With mad skills and classic styles, Da Grassroots are here to announce in no uncertain terms that hip hop is as Canadian as trees, hockey, and beer. With the other three cardinal points on the continent representing to the fullest, it was only a matter of time before the North stepped up to the mic.
If you take a quick trip up North, it's readily apparent our Canadian
neighbors have got it goin' on these days. A whole slew of Northern hip hop artists have stepped up to demonstrate that Canada is not to be slept on, including Saukrates, Choclair, and Nova Scotia's Cebutones. Oh, you want West Coast? Peep Vancouver's Swollen Members and the Sugarshack Records clique. And it's not only the MCs that are shining.
Da Grassroots, a production team hailing from Toronto, has put together an LP entitled Passage Through Time which showcases both their own production skills and the mic work of their Canadian lyrical compatriots. Da Grassroots are adept at many styles of production, showing a wide range of behind-the-boards influences. "Thematics" features a jazzy, post-Mecca and the
Soul Brother, Pete Rock-styled beat, complete with mellow guitar licks. MC Arcee takes time to bust the asses of perpetrating suckers in the rap game, who talk a lot crap but really having nothing to say. The track "Revival" is just that, a pre-'83 pass-the-mic-fest that harkens back to the days of the Furious Five, with Arcee, Schism, and Fatski playing the parts of Melle Mel, Cowboy, and Raheim.
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