Better than OK: Fritz tha Cat
Pmore: So what’s up man?
Fritz tha Cat: What up, what’s goin on?
P: So Ryan, when you lived in London back a couple years ago you used throw some shows here. How did you get started doing that? How was it?
F: It was fun, it was good. Pretty much it was who ever I wanted to bring to town, I didn’t really know what I was doing. And it was just kind of random occurrences, like for Divine Styler I was doing the ‘zine and got in touch with him and he was like “yo, I wanna come up, we wanna meet you guys cuz this is crazy.” So then a bunch of friends just organized the show. With Aceyalone it was similar cuz the guy who was managing him at the time was a dude that I knew cuz he was a publicist. I’d known him for a year or two via emails and shit so he was like were gonna be playing Detroit which is pretty clo
se, so he was like "Can you hook up a show?" and I was like "I guess? Sure." I’m like “I never, [put on a show.] Well what do I have to do?"
“Well you have to send us money”
I’m like “ok” {laughs}
“And you have to find a venue”
“ok”
“and make flyers”
“alright, I can do that.”
And then other times I was just randomly was down, the Hieroglyphics crew was playing at this rave down in Detroit somewhere, so me and a bunch of friends drove down to see it. I ended up talking to Domino and he was like “OK, well here, next time we’re around, we can come play London where you’re at.” So a few months later he called up and was like “Hey, we’re going to be doing another couple shows in Michigan and a couple other places.” So it was same kind of thing, “So we’re close, we’re only 2 hours away, so for that one, there used to be a store in town, called soul choice, and um, Andrea, the owner of the store, she djs at the office on Wednesdays, and her brother bob, he used to work at the office, so I just went by the store and was like hey bob and Andrea, talkin to domino, heiro wants tot come to town. so they got involved in that and helped set up that at the office, so yea, just kinda randomly like that, and then I started working w remg in Toronto on a few shows when I was living in Toronto. They're kinda the main promoters for rap shows in Toronto, so I started working with them on a few shows, cuz I had London connection cuz if they brought an artist to town if they thought it would work in London then id help them set up a show in London so we did a few more we did heiro again and blackalicious and I forget who else, a few, so yeah, and I kinda stopped doing that a few years ago, cuz you get bored you know, you start doin other things.
P: How was working for REMG?
F: it was cool man, those guys are pretty much the only cats in Toronto. I think in like the 90s there was a lot of shady promoters doing shitty shows there where the artist wouldn’t show up or they didn’t really know what they were doing. But Jonathan, who owns REMG, he's kinda like the first guy to try to really do things legit, and like, now they pretty much run shit, like every show in Toronto is them, so I mean it was good working with them cuz I learned a lot of shit, cuz I didn’t really know what the fuck I was doing for the shows I was doing I really had no idea so it was kinda cool working with them and kinda learning like step by step the process of setting up a show and everything so, yea, it was fun, I mean they’re still doing stuff. And I mean they do everything from small little underground rap shows to like the big, big artist now, I mean, they work with HOB and everything you know they do big stuff so you know its pretty cool and its still good to be in touch with those guys I still talk to them regularly and you know there's a chance in the future if there’s other artists in Toronto if its gonna work in London then ill kinda work with them on that. Now that I’m back here I didn’t really want to start doing shows again but if something comes up and its somebody that I like and I think that it’ll work here and I'm not gonna lose money, and knock on wood I hope that I don't lose money *laughs*
P: The other day I went to Grooves and saw on the back of the Oddities album "the scenic route" it lists you as their manager, has your e-mail on there, I thought thats was pretty cool. How did you end up managing the Oddities?
Um, that was like, I just sort of always dabbled in a bunch of different shit over the years, like, from starting out rapping you know and break dancing, and doing graffiti, and doing all that shit as a kid and as a teenager. And then I had this rap group and that broke up and then went into doing the magazine, and that led into doing shows, and that led into moving to Toronto. And that just kinda led to sorta wanting to do different things and try different things and learn about different things and whenever people I met needed help I tried to figure out what they needed and try to help make things happen.
So I ended up doing publicity for a lot of different underground rappers and like organizing shows and tours and things like that plus writing for mags, so helping to expose artists. So I just kinda met the Oddities along the way and I was just a fan of their shit, I liked the music, thought it was really cool, I hung out with them a bunch of times at their shows and liked the guys, I just thought they were really good dudes, so at the time when I was doing A&R at Universal I was really into the Oddities and I was talking to them a lot and trying to get something happening with them at Universal
No one else at the company was too into them as far as they didn’t think they really had , they didn’t hear hits, you know, so when I left the company they were like, they were making really good music and they’re really well known for their shows in Toronto they put on a great live show but they kinda needed a little help as far as getting organized and figuring out how to get a record out. At the time I had done a little bit of work with Battleaxe Records before and I played the Oddities music for Battleaxe and they were into it and wanted to put out a record so I kinda just started managing the group. And hooked them up with that thing to do the record through Battleaxe and yea then just whatever, I got them a booking agent and started getting things rolling and it was a lot of fun, they’re an amazing group, but then after a while I kinda realized that I wanted to get back to doing my own stuff and being an artist and its kinda hard to juggle 3 different jobs at once you know, so it was kinda, it was cool, I mean they were cool, I was like ok, I cant really do this anymore, and the guy who I had brought in to help me with the Oddities he took over, he’s still managing them, I believe he’s still managing them now, he actually works for REMG too so it kinda works out well.
P: So I guess the next question would be you were talking about working for A & R at universal, how did that go down? What did you actually do there when you were working for A & R?
F: Well my job was a few things, basically it was your always on the hunt for up and coming artists, so my days at the office would consist of listening to demos. I mean hundreds and hundreds of demos that get mailed to the office all the time, we had literally had a giant bin where all the mail went, all the demo packages, and like every day you’d go and grab a stack of envelops a pile and just go through them, so you gotta listen to everything and send letters back to people who submit stuff. And you know, 
meeting with my bosses and the other people in my department and discussing what’s happening in music and new bands or artists that we’ve seen coming up and keeping an eye on them. A lot of research too, you know how every city has their local paper, like here we have Scene and Toronto has Now and Eye, every city has that sorta weekly thing. So basically we would read those from across the country and every time we read about a new artist we don’t know you try to track them down find out what they’re all about and hear their shit, your checking radio playlists from the college and commercial stations across the country to track if, if some radio station from Saskatoon is playing some artist from Saskatoon then your like well who is this band I wanna know. So you track the band down, you find their website, you find someone who knows them and email them and say hey let me hear their music, so you’re always on the hunt to get more music. Basically, at the end of the day, you want to know every band in the country that’s doing anything interesting, like if they’re getting on the radio their getting press they’re doing shows they’re touring like anything that’s happening, if you don’t know about it, you’re not doing your job. So that was like, and at night you would go out every night and just see bands, you know. Like 4-5 nights a week you’re out watching bands, it also involves a bit of traveling to different cities. Toronto has North by North-East (NXNE) Canadian music week, Montreal is pop Montreal, Vancouver is New Music West, these sort of weekends where there's a conference and a million showcases and shit so you’d go across there and look at all these bands hear them all and network with people so that was that was my job, pretty much doing all that shit. I mean, when you find something you like, you have a meeting every week or two with your department. So you narrow it down to “this is the small group of things that I think are worth keeping an eye on” or if I heard something I really like right behind where I sat was my bosses office and I'd just go play it for him like “you have to check this band out, this up and coming band from Halifax or wherever.” And then we'd keep an eye on them or contact them, say "hey, we want to check you guys out” or whatever whatever.
It was actually a really exciting, awesome time when I was there, there was a lot of good shit happening, good stuff going on, I learned a lot, met a ton of people, but it was kinda the same thing at the end of the day, like I was there for a year and then I just sort of realized like it’s a really intense job. It's like 80 hours a week, I'd be at the office at 10am usually wouldn’t leave until 8-9pm, grab a quick bite to eat, and then go straight out to bars to see bands, get home at 1 or 2 in the morning, be up again, and doing that every day, and it didn’t leave much time for me to write or paint or do any of the kind of stuff I want to do, so I kinda had to make a decision. If you wanna do that job, that’s your life, and as much as it was really cool and I was learning tons and meeting great people, I had to think about it and was like “well, in 5 years do I want this life?” and I was like “well, no, in 5 years I kinda want to be making my own music and acting and doing my own shit, and yea, you know?” word.
P: So you mentioned that you wanted to get out of A&R and do your own thing. Tell me a bit about the acting thing.
F: I dunno that’s kinda something that’s just relatively new to me, it kinda started like a friend of mine that produces music videos in T-O and he was talking about doing films and I used to always bug him when I was drunk like “hey buddy, when you do a movie, put me in it” so he phoned me up one day and was like “hey I'm making a film, do you want a part, I have a part for you, its one line but “ I'm like “yea that’s cool I'll do it” and so I had a lot of fun doing that and then shortly after that another friend of mine was directing a play and I ended up auditioning for that and ended up doing this play and I just kinda fell in love I was like “wow, id never done it before, and I just totally fell in love with it, so since that point, I was just trying to do more stuff. And then last year when I moved to Montreal to do a TV show there which I worked on for a while and that was more to just get used to the cameras and shit… it was a local entertainment show in Montreal, called backstage I think, I forget to be honest, I was the co-host, my friend Simon it was her show and she wanted a co-host so I moved up to Montréal to do that did that for a few months and then um it was the end of the season for the show and the show didn’t end up getting picked up again. But I think she decided to leave and do other things so that was the end of that. But yea, its still really new to me, I'm trying to do more films and stuff, I did a couple of indy films last year when I was in Montréal. That I’m still waiting for copies of…
I just shot a film here in London that got shot in the fall, will be being seen in the springtime. it was fun man, I had 3 scenes in it, and in all 3 scenes I had fights. So it was a lot of fun. So right now I’m working on a short film I wrote in the summer that we shot for a week in the summer time, and were gong to start shooting again hopefully this month, and get that done, but we’ll see, its just really expensive, we shot for a week and it cost about 500$ to rent the equipment and stuff.
But its just something that I’m absolutely in love with, acting, I think I love it more than anything else as far as creativity, its just so much fun to me, and I just feel really more than anything else its really new to me, its only the last 2 years I started doing it, its just something that I’m fascinated by and wanna keep going with, so well see what happens, I mean I’m probably gonna have to leave London for that reason cuz there’s nothing really happening here so you want to be in Toronto or Vancouver, but at the same time there are a few people here that are creative,
Its kinda the same approach id take to anything else in my life, like I don't want to be some guy standing in line to audition for somebody with 100 other dudes like “hey we want an average height average looking white male” and then like 200 guys standing there to read for that part id rather just spend my time just renting a camera and spending a week with people who I like and know and were creative just to make our own shit and do it that way
Its more personal its more fun you can do your own ideas and honestly for me I think I can get further ahead that way than trying to rely on selling myself to someone else in an audition when its like id rather just make my own shit and let the actual finished product speak for itself rather than trying to be something that someone else wants to be and I dunno.
P: How did OK Cobra come together how long has that been in the works with Record Face?
F: Him and I, Tim, RecordFace, we went to elementary school together over at St. Georges, so we’ve known each other since we were 10, we were buddies in grade 7-8, we hung out a lot, and you know like me and him a couple other guys had a little crew, he was a rocker, had a fucking mullet and was into Metallica and shit, and I was a little long haired idiot who liked PE and NWA and it was cool and then we went to diff high schools and you know id still run into him at parties and shit but didn’t really maintain a close friendship over the years, and then couple years back I was living in Toronto and I went up to Montreal to visit cuz I have friends there and stuff and he works at Concordia university at the film school there, he runs the sound studio for all the student and teacher films and shit, he does the sound mixing for the films they make, so he has access to this dope studio, and I didn’t even know that he was making beats and shit cuz I hadn’t really seen him that much in a few years so I had gone up there and we were hanging out and ended up going up into the studio, and our other boy, john Juan, who’s on the album, that’s the song that we made, like we had no idea what we were doing, it wasn’t planned or written, we just went in there w a bunch of beers Tim played a beat we were like yo this beats hot and me and john went into the studio w him and drank a few beers, kicked a bunch of freestyles, and he ended up mixing it down into a song we all thought was pretty cool.
So then like we had been talking back and forth about doing a bunch of shit, and I ended up moving up to Montreal for a couple of reasons, one was that TV show and whatever so I was like “ok I’m moving to Montreal” so he was like “wicked, lets do a project together” so we started, doing a demo and stuff at his house and then recording it at the studio there which was great cuz it was a wicked ass studio we could do at nights or on weekends for free you know. And so that was pretty rad. And we just decided to make it a project and start doing shows and put out cds, whatever whatever. I ended up being really broke in Montréal cuz I don’t speak French so I couldn’t get a good job so I was washing dishes and so it was shitty. I ended up being like fuck this city and moving back to London, but was is good is cuz as soon as I got back here I got a job and then had money to press the cds. The shitty part is that we cant really play shows together that much now, but other than just trying to play as much as I can, playing off the instrumentals, but were finally now, getting the record we’re going to press it up again, and its actually gonna get distributed on [URBNET, interview was before I knew that -ed], and were doing a couple of remixes on it so that the new version will be different from the one that’s out now. So our plan right now is to drop the record again with a couple remixes and bonus tracks, and then get some more shows happening, and were already working on the next record now, which basically he’s making the beats and sending them to me on the internet, and I’m getting a pro tools mbox in the next week or 2 so that I can just record rough vocals here and then send them back and then he can arrange the songs get everything ready so that once we have enough shit together I just gotta go up to Montreal spend a week in the real studio and just record like good quality so we can finish the record. So the plan right now is to get this record out again in April-ish, in the spring, and follow it up quick with the new one in the end of the summer. So we can get both records out back to back. Bam bam this year. And hopefully get him out ton the road. He’s a homebody though. I don’t think he really wants to be on a greyhound bus and sleep on people’s floors. I don’t mind I like that shit. So I might have to do the tours on my own until hopefully one day there’s enough money to get him a bed. That’s the goal, to get Tim a bed, so if anyone wants us to do shows they need to get Tim a bed.
P: Do you have any other music projects on the go?
F: Yeah, I have 2 other things. You’re figuring this out I have a million things on the go. I’m doing my solo album, which is just like rap. Like, me and Tim, OK Cobra, it's just me and him, me on his beats, and there’s a certain vibe we’ve established with this record and the next one, I think it's kinda, just a certain sound that were going for that we’ve hinted at on the record we just made and we have a few more ideas where that sounds gonna go for our next record. Its kinda got different influences, like rock samples and electronica influences. And the subject matter that I’m talking about I kinda want to keep a certain way. Like with OK Cobra I don’t really want to make party tracks and shit, its more like thoughtful stuff and deeper, so for my solo record its just stuff I’m doing with other people, other peoples beats, where its going to be funner shit, just a lighter side, so I’m working on that
So that’s gonna be called Green Bottles and Teen Models that’s the name of the album, so I just got different dudes, like some London dudes doing beats for it, like dj tonic, and some people from Toronto, like uh, I’m been talking to different people been getting beats from different people, like dj dork, vangel, uh, dj moves out in Vancouver, he sent me couple beats that I’m working on right now that I’m writing to, and a few cats in Cali that I’m getting beats from, um, so that's gonna be one of those records where its like if their’s 12 tracks then there’s gonna be 8 different people making beats on it, just whoever I’m getting beats from, and like different guest appearances and shit, it will be more of a fun like getting drunk and talking about chicks and partying, whereas the OK Cobra were trying to keep a little more thoughtful and philosophical and internal reflection and shit, not to sound all corny but it's just kinda the vibe
So there’s that and there’s another one, where I'll tell you the name, Jesus Christ tennis star. But I cant talk about it yet, its just a different persona being developed right now, I got a few beats for that, its very different shit, not straight up rap shit at all, its very, ill probably get shot for it, its very offensive. That’s kinda, I'll tell you a bit about that one, it’s over the top, like booty shit, like 2 live crew, dj assault, techno booty, rap, party songs, but like really ignant shit.
P: Tell me about Divine Styler Magazine, how it translated into a book, how the magazine came to be first of all, and then how it got to book form.
F: That just again came out of booze and drugs I think, um me and a couple of my buddies, a lot of us actually basically everyone I hung out with we were all huge divine styler fans. And um ill give for people that don’t know divine ill give them a little back-story. He was, is, a rapper, he was a new York rapper but out in Cali, put out an album called word power in I think 89 and it came out as part of Ice T’s rhyme syndicate label thing. At the time ice t was huge and he put on Everlast, Donald d, and all these other people that kinda came out under this loose collective called the syndicate. Divine was part of this but he was so different than everybody else, he wasn’t on that la raiders hat, gangsta shit type vibe, he was just, the first time I saw the video for ain't saying nothing I was like who the fuck is this, this is the best thing I've ever heard and seen in my life. And anyway he released that record, amazing album, a couple years later he came out with this other record called spiral walls, which was just like this insane album that he was fuckin around with like crazy electronic shit, acoustic guitar songs, weird rapping shit, chanting shit, like it was just the weirdest fuckin album you ever heard in your life, WAY ahead of its time, still to this day you can still listen to it and be like wow its fuckin out there.
So after that he kinda just disappeared, and like I was a huge fan, and at the time I decided I wanted to start this zine thing, and decided to call it in search of divine style, I guess just being hammered and on acid one night me and a bunch of friends decided we needed to find divine style, you know what I mean? It doesn't really make a lot of sense but we decided we needed to find him, and it seemed like doing a zine would be a good way to do that, because it could kind of spread the word about this search for this guy
So first issue was a piece of shit, just literally took 40$ from my welfare check and photocopied a bunch of shitty paper, like you can see the lines where it was glued together, you know what I mean. but I just kind of fell in love with the idea of having this creative outlet where I could say anything I wanted and photocopy it and put it in stores and have people read it, that was awesome to me.
P: *Was this before you had anything recorded of your own or after or around the same time…? *
F: It was kinda, I was kinda in this rap group that kinda broke up so I didn’t have anyone to work with musically at the time, so I needed another outlet for creativity, so I just started, I really was addicted to reading hip hop magazines at the time when they were good, so I was just like alright, ill start my own zine. And then it kinda grew and then
Ended up moving to Toronto and putting it out there, and it was kinda just at the time, the kinda Indy and underground hip hop thing was just starting to get big, right like the mid 90s when all these Indy labels were coming out of nowhere and all this really awesome shit was coming out outside of the major label system, it was like this little Indy renaissance happening, so there was all this wicked shit and that’s what the zine ended up focusing on, it was before a lot of those people got well known. So we were doing interviews w MF doom and co flow and phoenix Orion and aceyalone in 96-98 before, like now doom is huge and all these dudes are touring and shit, so it was kind of neat, a lot of fun, to feel like with the zine we were kinda like ahead of the curve, it was really an exciting time to be a part of that and sort of documenting everything that was going on and pushing, pushing these artists and this whole thing
And so the other thing is the name, in search of divine style, there was the one side that was looking for the guy, cuz we were kind of obsessed with finding him for some reason, and then the other side that name was kind of like a metaphor for like all the divine stylers, which are like all the divine stylers that are people that were really good but no one was really paying attention to. Cuz at that time you had these people like acey put out book of human language which was like the most amazing record ever but no one was talking about it, in any of the rap magazines, and it was this whole scene that was happening that no one was talking about, so that was the purpose of this zine was to focus on this shit. The problem with that is that when you’re focusing on this underground indy scene you aren’t going to get advert dollars from major labels, and all those small underground indy companies didn’t have money to buy ads. So it kinda like strangled itself in a sense
P: *Have you read Pound magazine? It used to be all underground shit and now it has all these major artists in it, I think they're still trying to figure out how to balance it properly*
Yeah cuz they have to sell ads. Its all a matter of survival, like if I had started the magazine a couple years later it might have had a better chance of surviving but it just basically it was dead before it really got a chance to take off. But I did it for a few years and then yea it was a lot of fun.
It was really sporadic man; it was just whenever I could get the money together. Like sometimes it would be a couple of months til the next one and sometimes a year, especially towards the end when I started doing it in colour and printing 20 000 copies, it cost a lot of money, so if I could get the ads together, and I couldn’t get much support from the labels so it ended up being a couple of clothing labels that really helped out and supported it, it was only thanks to them that the last 2 issues even existed. But it got to the point where I owed the printer money, I owed ups money for shipping an all this shit and I was broke and advertisers owed me money and they weren’t paying me on time and the whole thing fell apart, and to the point where, and by that point we had found divine, so it was like whatever, and also I had moved on to writing the rap column at vice, so at that point I was like well I don’t need to do my zine anymore its too stressful I don’t have the money to keep it going, but I was kind of ok with it because at that point I kind of had another outlet to keep doing the same kinda looked at that column like an extension of my own zine, like just sort of do the exact same thing there but someone else can pay for it
P: *How’d you get national distro for your zine? *
For my zine? Man it was like anything else, I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I wanted to find, to get it out, so it was like a matter of meeting somebody who knows somebody, like oh a friend of mine moved to Montréal so like “hey buddy if I send you a box will you put them in stores there? Cool” and like a friend in Toronto who’s like ‘I have a buddy in Ottawa he’ll put them out there. Or I know another guy in Vancouver” so just through people and meeting people online too that were into the zine, just send them copies, and also I did some ad trades, like I had a clothing company in new York where we were like “ok well give you guys a free ad if you’ll distro the mags down there” and the same thing in LA we did a free ad for somebody down there well give you a ¼ page ad if you’ll put out the mags down there, we’ll send you a box, or like 10 boxes or whatever and just put them in stores”
It was all just people, man; I really didn’t know what I was doing.
P:*What was doing the article in vice like? How was that while you were there? *
F: That was fun. They were a really cool mag, probably still are a really cool mag, I haven’t seen an issue in a couple years so I really don’t know. But it was fun, it was basically, like I said at the time, all I wanted to do was write about stuff that no one else knew about, and just help people get exposure, you know?
So and this whole there were so many underground indy people that were putting out records that I thought were great, so through some friends of mine in Toronto, my buddy Mark, he was the Toronto distributor for Vice, like same exact thing they’d ship him mags and he would put them in stores. So through him, like a bunch of us went to Montréal to party one time and we ended up partying with the vice guys and I had sent them copies of my zine, when I had picked up copies of Vice in Toronto I sent them up copies of my zine, and they had actually done a little write-up on my zine which was pretty cool
So then went up there met with them, they had a guy doing a rap column who had just left, they were like we need a new guy, and do you wanna start? I’m like sure they’re like write something this week; it was really quick, just like bam you’re in.
Like basically my buddy Derek was friends with them and he was like “you gotta hire Fritz” and they’re like ok, kinda like on his word, and I mean it was awesome, it was fun, just a great way to write about stuff that no one else really knew about. It fit the concept of their mag really well, at the time, and fuck I got to meet lots of great people, got lots of free music. And through that, because their music was distributed across north America, it enabled me to be contacted by tons of people who picked up the mag and then email me or send me records or whatever so I ended up meeting tons of people all across north America that to this day I’m still in regular contact with that was really cool to me to meet people from all over and then when I travelled to get to meet these people in person that had emailed me or that had sent me music and made a lot of contacts and a good small number of people that I now consider good friends.
But like anything else eventually it gets old, I did it for like 7 years and then kinda me and vice decided its time to move on, their mag was changing and I wasn’t really enjoying it, you get bored after a while the last year or 2 I was doing it I was kinda sleepwalking through the column every month, I should have quit 2 years before I did, but I just kept doing it, cuz, you know, you get attached to a certain… identity and its hard to give up that identity, so giving up that identity was kinda difficult at first, but yea, it was a great opportunity. And through that I got to expose a lot of people to a lot of great music and to expose a lot of great music to a lot of people that may or may not have gotten that type of exposure otherwise. So it feels good to have done that, you know. “Word.”
P: *What’s the best show you’ve been to/put on*
Best show I’ve put on is coming up in about a month [Devin the dude] the best one, the one that meant the most to me is when divine styler actually came to Toronto and London, we did 2 shows, and he brought up Styles of Beyond with him, which is awesome at that point no one had heard of them. He’s like “yo we’re coming up and I’m bringing up my little brothers crew and shit” An aside, Blaow Bashir, awesome producer from syndicate days, he’s done stuff with Ice T Everlast, produced divine’s shit. He came up and it’s his little brother that’s Top from Styles of Beyond.
So yeah, they came up and we had the 2 shows and it was like the greatest feeling in the world to be this like naïve little kid starting this zine that had no idea what he was doing and through this weird series of coincidences and events meeting different people and then eventually him hearing about the zine and when I was in Toronto at the time I had no job I was homeless, I was living in my friends basement literally sleeping on the floor beside the furnace and the phone rings one day and it’s divine, and I’m like holy shit, I cant believe that in my worst moment this is happening and then he’s like we’re gonna come up and I’m like man I don’t have any money to get you here and he’s like well fuck it we’re coming.
So they came up and did the shows I think that meant the most, like when we went to the airport and they came out it was like holy shit, cuz I had never met the guy, it was like looking at this guy that you’d been focusing on for this time and it was really great. And after that he came over to this guy mark’s house we had all these friends drive up form London, a bunch of dudes drove 24 hours straight from Halifax, to get there to see this, and like dudes from Ottawa, friends in town from Vancouver, people just came to see this show, so it was like 20 of us, even more, like 20-30 people in my friend's basement where I was living and divine and them were there and divine was playing songs off his new album that no one in the WORLD had heard before, and it was “whoa” so it was like this whole weekend of insane hanging out with these dudes and that was beyond anything.
And my other favourite show was probably aceyalone at Rickey’s on the rocks, 98-99, there was something about that show where there wasn’t a lot of people there but everybody was so into it, it literally to got the point where the crowd was on the stage with acey and he was just rapping and everyone was rapping along with him and just everyone was just losing it.
And then zoobombs. have you ever seen zoobombs? This fuckin band from Japan, I played w them in march, actually when I moved here, they played in Montréal, I opened for them in Montréal, and then they played the next night in London with this band boy balls, so I got a ride back to London, that’s when I moved back here, but this band zoobombs, its not hip hop, they’re just this crazy experimental jazz rock fusion nuts insane band from Japan, and they’re probably the best live band I've ever seen in my life.
P: *What do you think of past present and where it’s going in the future, scene here in London*
I don’t really think about it to be honest with you, because I've lived in so many places, and like I don’t know I always just consider people as individuals instead of a scene. I guess there is a scene here I don’t really know what it is, I don’t really feel like a part of it, I feel like a part of the scene with people that I know, like people that I’m working with, the toolshed guys, I’ve known them for years since high school.
Scenes are scenes, I never really feel like a scene cuz I just do my thing and you know? My scene is just sort of people I know. It’s not about location. I mean since I’ve been back those guys have shown me love and put me on a couple shows with them, so that’s cool and if I’m doing shows ill put them on, so I guess you could call that a little scene, its people helping each other out, but you know pretty much if its people I know ill help them out the best I can, but whatever. But I mean I hear about a lot of people around that I guess are doing stuff, but I don’t really know.
P: *How do you feel about people saying the London scene is hard to break into? *
If people are worried about breaking into a scene then create your own scene, create your own shit, don’t worry about what other people are doing. Like “oh I need to get down with them” no just do your own shit, find people like you that are trying to come up and do your own shit.
You can, especially these days, you can make beats. If you want to do a show, its as simple as knock on a few doors and find a bar that will let you do a show, you know, learn how to do it yourself, its not that hard. Like you just gotta get a place to do it, make sure you have the right equipment there, and have people to play, and make flyers. If no one shows up, then try it again. Press up cds.. I think people try to make it a lot more complicated than it has to be, and too many people think too much like someone else is going to help them out or put them on, but like man people in their lives are too busy than to worry about someone else who’s trying to come up, just I don’t know, its really not that hard to do, and it only really takes a few tries to learn the mistakes and then learn to do it right. And even if someone else explains how to do it you’re still going to fuck it up, that’s just life. So I think people complaining about a scene, they need to not worry about it and just do their own shit. And nothing gets better somewhere else, like if someone said something about London, if that person thinks its going to be better in Toronto or Windsor or Montréal or whatever, it’s not, you’re going to have the same shit, the same people have their own crews, of course they’re clicky with their own crews, those are their friends, they don’t need new friends, they have friends already. So if someone complaining about that well hey just need to find their own friends, so I don’t know.
It just takes a little bit of money and a little bit of time, and anyone that really wants to do it can put together a little bit of money and a little bit of time. And if it does well, everyone will want to see it the next time
P: *How did you get into hip hop? *
NWA, I still have my original Straight outta Compton 12’’ and that’s what got me into rap. Cuz before that I had heard beastie boys cool j run dmc all that shit, but I heard all that shit and I was 10, but I was prolly 12-3 when NWA came out that I was like holy crap, I was an angry little kid 2, going through some rough family stuff at the time, so I was a pissed off little dude, so hearing angry music like that helped me not kill people, which is weird because people think violent music will make people violent but for me it had the opposite effect because for me when I was feeling like I wanted to be violent listening to that music would be the way to release my aggression and allow me to not be violent. NWA rules. Everyone who likes rap in life should own straight outta Compton the album. If you don’t have it you’re not a rap fan. And It takes a nation of millions by Public Enemy. Those are the 2 albums that everybody needs to know because they define everything that you listen to now comes from those 2 records, that’s what I think. But as to my (?)current favorites(?)
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Id probably say those guys man, ice t, are basically like the best shit ever. And then in the early 90s. Things were really hard for a while, in the late 80s early 90s, like music was really hard, and then when the whole kinda Cali underground thing happened, the pharcyde, fellowship, heiro crew, blackalicious, you know the alkaholiks. That whole kinda new thing that came outta that, whatever, which was sorta I think a lot of people on the west coast that were influenced by the native tongue thing, de la soul and atcq, whatever started that whole kinda thing on the east coast, and then cats on the west took that and added a freestyle element to it. So i'd say ya, my 2 favorite rap groups of all time are NWA and the Pharcyde <!--[endif]-->
Word.
And everyone should listen to Diamond D cuz he’s the best rapper ever. And fatlip too.
P: *What’s your fave breakfast cereal? *
Id say probably honey nut cheerio’s, or captain crunch, but that fucks w your mouth, the roof of your mouth, you get holes in it and shit, so id say honey nut cherrio's is the way to go. Word.
P: If people want to check your shit out, where should they look?
F: I got my personal website, which is www.fritzthacat.com, so people can check that out for info on stuff I’m doing and archives, and for the ok cobra stuff, they can check out www.okcobra.ca. We also my myspace pages set up for both, so if cats are on myspace, they can check us out at myspace.com/okcobra and myspace.com/ryansomers. Word.
-Sean Bryant is a freelance writer who has written for such publications as LondonHipHop.NET , Wax Megaphone, and Facebook Notes. :-p