The Underground Emcee
By Cheryl Thompson 
Originally from London, Ontario, Chokeules is another talented rapper in Canada’s underground scene that is ready to break out. As part of the Toolshed collective, his latest album, Hypergraphia, is raw, original, and lyrically sound. SoulMatters picked Chokeules' brain about hip-hop and his career.
SoulMatters: Each song has its own personality. As a first question if you could talk a bit about the album and the mix of songs that are on there.
Chokeules: Yeah, I guess the overall feel of the album is it’s laid back, it’s fun, it’s not overly serious or anything but you know some songs are more personal than others, and some are just fun focusing on the more party track side. But I guess there are some that just break it down and focus on some heavier topics …some just happened during the writing process where the idea just sort of came about, where with others the specific idea we tackled before the recording process and made a specific beat for that because we had it in mind but they kind of all came together it was pretty easy to figure out what order to put them in because they kind of seemed to all have their place I think.
SMM: What about yourself, like your background, tell me a bit about how you got into the music business and how what you’ve been through so far brought you to this particular disc?
C: I’m originally from London, Ontario. And I started rapping back in high school with friends. Basically The Toolshed is from London, that’s the same guys I started with beginning in high school, and you know it just never stopped being fun so it sort of went from after school activities, weekends and drinking in the parks and just doing it for kicks to getting more serious about it then in the last decade we’ve gotten increasingly more serious about it.
This was the first time we’ve branched out to do solo projects. We’ve done a lot of projects together as Toolshed but we were in London until a few years ago but now we’ve moved to Toronto and it sort of has taken on a new life. And we’re all putting out solo projects before the next Toolshed album. I guess to answer your question just originally started doing it with buddies from high school and years later pushing 30 at least they are I’m already there and we’re still doing it.
SMM: That explains why the album is called Toolshed presents. Will all the other releases be a Toolshed presents?
C: There will be a Toolshed presents Psybo, he’s one of the other emcees, Toolshed present Timbuktu, who’s one of the other emcees who is on a few actually Psyco and Timbuktu are both on the last track on the album, and Timbuktu does most of the production for the album as well. When we left London we all sort of split up geographically and ended up in different cities for a bit so that’s where the whole idea for the solo projects came from and we figured we would do the three solos and then just follow it with the ultimate Toolshed album. Everyone is kind of doing their solo thing and then we’re really going to get down and just focus on the Toolshed album that we feel we’ve sort of been waiting to make all these years. Everything is falling into place.
SMM: In terms of Canadian hip-hop, underground, mainstream whatever else what does the word ‘underground’ mean to you as an artist?
C: It holds different connotations I guess. Underground versus mainstream could have a meaning of being lesser known or very well known. But underground has sort of taken on another meaning where there are certain artists that are a lot more well known but are said to have an underground sound, which basically just means that they don’t sound like everything that’s in the mainstream at the moment. I think our sound is kind of like, I mean we grew up on early mid-90s hip-hop and love that shit and I guess we’ve been doing our best rendition of it ever since.
Our sound was sort of set in stone at an early age because we kind of do it the way we want our music to sound that’s what we’ve been trying to put out. In that sense we’re probably underground on both levels but in the Canadian scene, the Canadian music scene in general it’s hard to break open in the Canadian hip-hop scene especially. Even the people who are “above ground” are still pretty underground as far as the North American market is concerned. We’re just off the radar a little bit, aside from a few.
SMM: Why do you think that is?
C: I think it’s just sort of, I mean I have friends who work in film – actors, directors or whatever – and I think it’s across the board with the arts it’s just that the states just kind of dominated so for a lot of acts until you kind of breakthrough in the states, Canada is a tougher market to crack. It’s spread out, there’s a lot of stuff going on in Toronto, there’s a lot going on in Montreal, Vancouver, and then all these cities in between but sometimes the scene can be divided it’s tough to get your music out there at times but I mean it’s also you have to like a good challenge.
SMM: And I mean for you are you looking to be an artist who stays in Canada and do you thing there or do you see opportunities where the border doesn’t really matter to you you’re kind of looking at opportunities wherever they should be?
C: Well yeah I think for us, Toolshed is part of a larger collective called Backburner, which consists of a handful of other Canadian artists. And for us we’re just part of such a great scene both in Toronto, out in Halifax a lot of the guys are out there as well, and then in Montreal and like I said in Vancouver that the thought of crossing the border for music has never really occurred to us just because we’re so lucky to work with a lot of great talents right here at home.
SMM: And is that also in terms of the live scene, like shows and a sense of community?
C: Yes I mean it is great to have that, and obviously there’s the actual physical scene for live shows getting out there and the people that you see, and then there’s a whole, obviously now with the internet digital music and everything that’s a whole other world where we got stuff from Belgium and France that we’re exposed to all the time. Just this morning one of our rapper friends from Halifax flew into Toronto and he’s heading down to London to do a show tonight. Toronto’s a great hub for people who aren’t actually in Toronto for us, for Toolshed and for myself it’s a great place to be right now for making music.
SMM: Where do you hope to take this album? What is your outlook towards the music?
C: Obviously in the end I’d like as many people as possible to hear the album. I think one of the reasons why Toolshed and myself have been doing it so long is because we don’t have any false hopes you know like if we don’t blow up by next then it’s over, you know. If it pays the bills that’s great but if it doesn’t, we just love doing it and we just kind of keep on going. As far as where it takes me or what I’d like it to go is probably where every artist would hope. Like I said just being able to eat off your art, but you know if that’s not the ultimate thing where it ends up we just love doing it so there’s no disappointment in the end.
I have no problem with… I know some artists get pissed off when they find their albums on certain sites or ripping them for friends for free for me that’s amazing. I’m sure it won’t be long until I’m putting my own shit out there for free just because if that’s the difference between a 1000 people buying it and tens of thousands of people hearing it then who cares about the money you’re making it’s all about just putting it out there and there’s such a market out there so many people are making music and so many talented people. Obviously with such a big influx of artists there’s going to be more crap but there’s also more amazing artists too so it works out on both sides. It’s just good to get your music out there and the more people to hear it the merrier basically.
SMM: It’s interesting. Some of the Canadian rappers that I’ve spoken to as opposed to some of the American rappers that I’ve spoken to it just seems like in Canada, and obviously I don’t want to generalize and you can’t speak for everyone, but it just seems like a bigger sense of community and staying true to what hip-hop was supposed to be or its roots, where it seems like in the states I can’t generalize but it just seems like what’s on the radio in the mainstream seems pretty much to be about bling and money, that’s pretty much it. That’s my perception.
C: It’s a good observation because I think because in the states there is a much greater chance of “making it” a lot of people tend to mimic what’s going on, on the radio because that’s what you do to try and make it where as in Canada a lot of artists are more realistic and some of our favourite artists aren’t blowing up worldwide or whatever is that you kind of make the music that you want to hear because you know either way if you try to make it the way the market wants it in the Canadian market it might not blow anyway so you just end up making music that you enjoy making and that maybe is a bit purer to yourself. But again maybe that’s a generalization like you said but I think it’s a pretty accurate observation anyway in terms of Canadian versus American.
SMM: Do you find, coast to coast you mentioned each city has it’s own scene, would you say there’s pockets in each city that has it’s own vibe?
C: There definitely is. That’s the good and bad thing about Toronto. There’s so much going on here but it also can be a divided scene. I said the same thing when I lived in Montreal for a year. There are a lot of things going on but not everyone supports the communal scene. Like I said, a lot of our Backburner homies are out in Halifax, and Halifax is geographically separated and they kind of developed their own scene and they have a lot more, I don’t live there but there seems to be a lot more support for local artists. Even just in terms of Nova Scotia it seems to be easier for artists to get help from the government. Whereas in Ontario it seems to be the guys who have the money who are getting the money and it’s kind of a backwards system because the up and coming artists aren’t able to get the help they might require.
SMM: I was thinking about Classified, he is probably one of the most successful east coast rappers I can think of.
C: Oh yeah, Josh Martinez came out of Halifax and then he was out on the west coast for a bit and now he’s actually in the states doing his thing. I could name just as many artists that have come out of the east coast scene that I listen to as I probably could the Ontario scene. And, it’s a much larger scene but like I said it’s a lot more divided. And you have the people who are trying to be a little too New York or whatever.
SMM: I know what you mean. So tell me what your outlook is in terms of the future. Where do you see yourself five years from now?
C: Ideally, with this album and the next couple albums that are coming out from my crew and then ideally we start getting a buzz and eventually like I said no one is expecting to get rich off of music but it would be nice to make a living you know and not have to work that day job at a bar or whatever the case may be. But for a lot of up and coming artists that’s just the reality. But yeah it would be great just to be able to do music full-time. Or even if we get that big record contract and bring all my musical buddies along and we’ll take over the world! But realistically, it would just be nice to focus on art full-time that would be a great place to find myself.
SMM: And I guess have that kind of support too from both the industry and the art funding bodies.
C: Yeah exactly.
SMM: When I listen to the album, it is refreshing to hear a hip-hop disc from beginning to end that I didn’t have to skip through because I feel like I’m hearing the same beat over and over and I’ve listened to a lot of albums this year and trust me most of them are not worth anything, as a fan, it makes you question should I still like this music when I can’t even listen to an album longer than five minutes, you know what I mean?
C: Yes, I know exactly what you mean!
SMM: It was refreshing to hear your album I really liked it.
C: That’s great feedback I love hearing it. Thank you.
SMM: That’s pretty much all the questions I have.
C: Great, you can sort through my ramblings and I’m sure there’s something good in there.
SMM: Most definitely.
C: Thanks again for the feedback on the album, it’s great to hear.
