ARTICLE: The Grid: “1994: The Year the T-dot broke” (by Del F. Cowie)

Ty Harper | Editorial,Music | Wednesday, June 25th, 2014

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The Grid publishes a nice reflection on a critical year for hip-hop in Toronto from one of the city’s premier hip-hop writers, Del F. Cowie.

Twenty years ago, two independent singles—by Ghetto Concept and Saukrates, respectively—changed the future course of Toronto hip-hop.

The year 1994 saw the release of several landmark American hip-hop albums, and 2014 has been doing a good job of remembering them. In addition to Notorious B.I.G.’s debut, Ready to Die, 1994 yielded such classics as Nas’ Illmatic and Outkast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik,whose 20th anniversaries are currently being celebrated with a remastered re-release and an extensive comeback tour, respectively.

With hip-hop firmly established as a global phenomenon by the early ’90s, Toronto aficionados were no less voracious in their consumption of these records than our counterparts south of the border. But the city’s rappers and producers were, in hindsight, also on the cusp of a key, transformative moment for the city’s embryonic yet prodigious hip-hop scene.

While mixtapes, Soundcloud pages, and YouTube videos define the independent hip-hop grind these days, 1994 saw a surge in the number of local MCs committing their work to vinyl, building on the groundbreaking success of Maestro Fresh Wes, Michie Mee, and Dream Warriors in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and ushering the phrase “T-dot” (coined by pioneering Toronto MC K-4ce) into the local lexicon. But of the countless people contributing to the scene at the time, two entities stand out from the crowd: Ghetto Concept and Saukrates.

Read the full article @ http://www.thegridto.com/culture/music/1994-the-year-tdot-broke/

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