The French Canadian city of Montreal has been the indie mecca capitol of the world for well over a decade. After giving birth to flamboyant acts like Arcade Fire, Grimes, and Mac DeMarco, how could Montreal continue being a fertile breeding ground for new music? The city has recently and respectfully dished out a bountiful amount of belle beats and cutting edge producers such as Kaytranada, Lunice, and Tommy Kruise. It seems as if there's a new school of Montreal hip-hop in the works. Bilingual French/English hip-hop has always taken up space in the province—like new school local rap pillars Dead Obies and Loud Lary Ajust—but the Anglophone rap scene has been hiding out in the woodworks and behind their Soundcloud's for far too long.
It's also obvious to state that Montreal's so-called Canadian city rival Toronto has been cutting deep dashes into the international hip-hop community. So has Montreal's hip-hop scene been hiding in Toronto and Drizzy's shadow? Montreal rapper WASIU is here to premiere his new track with NOISEY "This Ain't Toronto" and to clear up this MTL vs Toronto misconception.
Noisey: What's the point of the song title?
WASIU: I'm tired of people from the States generalizing us as all the same, as if Canada were Toronto itself. Like nah, this ain't Toronto—this is mothafuckin Montreal. French City tabarnak.
You get a lot of people thinking you're a product of Toronto?
There's a joke to that. Whenever I tell people in America, "I'm from Montreal," they always ask me, "Oh, so you know Drake?" And it's like... How the fuck am I supposed to know Drake? I'm from Montreal, not Toronto. The distance between Montreal and New York is the same distance between Toronto and Montreal... Montreal and Toronto are like two complete different worlds.
So there's no beef with Toronto eh?
I fuck with Toronto heavy, I love their scene. Drake, The Weeknd, PartyNextDoor, Jazz Cartier, Sean Leon, Jimmy Prime, and others—I fuck with their sound and the shit that they're doing.
With that said, Toronto has their scene. Montreal also has its own scene. I want everyone outside of Canada, and the hip-hop world specifically, to acknowledge Montreal. I want Montreal to be included in the conversation, just like NYC, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, 'The 6ix', Houston, and etc. are.
How does culture and Montreal play a role in your lifestyle and music?
If Montreal isn't the most multi-cultural city in the world, it's one of them. One of our neighborhoods alone, Cote-Des-Neiges, has over 120 ethnicities living there. All of these ethnicities have developed their own communities here as well. Our Quebecois culture contributes a dash of French to all of these cultures, and all these cultures contribute their own stuff to our Quebecois culture as a whole too. Most people I know around here speak Italian, Haitian-Creole, Jamaican Patois, Arabic, Spanish, Greek... but all of them speak French.
Anyway, "This Ain't Toronto" serves as what the setting and atmosphere is of the city of Montreal, its culture, and scene. It's a crowd filled with all different faces. What we all have in common is the French influences and that we participate in all of our backgrounds' cultures, like a melting pot."This Ain't Toronto" provides an introduction, overview, background, setting, atmosphere, and environment, the story of the life of an average Montrealer. All of that can be heard on this track.
Does it bug you that Toronto's gaining most of the hip-hop hype in Canada?
Not at all. I'm glad that Toronto is getting their shine. With that said, there's enough light in the universe to also give shine to another scene in Canada, which is our scene in Montreal that we call PIU PIU. It's a movement, and as music, it's defined as space music. We're completely out of this world. So it's unfair that the rest of the world decides to keep us in Toronto's shadow. We have so many artists that are buzzing and blowing up, but these writers and journalists refuse to connect the dots and realize that these artists are from Montreal.
Mikey B. Rishwain is the program director for M for Montreal Festival. Follow him on Twitter.