by SCOTT C

Montreal group Nul Si Découvert are trying to serve you up a hip hop experience that you may not even be ready for. Made up of Chillmasta X, Arafphat, Jerry Curlz and Dakatak, and backed by the formidable Latissimus Dorsey Orchestra, these guys have turned the corner on run-of-the-mill boom-bap. The Mirror spoke to Chillmasta X over the phone.

Mirror: How does Nul Si Découvert fit into the Montreal hip hop landscape?

Chillmasta X: We pretty much do our own thing, I would say. We’ve always had a kind of old-school work ethic, like instead of writing your first rap and posting on a forum online, we just stay in our corner and do our thing, and wait for it to sound nice. As far as the hip hop community goes, most people don’t really know anything about us, so we’re trying to do shows and play around with the material that we’ve been working on. Sometimes, the media likes to put us in the “Montreal leftfield” category. It was kind of a dream for us to have a hip hop orchestra. You don’t see it as much as you did in the jazz period, where you go out and have a 15-piece orchestra playing for you while you dance. It was a dream for us to make that shit happen.

M: Does it bother you that you get classified in that category?

CX: I wouldn’t say that it’s false, but at the same time, we do bring something different in the sense that contrary to a lot of groups that deal with electronic sounds, we try to mix it up with the live instruments and the sampling. We’re music fans, so we mix everything up and try to have fun with it.

M: Who do you respect as an artist out of Montreal?

CX: In hip hop?

M: In any kind of music.

CX: I still have a lot of respect for the groups that made French hip hop in Quebec a reality, so Sans Pression and Muzion are the two principal groups that I look up to as far as the Quebec sound goes. Of course, I’m feeling Atach Tatuq, because they came with something really serious with the Deluxxx album, but I also like Monk-e and Maybe Watson, and I’ve collaborated with Omnikrom, who are good friends of mine.

M: Have you decided to focus on the promotional side of things in Quebec?

CX: For the moment we’re concentrating on Quebec, or more specifically Montreal, because I’m not even sure we get that much play outside of Montreal. I know we get some time on university radio in Trois Rivières and Quebec City, but not that much. Sure as hell, we’ll try to play outside of Quebec, whether it be in an English market or even in Europe. Some Montreal groups are able to go play in France and in Belgium and have people feel what they do. We have that joual thing going on and I always wonder if other markets will understand where we’re coming from, but in the coming year we’ll try to play as much as possible, in and outside of Montreal. We’re open for business.

With Orchestrol Parade at la Sala Rossa tonight,
Thursday, July 27, 9 p.m., $10

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