FEATURE: Manifesto – Redway Tribute
Manifesto pays tribute to Redway proper. Take in the article and some of the videos here or peep the YouTube page for a few more, including interviews and performances from some of the city’s nicest. Still can’t believe this dude is gone. Rest in Peace brotha!
Right before Years Ahead was released, a friend of mine asked if I was downtown, and what I was doing. At the time I was pre-occupied but still said, “Not much, what’s up?” He responded back saying Redway was having his album release party – an project produced by WondaGurl who had just appeared on Magna Carta Holy Grail – at Get Fresh Company. “Not another one,” I thought. Regardless, he was convincing and sounded passionate about this artist, so I made my way over. Unfortunately, I caught the tail-end of the event with people spilling out of 498 Queen Street W. in droves. The street became loud, as if family from years just reunited. I remember this night vividly because that was also the first night I met Redway – someone I would come to know as a passionate artist, and someone most people knew as a “us against the world” type of guy.
The project knocked, and Redway immediately got thrown into my list of Toronto-artists-not-named-Drake I’d share with my American peers who inquired often about our music. Quite frankly, Redway will always be in that list of mine. I also got aquainted with Redway’s previous music, but I was steadily hooked on Years Ahead – a title that now seems to hold more meaning than ever before. I’d miss the opportunity to work with Redway from a PR standpoint, something I’d later regret in 2014, but rambled about his music when I could. Even when I was hit up by CJ Fly’s management about openers for an upcoming show, I found myself telling her the story about this guy I’d just found out about who packed a popular clothing store to the brim.
That summer, I ended up running into Redway several times – at the most random times and places, and eerily almost too many times for someone I had just met, but that bright smile and coy demeanor was always welcomed. I also respected Redway’s hustle – the respect he showed others, the effort he put into his career, and how he thought of the city’s changing landscape. As I was putting together a last-minute Toronto showcase for the A3C Festival in Atlanta in August, I reached out to him to see if he wanted to be a part of it. To my surprise, he put trust in myself and this showcase, and said yes.