriors and Stompdown Killers. I wanted Hollohan on the track because he is a beast in the battle rap scene, I thought it would be dope for the KOTD followers to see him collaborating with rappers outside of his battle rap lane. I believe us West Coast artists would benefit more standing united than being enemies."

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When asked how Stitches got involved, Kazh said they worked together during the extreme-rapper's Canadian tour. "We met Stitches in Edmonton for the first time, before the show he came to my boy's studio where Merkules and I were recording to a DJ Kemo beat. Stitches liked the song and got on it." Regarding Stitches' recent involvement with other rappers, Kazh said he's seen worse. "A lot of hoe ass people seen that video of him outside the nightclub with The Game and started coming at Stitches, saying he was fake. I spent four years of my life in the US federal system, I've seen lots of knockouts, and anyone can go to sleep with one punch. People were concerned about me dropping the video, they didn’t want me associated with Stitches. I told them all to fuck off! My reputation will never be because Stitches did anything for me, it will be because I did it for myself. I don’t always agree with all of Stitches’ tactics, however for only being 20 years old, he has a lot to deal with. I think he’s doing a good job. I hope we get to see that fair fight between him and The Game because I thought that was going to happen the first time!"

"The song was recorded months before the beef between Madchild and Snak became public. I was trying to stop two of my camps from disrespecting each other and do it in a positive way, so some may see the timing of this video release as awkward. I’ve known Mad since 2008 when we created the song 'Warrior' and worked together extensively on Swollen Member’s album Armed to the Teeth. He’s a good friend of mine, and he’s always down to help me advance my career. I got on the phone with him and told him about the track, and he said he wanted to be a part of it. At the time he recorded his verse for the song, he and Merkules had squashed whatever beef they had between them. I’ve known Merk since he was a teenager. He’s made himself a household name and I’m proud of him. We collaborated on Canadian Ties a few times and we both belong to 100MAD formed by Sticky Fingaz and Fredro Starr."

"Rap beef's generally are not street beef's because, like I said earlier, we are stronger together than apart for the Canadian hip-hop industry," concludes Kazh. "I’m on Madchild's Night Time Kill tour starting January 7 in Edmonton, we will be hitting the rest of Canada for the month of January, along side my video director Shot working on a lot more videos to be released in the new year."

Slava Pastuk decided this was the beef of 2015. Follow him on Twitter.