{"id":6357,"date":"2013-02-15T17:07:48","date_gmt":"2013-02-15T17:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=6357"},"modified":"2013-02-15T17:07:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-15T17:07:48","slug":"vancouvers-cityreal-keeping-a-close-to-ear-to-the-pavement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/02\/15\/vancouvers-cityreal-keeping-a-close-to-ear-to-the-pavement\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver\u2019s Cityreal keeping a close to ear to the pavement"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Harrison Samphir<\/strong><\/div>\n
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When Stylus<\/em> asked Remi Huot, otherwise known as Cityreal, how he began making hip hop music in his early twenties, the answer was not unusual.\u201cI fell into it accidentally,\u201d he recalls, speaking with Stylus<\/em> on the phone from Vancouver BC. \u201cI had some knowledge of music from playing in high school bands, and later on started messing around with beats. I just stuck with it as a hobby.\u201dNow 26 years old, Huot is among Canada\u2019s most prolific rising emcees, boasting two records, three Western Canadian Music Award nominations, and a substantive list of associated acts including Swollen Members, Sweatshop Union, D-Sisive and even Leslie Feist.<\/p>\n

Coming off the release of his latest effort, Good Morning Blues<\/em>, Huot discussed the Vancouver scene and illustrated his ascension as a conscious artist with quite humble beginnings.<\/p>\n

Spending many of his formative years in Manitoba, Huot attended the University of Winnipeg and Coll\u00e8ge de Saint-Boniface before relocating to Vancouver in 2007. There he worked with local and national hip hop figures to release The Beginning<\/em> in 2010, a full-length effort that impressed critics and fans en route to procuring a handful of Western Canadian Music Award nominations.<\/p>\n

Cityreal\u2019s style of hip hop is characterized best by Huot\u2019s effortless flow and similarly fluid lyricism. His vocabulary is expansive and informed, while his mostly self-produced tracks are a healthy blend of underground sampling and live instrumentation.<\/p>\n

This modern approach to crafting a hip hop record is manifest in Huot\u2019s sophomore release, Good Morning Blues<\/em>. Completed with blues guitar legend Wes Mackey, the two met in impromptu fashion at a now defunct upscale Vancouver restaurant called The Shore Club.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the nicer restaurants in Van and Mackey played a one-man show there with just bass pedals and guitar,\u201d explained Huot. \u201cI asked my waitress if she could get his contact information for me, so we sat down for coffee and went from there.\u201dsp<\/p>\n

Their collaboration, released January 22, seriously elevated Cityreal\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

\u201cReception [for Good Morning Blues<\/em>] has been massive,\u201d said Huot with confidence. \u201cIt came together organically due to circumstance… [And] a succession of good luck has led to what the project is now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood luck\u201d might be referencing Huot\u2019s opportunity to record with one of Canada\u2019s most well-known and vital hip hop ambassadors, Madchild. The fellow Vancouver native has already enjoyed a vibrant solo career and experienced critical success with group Swollen Members, but the chance to work together favoured both artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cMadchild was getting past his hardships when I met him,\u201d said Huot, recalling the artist\u2019s recent battle with oxycodone addiction. \u201cHe taught me what it takes to make it. He\u2019s the most driven guy I\u2019ve met in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about following in the footsteps of what\u2019s out there,\u201d explained Huot. \u201cSwollen Members as a whole have taught me an incredible amount and I received a lot of insight into the drive and the energy that is needed to be successful in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Capturing that drive has facilitated a heightened political tone in Cityreal\u2019s music. In the video for a remastered version of the album\u2019s single \u201cPassing Me By\u201d<\/a>\u2013originally featured on The Beginning<\/em>\u2013Huot expressed a \u201ccollage of feelings\u201d toward his city of Vancouver and its pervasive urban poverty and addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe filmed a Downtown East Side Neighborhood Council protesting awful living conditions for single-room occupancy dwellers,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe wanted to make a link between the ongoing gentrification and the way things have been changing in the city over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe video speaks to that,\u201d Huot believes. \u201cYou see a lot of self-serving talk in modern hip hop, and I tried to stay away from that. I saw an opportunity to be mutually beneficial to a cause that is important to me and to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet despite Huot\u2019s commitment to addressing systemic problems in his place of residence, he\u2019s not getting caught up in the \u201cscene,\u201d either.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be completely honest,\u201d he admits, \u201cI don\u2019t like to focus much on locality or the \u2018take over your city\u2019 mentality. The best hip hop has come from people who look beyond that, who look at the broader picture. Swollen in Vancouver and Drake and K\u2019naan in Toronto did the same thing. I just try to take that type of approach and avoid getting pigeon-holed in the \u2018scene.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Broadening his scope further yet, Huot already has a new record in the works.<\/p>\n

Titled Lost in Vancouver,<\/em> his third disc overall will be a collaboration with Bulgarian-Canadian composer, producer, and arranger Todor Kobakov, the Toronto-based contemporary musician who has completed string arrangements for some of Canada\u2019s finest talent including Stars, Dan Mangan, Metric, and k-os.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll be doing 75 per cent of the string arrangements on the album,\u201d confirmed Huot. \u201cOnce we\u2019re done mapping it out, I\u2019ll bring him back to Van and record a ten-piece string composition with the Vancouver Film Orchestra… It\u2019ll be a big, epic sound with strings and piano, and we\u2019ve already got Saukrates and Swollen Members on board, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Cityreal is heading to Fort McMurray<\/a> in northern Alberta to film a video. In the vein of his other aforementioned video, Huot hopes to expose both a political edge to his songwriting and an increasingly controversial national energy project that is the oil sands.<\/p>\n

\u201cNaturally, when I\u2019m making a video it\u2019s a lot less forced,\u201d he suggested. \u201cI can take time to plan the message and create more of a project to get a common message out.<\/p>\n

\u201c(In Fort McMurray) we\u2019ll have our feet on the ground making an effort to show the devastation that\u2019s going on up there. That was my reason for getting into music in the first place: to have a voice and to be heard. I\u2019m very interested in politics and trying to enter the political arena… I\u2019ll probably go back to school and work for a non-profit some day, but this is a real opportunity to bring a worthy cause to the attention of people everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huot did not have time to answer my obligatory question regarding the \u201cstate of the hip hop industry,\u201d but in a way I\u2019m glad he couldn\u2019t comment. As it stands, Cityreal is a young and exciting new talent who, unconcerned with trends and the specter of material wealth, is poised for success and an enlightened career in hip hop.<\/p>\n

\u201cI make music to make good music,\u201d he concluded. \u201cHopefully one day people will embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Harrison Samphir When Stylus asked Remi Huot, otherwise known as Cityreal, how he began making hip hop music in his early twenties, the answer was not unusual.\u201cI fell into it accidentally,\u201d he recalls, speaking with Stylus on the phone from Vancouver BC. \u201cI had some knowledge of music from playing in high school bands, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[192,434,675,931,1060],"class_list":["post-6357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","tag-cityreal","tag-hip-hop","tag-nonstophiphop","tag-swollen-members","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}