How to persevere
With Cadence Weapon aka Rollie Pemberton
Welcome to At The End Of the Day. If you’re new here, subscribe!
This week in the podcast, I reconnect with someone I haven’t interviewed in many years and you know what? It’s a really cool experience to catch up on life that way.
I first met rapper Cadence Weapon, also known as Rollie Pemberton, while I was working at MuchMusic in Toronto. This goes back many years to the early 2000s.
My colleagues and I were very excited by the idea of Canada’s next big rap star being a teenager from Edmonton. Since that time, Cadence Weapon served as the poet laureate of Edmonton and created five albums including his latest, Parallel World, for which he won the 2021 Polaris Music Prize, an honour based on artistic merit.
I was especially excited for all these sweet successes because I’d read an essay Rollie wrote last year about his struggles with an exploitative record label contract. After reading what he went through during a years-long setback, I’m in awe of his ability to keep pushing forward creatively and politically, without bitterness or regret.
Rollie explores those years of his career and more in his new memoir, Bedroom Rapper: Cadence Weapon on Hip-Hop, Resistance and Surviving the Music Industry. I loved this book for its unique exposition of hip hop history from an internet-steeped, kid-in-Edmonton, outsider point of view, with its beautiful and meticulous recollection of life, from family histories to late-night warehouse DJ life in Montreal, all the way up to the present day.
In this week’s podcast episode, I speak with Rollie about his unwavering belief in his art and how he perseveres.
Bedroom Rapper giveaway
Thanks to Penguin Random House Canada, I have two copies of Rollie’s book to give away! Just write me back with the words “BEDROOM RAPPER” in the subject line. Contest closes Monday, July 4 @ 8 pm ET. I’d be so happy to get this book into your hands, especially because summer months are made for reading.
Et voila! This marks the end of Season 1 of this podcast series. I want to shout out podcast producer Olivia Trono for being such a pro. It isn’t easy to create a podcast from scratch, especially as we all juggle pandemic social re-entry and just *life in general*. Thank you, Olivia!
And big thanks to Laura Hensley, who has been by my side for a year, editing this newsletter! Here we are with editorial assistant, Frances Kim. This was last night, the very first time we’ve met in real life.
And before I sign off, I want to draw your attention to an extremely cool event in Toronto tomorrow. In 2020, I interviewed The Korean Vegan and she will be in town on July 2 to launch an exhibit on life in North Korea.
The exhibit is called The People's Museum of North Korea and it’s a fundraiser for HanVoice’s new private sponsorship program which allows Canadians to privately sponsor and resettle North Korean refugees in Canada. I’ve been a fan of Hanvoice’s work for years and like The Korean Vegan, my family roots go back to what is now North Korea. Consider buying a ticket or making a donation to this program! You will be helping to resettle people who have gone through an extremely dangerous journey to escape the harsh brutalities of a dictatorship, starting life anew here in Canada.
Here’s a link to donate, if you’re so inclined.
I can’t think of a better way to honour Canada Day as I think about the fact that Canada is many things. Canada is built on, and continues to profit from, Indigenous genocide. Canada is a place of refuge and newfound freedom. Canada is a place where lives can be wildly different based on flaws in our systems.
I’m thinking about my own role in creating more just futures, while recognizing an unjust past. Indigenous, non-Indigenous, immigrant and refugee communities aren’t separate — we live together on this land and I really think we can do better. Thank you for always inspiring me with your messages, suggestions and feedback. Keep ‘em coming.
Wishing you a peaceful Canada Day and summer and I’ll see you in the fall,
Hannah
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