Fall in!

by SCOTT C

This week, hip hop jumps off in this town when Kardinal Offishall comes over to help celebrate Empire Skate & Snow’s eighth anniversary. He joins forces with Team Canada’s DJ Grandtheft, and DJ Fiend for a big party down at Opera on Friday, Aug. 31. They’ll also be screening Sugarshack Productions’ brand new snowboard film, Try This at Home for good measure. Tickets are $10 at the door, with a 10 p.m. start.

I tried to get on the phone with Talib Kweli last week in the run-up to his Sept. 1 show at Metropolis, but no dice. Instead, I’ve been listening to his new LP a whole lot. I love it when producers pull out the hot shit when they know they’re dealing with an exceptional MC, and that’s just what everybody did for Kweli on Eardrum. Check it for yourself.

Coming up on Sept. 5 at Club Soda, longtime IAM fans can check out Freeman when he joins K Rhyme le Roi and DJ 2She for a show shining some light on the francophone Arab hip hop connection. You can also catch Cobna, Sans Pression, Cyrano de Montreal and DJ Kleancut on the same bill. Tickets are $17.50 now—advance tickets are available at Urban Style (3 Ste-Catherine W.), www.ticketpro.ca and the Club Soda box-office—or $22.50 at the door.

The crew down at Soultek get ready to move into fall this Friday, Aug. 31 with their night at l’Alizé. Specializing in nu dub, eletrofunk, acid house, diskotek, deep minimal techno, tech house and Detroit techno, DJs Uzi, B’Ugo and Kamaka will warm up the grooves with their individual styles.

Last Friday night, we said goodbye to Fred Everything with a blowout at Cabaret that had everyone in a good mood. New York’s Tortured Soul played their best Montreal gig to date, with an energetic and super tight set of serious soulful house played live. Fred leaves MTL, and makes his way to sunny San Francisco to try and do his thing, and we wish him all the best.

Not to be outdone by any of the usual back-to-school madness, local party-master Jesse Walker presents Whiteout 3 this Friday, Aug. 31 at le Social (1445 Bishop). Billed as the official “wear-all-white” back-to-school party, this has the potential to get a little wild and crazy, not to mention the DJ line-up. With Kwite Sane, Little Thunder, TnT Styles and DJ Chunes playing the best in hip hop, club anthems, R&B, soca, reggae & old school, I think you can bust out a fresh white tee one more time before Labour Day.

7 reasons we need to settle this...
1. Blu & Exile Below the Heavens LP (Sound in Color)
2. Heavy Jazz Money$$ LP (BBE)
3. Sikh Knowledge Nu High LP (Bank of Mount Real)
4. Michelle Sweeney & Bernard Purdie “Sunny” (Afrokats)
5. Omillio Sparks “So Down” (Koch)
6. Talib Kweli Eardrum (Blacksmith)
7. DNS “G.U.M.” Daz-I-Kue remix (CDR)

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