by MARK SLUTSKY

Multi-talented rapper, producer and video-maker Peezee is proud to be a Montrealer. Born on the island and brought up in the wilds of Laval, the self-described “little white guy from Côte-des-Neiges” sports an Expos cap on the cover of his club-friendly new album, Star Status, and the Big O is prominently featured in its gatefold art. And Peezee’s love for the game of baseball is evident in some delightful ways in his songs—he’s almost certainly the first MC to rhyme the name of relief pitcher Heathcliff Slocumb with the phrase “eat this scrotum.”

Mirror: You’re a video producer, you produce music and you rap. So what came first?

Peezee: Music, definitely—producing music, writing rhymes. The video production and artwork, all that came after. I had to do it by necessity, because I was with this label when my first album came out, and they weren’t good at doing great videos and stuff. I had a vision for my videos, so I really had to learn to do it myself. But first it was music, strictly music.

M: The rap industry in North America is so U.S.-dominated. What’s the challenge of being an MC from Quebec?

P: You really have to do it for the love. If you do it for the money, for success, or to become a star, you’re going nowhere. You have to do it because you love it, and in my case, I really started doing it because of love, but I felt I was becoming more professional year after year, and at one point I decided that I had to find a team, a management team and a record label that could push my stuff to a higher level. And I think that right now I’ve found a team that’s capable of doing it. But still, even if I’m with Universal, YMD, all these guys, it’s really, really hard. To break in Toronto or Vancouver, when you’re from Quebec, it’s a big challenge. Because there’s always that war between those cities, especially Montreal and Toronto, there’s that competition and it’s really hard. But in the States, it’s harder. To get into the States when you’re coming from out here doing rap music—first, they think it’s not credible, and second of all it needs too much money, and we don’t have that type of money here.

Bigging up the Big O

M: Despite that, you’re still clearly proud to be a Montrealer—

P: I’m going to be a Montrealer till I die! That’s my city, that’s my environment!

M: So what’s this “Montrealist Resistance” thing you’ve got going?

P: This thing, it’s like me saying “no” to Montreal becoming more and more what it was in the ’40s. A sex city, a vice city, a party city where the Americans come in and they party and go to the strip clubs and just spend money on that, instead of spending money on big events, instead of coming here to see the Olympics, instead of coming here to see an Expos game. They come here to party and go to the strippers, and I think Montreal is way better than that. We can do better than that, we can have big projects, but there’s always that perception that we’re small-time here. My parents were there when the Olympics came, my uncle worked at the Olympic Stadium, my grandfather helped build the Olympic Stadium. These guys saw Montreal in the ’60s and ’70s, and it was exciting, and I wish I could’ve been there! That’s what I’m trying to do right now, I’m trying to put a stop to Montreal degrading itself, that’s what the Montreal Resistance is all about.

M: Tell me about the influence the Expos had on your life.

P: Man, the Expos—I grew up in a family where baseball was the favourite sport. At a really young age, my uncle took me to the Big O, and after that, I went there with my grandfather, and after that I became just a major fan of the team. And at the end, I was really with the guys on the team. I knew some players, they were my boys, and I was doing some tracks for shows on Team 990, I was really in the team with the guys and I was trying to let people know that the Expos were there! I wasn’t a Yankees fan, or a Red Sox fan. I was an Expos fan. The Expos really represented Montreal because they were a team that was struggling because of a lack of money—just like Montreal! They were the underdog and I love being the underdog, you know.

With Taktika, Accrophone, Arsenik 33, Monk.E & Fast Motion, Atach Tatuq, Malik Shaheed and more at Jam Jeunesse at the Montreal Science Centre (King Edward Pier, Old Port) on Sunday, April 16, noon, $13, all ages

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