Golden Era CanRap: Maestro Fresh Wes vs. Dream Warriors

Hey folks, what's happening?

For the record, I really dislike white people who fetishize old school hip-hop. It really weirds me out when people who don't know who the Clipse are ejaculate all over old Run DMC songs and talk about how "they don't make it like that anymore." I don't like vital music genres being reduced to museum pieces, and I really don't like the idea that hip-hop is only good when viewed through the safe lens of nostalgia.

That said, I'm going to be everything I hate for the duration of this post.

For the record, I love a lot of modern Canadian hip-hop. Cadence Weapon may be one of my favourite rappers period right now, More or Les is a friend of mine, Mayhem Moriarty is one of the best lyricists running and Point Blank kind of frighten me, if we're being totally upfront.

The problem is that it's fucking near impossible to hear Canadian hip-hop any more. I don't watch as much MuchMusic as I used to, but when I do, I never see a Canadian hip-hop videos. Radio may be worse. Back when I owned a car, I used to bump Flow pretty regularly while riding in my Topaz. The only Canadian MCs who got any play were fucking Belly and Rochester, and they didn't even get that much. Sadly, it seems as if the Golden Age of Canadian Hip-Hop ended around the same time as the Golden Age of Hip-Hop as a whole.

Back in the early '90s, it seemed like there was half dozen Canadian rap videos in regular rotation on Much at any given time. Not only were the biggies like Maestro, Dream Warriors and Michie Mee getting tons of play, but acts like Ground Control, MRF, Devon, Kish and HDV (now known to Americans as Jacky Jasper) were all over the place, all putting out quality shit.

So what we're going to do here is have two great Canadian rap acts of the early '90s go head-to-head for the right to represent this fine country.

In the blue corner, from Scarborough, Ontario, with an embarrassing career move of "Certs Wid Out Da Retsyn" and a comeback factor of Metropia, Instant Star and a video with Gowan, MAESTRO FRESH WES!

The great thing about being Scarberian is that everyone has a story about knowing one or more of Maestro, Mike Myers, FeFe Dobson, Jamaal Magloire, The Barenaked Ladies, Monika Schnarre, Mike Ricci or Choclair. We're all connected in the almighty East End.

There's really no need for me to paraphrase a Wikipedia bio on this guy. You either know him or you don't. He's Asiatic and he's got the power, from Birchmount, just north of Glendower. As someone whose lame and Caucasian, but from Birchmount, just south of Glendower, I've always felt a real kinship with Maestro. As a result, I'm really happy to see him in the media again, even if it is on crappy Canadian TV shows. I was really worried about him for a while, because if we're being totally honest, there was a period in the mid '90s where he was releasing some real crap.

I was really torn up over which Maestro video to throw into the competition. Obviously "Let Your Backbone Slide" was the biggest hit, but I kind of always thought "Drop the Needle" was a tougher sounding song, plus it samples some '80s CanRock band called Haywire, so it has a little more CanCred. If I'm being really honest, though, my favourite Maestro jam has always been "Conductin' Thangs."

Here's the reasons this video is dope:
1) More punchlines per minute than any other song of it's era.
2) The awesome prohibition-era nightclub motif.
3) Whatever it is Maestro's doing in front of the CN Tower.
4) The tight little ska-sample backbeat.



In the red corner, from Jane and Finch, with a bad career move of everything after the first album and a comeback album of Spek's solo career, The DREE-AM WARRIORS!

If you don't know anything about the Warriors, they were formed in 1988 by King Lou and Capital Q. They played sort of weird, arty, jazz-and-reggae inspired hip-hop and used a lot of slant rhymes in their lyrics. Their first album And the Legacy Begins was actually bigger in the U.K. than they were at home, but pretty well failed to get over at all in the U.S. They had three hits, the most famous of which was "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style," which had an awesome video and an even better sample of a Quincy Jones song.

Their second album, Subliminal Simulation, dropped in 1994 featured a new MC named Spek and had a single called "Day In Day Out," which was about 1/100th as cool as anything on the first album. Even at age 13, I was hugely underwhelmed. I basically blamed Spek for fucking up Canada's greatest rap group, and when their third album was crap to, I felt justified. Ironically, Spek was the only Dream Warrior to go on to have a solo career.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't seem to have the awesome first video for "My Definition," they only have the crappy American one they released when the Warriors signed to 4th and BWay in the States. That's almost criminal, because the first video was so good it was offensive and the 4th and BWay video eats dicks.

As a runner up, I'm putting the video for "Wash Your Face In My Sink" in to rep the Dream Warriors. It's a pretty strong video. I particularly enjoy the 12-sided die and fact that, unlike rap videos of the era, the Sucker MC in this video is very clearly labeled.



You know what to do.