Round table square by SCOTT C Apparently his royal highness Wyclef was in town this week, stopping in on a strictly promotional tour for his new effort The Ecleftic. Last week I was told that I would have the luxury of participating in an eight-person round-table interview with the Haitian sensation at an undisclosed hotel. Besides the fact that my only two questions for Wyclef would probably have gotten me thrown out on my ass, ("What the hell were you thinking when you made this last record?" and "How can you possibly promote your record in this city without doing a show?") I decided not to attend. Instead I spent Thanksgiving Monday not sucking on turkey bones or jawing with Clef, but sitting by the phone waiting for two other interviews to happen. Wyclef doing in-person sittings in Montreal is a little bit of an anniversary for me though. It was with him that I conducted my first interview when I started working for the Mirror in August of 1997. Wyclef, then just stepping off of the Fugees hype and into his solo trip, was on some slightly arrogant, natural-mystic shit that made our one-on-one hotel meeting interesting. But a press conference for this new record? It doesn't matter! Although new dad Eddie Lewis has been working double duty ever since his little bundle of joy arrived in the summer, the longtime don is still holding it down in the basement at Polly Esther's. Notorious Saturdays start at the foundation with Eddie playing hip hop and R&B, Da Baron playing house and R&B on the second floor and George Micheal doin' that '80s thing on the third. My favourite, the Playboy Martini Lounge, is on the fourth. Brave the crowds and check it out. I got my hands on a copy of DJ Manspino's new mixed tape, Well Enough to be Ill Vol 2., which features all kinds of local names as well as some new, but mostly older hip hop staples. 01Etranjj, SP, Chance Won, Yvon Kreve and Ti Kid all come correct alongside tracks by Buck 50, Non Phixion, Ghostface and Big Shug. All the mixes are on, and Manspino's self-produced tracks are alright, but overall, I would have liked to have heard something a little more creative then the answering-machine-message intro and the older hits. If you've got a tape that's dying to be reviewed, send it to me and I'll hit you off with some truth. Drop all tapes at the Mirror, c/o the Incubator, 400 McGill, suite 100, H2Y 2G1. Also on the local front, indie hip hop label Audio Research has just put the finishing touches on a 12-inch from Toronto hot crew Brassmunk. The self-produced single "Live Ordeal!" is joined by a track produced by DJ Serious and another by Mr. Attic from the Grassroots. This is a step in MTL/TO hip hop relations that are sure to blossom into a force to be reckoned with in the underground world. : Gruber! Did you hit that? plan_b13@hotmail.com