Friday Night at House of Paint 2015 (Summer Special)

Summer is not finished yet as I had the opportunity to check out the 12th edition of House of Paint. That’s right, it’s 12 years since the venerable outdoor Hip-Hop festival has been dancing and giving beats for so long. From Rap to graffiti art to break dancing just to name a few, it’s a lot to experience the urban culture in the Nation’s Capital.

Friday night was the Rock Tha House event. The lineup had Jonathan Emile, Moun Fou, and Buck N Nice as I checked them. DJ 2 Creamz was DJing along with Ducats inbetween the sets.
Saturday is the main event and will run all day with the more performances by Kool Krys, Flight Distance and Socalled.

You can check out the photos over at Flickr by clicking HERE.

Checked Out House of PainT XI, The Main Event – S10E01 [Season Premiere]

Kicking off the new season of the blog and now on its tenth season. You’ll notice a change in the look of the blog. It’s still a work in progress as I will probably be changing things around to the blog. It’s astounding that the blog has continued for pretty long. Aside from that, on to the event I went.

I had the opportunity to check out the 11th edition of House of PainT which happened at the Dunbar Bridge Underpass located near Carleton University and Brewer Park. For those who don’t know House of PainT, it’s a hip-hop festival showcasing and celebrating urban arts and culture in Ottawa.

This year’s festival is held for five days. The one I went was day 3 and dubbed, The Main Event. Saturday lineup had the ever popular graffiti wall, the crew bboy/bgirl, workshops, live music performances (DJs and Rap) and visual arts. It was definitely a fine Saturday to be out and after the crazy thunderstorm which hit two times on Friday in Ottawa.

I missed out last year’s HOP but I made it out to this year’s festival by bringing along the trusty Polaroid camera (SX-70) with the Impossible Project films to shoot some fun instant photos and getting the people excited with it. The black & white Impossible photos are posted below.
You can check out the digital photos over on Flickr. Click here to view the photos.

From Cookies to The Polaris Music Prize Short List – S08E02

This week’s edition of the radio show consisted of 100% Cancon (Canadian music content). The theme was on the 2012 Polaris Music Prize short list as the Gala is happening on September 24th. Myself and Lauren can’t predict who would win because this year’s short list nominees are considered good. The short list nominees this year are Cadence Weapon, Cold Specks, Drake, Kathleen Edwards, Feist, F’ed Up, Grimes, Handsome Furs, Japandroids and Yamantaka // Sonic Titan.

Also on the show were cookies as Erica returned to drop by on the show and got us Tim Horton’s smiley cookies. You see from the photo above with the cookies.
A nice surprise on Wednesday’s show was the tweeting. Getting a tweet back from Maestro Fresh Wes came out of nowhere as I had a chance to check his performance out at House of Paint this past weekend. It was a privilege to see Masia One and Shad perform at the Dunbar Bridge near Carleton University on Sunday. The photos are posted on my Facebook page at this link. Another surprise tweet was from Damian Abraham of F’ed Up as I played The Other Shoe from the 2012 Polaris Music Prize short list nominated album, David Comes To Life. He thanked me and said they have a long shot in winning.
This week’s top 10 has a new number one song. It’s Diamond Rings with I’m Just Me. Click here to read the top 10.
Off to Pop Montreal this weekend as I will be enjoying some of the live music and see some of the bands and musicians there.

Audio/Radio Show
The September 19th playlist is at this link.
Press play to listen.