Cadence Weapon Releases PWYC Album

Cadence Weapon has released his remix album "Seperation Anxiety" as a Pay What You Can album through the website Cadenceweaponmusic.com.

"The 20 tracks brought together in a 70-minute collection include the Mixmag exclusive Hervé/ A-Trak / Cadence Weapon collaboration "Roll With The Winners" and remixes of label-mates The Cansecos and Roots Manuva, The Wet Secrets,and arguably the show-stopper; a remix of The DB Buxton Revue's "Sex with My Ex"

Cadence Weapon’s sophomore studio album“Afterparty Babies”, released last spring, received heaps of accolades and closed the year at the top of an impressive pile of “Best of 2008” lists including; Q Magazine, Clash Magazine, Plan B, Exclaim,and CBC Radio 3, while his video “Real Estate” continues to force a smile on the face of economic bailouts. Cadence Weapon has returned home a hero, after a year of engaging performances at festivals and clubs across North America, UK and Europe to release Separation Anxiety.

The tracklist looks like this:

TRACK LISTING
1.  Roll With The Winners (Prod. Hervé & A-Trak ft. Cadence Weapon)
2.  The Cansecos “Rise Up” (Cadence Weapon Mix)
3.  Pretty Girls Make Raves (Prod. Stuffa, Mapei and Sinden)
4.  Mini T.V.’s (Chad Vangaalen Cover, Live ft. Final Fantasy)
5.  Sailboats Are White “SAW” (Cadence Weapon Hi-Speed Edit)
6.  Sally Shapiro “He Keeps Me Alive” (Cadence Weapon Mix)
7.  Bad Graffiti (Prod. Murge)
8.  Roland Pemberton III “Rupture Vers Le Haut”
9.  The Morning After (Prod. C-Sekshun)
10. RJD2 “Sweet Piece” (Cadence Weapon Ladykiller Remix)
11. Kennedy Curse
12. Kid Sister “Damn Girl” (Cadence Weapon Remix)
13. Shout Out Out Out Out “Coming Home” (“We Do Acid” Demo)
14. Busdriver “Sun Shower” (Cadence Weapon’s Raleigh Remix)
15. Junior Bloomsday “Your Perfect Gene” (ft.Cadence Weapon)
16. The Wet Secrets “The Chinball Wizard (Cadence Weapon Samir-themed Remix)
17. House Music Medley (Bird Peterson, A1 Bassline,The Cansecos)
18. Super Extra Bonus Party “Radar” (Demo)
19. Roots Manuva “Buff Nuff” (Cadence Weapon Tuff Mix)
20. The D.B. Buxton Revue “Sex With My Ex” (Cadence Weapon’s No Sex Mix)

East Coast vs. West Coast and the Winner is No Coast at All

Most Canadians can tell you how many years it has been since Lord Stanley's Cup came north of the border. Even people who are generally very pro-American will express some resentment at wealthy American teams taking the cup every year (and will remind you that most of their players are Canadian anyway.) What most people do not know is that while Americans have been 'stealing' hockey, Canada has been quietly stealing hip hop.

This is not overly surprising. Canada's music scene is currently stronger than that of the US in virtually every genre (thanks in no small part to Canada's ongoing commitment to music education in schools). It is also not really the fault of the Americans. In the early 90s big American record companies latched on to Nirvanna and tried to turn every band they could find into a parody of Nirvanna - setting the indie music scene back a decade or so. When that well ran dry the same companies latched on to Hip Hop and have done even more damage to it. Most of what passes for Hip Hop in the states now is light bubble gum boy band crap, or "guns, bitches and bling" b.s. that has become a Weird Al like parody of hip hop.

Meanwhile in Canada where we have been comparatively unmolested by the anti-creativity, anti-change, anti-music forces of the big multinational labels Canadian hip hop has quietly turned into something very different than what is being produced in the States. It has none of the celebration of guns and murder, the degradation of women or the attacks on fellow artists and it doesn't claim that money and material possessions are the ultimate purpose of life. In other words, it is something more in keeping with what the originators of hip hop had in mind.

Artists have slowly been appearing over the last several years in just about every city in Canada, amoung them Toronto's K-OS and God Made Me Funky, Halifax's Buck 65, and Calgary's Dragon Fli Empire and Cadence Weapon.

The clincher though came at this year's NXNE. Grand Analog, fronted by Odario Williams is great to listen to at home but their live show would have your grandmother bouncing. The music mixes old school hip hop with ska, raggae, funk, and soul blending them seamlessly, as if they were all always the same thing anyway. With all due respect to those who have paved the way, Grand Analog is the band that has made hip-hop Canadian. After all the east coast vs. west coast feuds that have gone on in the states the new home of hip-hop is not L.A. or New York or even Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver - it is squarely in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

If you'd like some of this for your mp3 player download the CBC Radio 3 Sessions Podcast Featuring Grand Analog.

Grand Analog - Around This Town



Grand Analog - Touch Your Toes