by SCOTT C

While both members originally hail from London, Ontario, it was in Montreal that MC Fritz tha Cat and producer Recordface reunited to work on OK Cobra’s agenda, summarized in the title of their track “Beer, Women and Rap.” Fritz has since returned to London, just in time for the re-release, on Urbnet Records, of their self-titled 2005 debut LP. The Mirror spoke in hushed tones with Fritz (aka Ryan Somers) over the phone from a sleepy house in London, only hours before he left to start their cross-Canada tour.

Mirror: With you having moved out of Montreal and Recordface still here, what has OK Cobra been up to? Has the move changed the kinds of things that you guys are coming up with these days?

Fritz tha Cat: When I first moved away, it kind of put a halt to any new recording, for the first six or eight months. But in the last few months, I’ve bought my own studio gear down here, so we’re now doing the whole long-distance thing, where he sends me beats and I send him rhymes over the Internet. So we’re working on the new album that way, demoing songs online, and when we have enough, we’ll pick the songs we want to develop and block some studio time in Montreal.

M: How do you find the whole long-distance relationship, building a project over the Internet?

FTC: It’s kind of weird for us, simply because it’s actually not that different, in the sense that even when we lived in the same city, he always made beats on his own and I always made rhymes on my own. We’d eventually get together and put all of our ideas and work into focus. One thing I miss is being able to go to the studio that weekend and get shit done. It’s not ideal right now, but it works in the end.

M: You’ve done some touring in the past, if I’m not mistaken?

F: Yeah. A few little tours here and there, but nothing like the five-week tour that we’re starting tomorrow. We’re only doing Canada, but we’re going coast to coast. After Urbnet approached us to properly re-release our album from last year, we knew we had to do some shows. Plus, my little brother is getting married in B.C., so I had to be out there anyway. Might as well do some shows along the way.

At Vinyl on Saturday, July 15, 9 p.m.

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