Shad gets a nice feature for the second installment of AUX TV’s “Influenced” series.

This week’s episode of Influenced features exclusive interviews and performances from Shad.

Influenced focuses on the fascinating stories of emerging artists in different musical genres and takes a look at the biggest influences in their musical careers. Blending documentary and video flow, each episode follows a different artist or band culminating with a live exclusive performance.

Check out the teaser above, and tune into AUX TV Thursday, July 10 at 8:00 p.m. EST for the full episode.

Previously: VIDEO: SHAD ON 106 & PARK (THE BACKROOM FREESTYLE)

Previously: VIDEO: Shad on 106 & Park (The Backroom Freestyle)

http://www.hardknock.tv

Exclusive in-depth interview with Grammy Winning/ MultiPlatinum selling producers who’ve worked with Dr. Dre, Eminem, Jay Z, Drake, Nas, Pink, Kendrick Lamar, Lecrae, The Clipse, and most recently produced Aloe Blacc’s album Lift Your Spirit. In part 1 DJ Khalil and Pranam ‘Chin’ Injeti talk to Nick Huff Barili about how they built choir for Aloe Blacc ‘s anthem The Man. Tune in next week for more with DJ Khalil.

Make sure to subscribe to www.youtube.com/hardknocktv for our latest videos, including more with Young Guru & DJ Khalil. You can also follow us at www.facebook.com/hardknocktv and @Hardknocktv @NickHuff on twitter.www.facebook.com/hardknocktv and @Hardknocktv @NickHuff on twitter.

Lanez chops it up with Jenesis Magazine.

We caught up with #SWAVEY Nation artist Tory Lanez as he talked to us from coming from a dark place in his life to where he is now; touring nationwide, getting better management, and being able to successfully express himself in his music that’s been building big numbers over the past few months.

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Credits:

Interview
TREVOR LEARD
http://twitter.com/trev412burgh

Videography
ANDY MENARCHEK
http://twitter.com/andymenarchek

Editing:
ANDY MENARCHEK
GREGORY KEITH JONES
https://twitter.com/Beeficus

Producers:
GREGORY KEITH JONES
J. THOMAS AGNEW
http://twitter.com/Thomas_JENESIS

Special Thanks:
JOSH BAKAITUS
DRUSKY ENT
http://druskyentertainment.com

JENESIS Magazine 2014
http://www.jenesismagazine.com
https://twitter.com/JENESISMagazine

Previously: NEW MUSIC: Tory Lanez feat. Meek Mill & French Montana “I’ll Be There” (Prod. The Mechaniks)

Vice presents an interesting new series called “The Margin”, hosted by producer Jahmal Padmore (KJ, Brendan Philip). This episode sees Jahmal connect with Mustafa The Poet to talk poetry and Regent Park politics. Really appreciate Mustafa’s ability to offer some great reflective and critical thoughts on his art and his neighborhood. Very promising stuff from Vice with this one.

Noisey.com chops it up with emcee / producer extraordinaire, Lord Quest.

Noisey: How was your experience working with Schoolboy Q in the studio?
LordQuest: It was cool. He’s one of those people whose energy you have to really read. He’s a very laid back person. The way you see him on stage is not how he really is. He’s really chill and jokes a lot. If he doesn’t like a beat, he’ll just start doing other shit. He’ll start like rolling or talking to somebody, but when he actually likes a record he’ll start mumbling or rapping to himself. That’s when you know he’s interested. He’s a really dope person.

Explain the style of your music.
I don’t want to say backpacker. That’s a lot of stuff I grew up listening to, like the whole Justice League movement, I was huge on that stuff in highschool. I would just call it soul music for me because it’s stuff that I identify with. I always try to make it a point to be honest with my music. I remember when I was in high school there was this song that me and one of my homies did. Everybody was like “Yo this was dope” but it wasn’t honest. We were talking all this shit about shooting niggas and selling drugs and all this crap. One of the older cats at this school was like “Yo you shouldn’t talk about that shit because if you don’t really do that, then you’re not portraying your true self. There are people out there that look for stuff like this and they’ll test you. They’ll check you on all that to see if you’re really about that, and if you’re not, you’ll look like a clown.” I never forgot that. A lot of the stuff on “Still Shopping” is just real. I won’t talk about drugs, I won’t talk about shootings. I’ll talk about girls to an extent because obviously everyone’s had their experiences, but I’m not gonna be like ‘I’m pimpin, I got hoes.’ That’s not me, that’s not my character.

How did your beats sound back then, compared to now?
Wack! They sounded amazing to me. The way people viewed My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, or “Niggas In Paris”, that’s how my beats sounded like to me. When I hear some of my earlier beats now, I’m like, what was I thinking?! These sound like Nintendo beats, very one-dimensional, no depth, no texture. You know when I first I tried to teach myself on FL Studio, which I still use to this day, I deleted it out of frustration. I just gave up. Five months later I heard 9th Wonder’s work on that Little Brother album [The Listening]. I was like, this is dope, and he became my biggest inspiration at that time. I downloaded FL Studio again and I’ve been doing it ever since.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Previous: NEW VIDEO: TALIB KWELI – STATE OF GRACE FEAT. ABBY DOBSON (PROD. LORD QUEST)

Derek Wise chops it up with Noisey.com as part of his new push for Mom’s Basement.

What is the music scene in Toronto like for you?
It’s crazy. Imagine a pot like that’s been boiling with a lid on it. The steam is coming, and now the top has come off. The scene is flourishing. All these people that have been waiting, writing for years, taking in other sounds from the UK to the US. All these influences we’ve had around us and all that have been stirring in that pot. Everyone’s ready to let loose and build upon it. People need to hear what’s been cooking because for a majority of the time, musicians in Toronto have had a shadow over us. With the way things been going, people are taking notice of the talent and the sound thats been generating from here. There’s so much talent out here.

With your situation, what took you so long to come with new music and why is “Awkward” dropping now?
Honestly, with good music you can never rush this shit. I hate releasing whack shit. For me, personally, if I’m not in the right state of mind to release good music at the moment, I won’t do it. I felt like I needed to grow a bit more, experience more shit, fuck a bit more bitches, just do a lot of different things. I felt like I had to live a bit more to tell that story.

What do you have in store for Mom’s Basement?
I’m going to let them get a breather with “Awkward.” Once I drop it, I have another record I’m going to drop on them. There’s a plot to it, I don’t want to reveal too much, but just know that there’s going to be new music consistently dropping before the project drops. With what I got in store, I just want to wow and surprise them. I got some shit. My sleeves are rolled up right now.

READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Previous: NEW MUSIC: DEREK WISE – AWKWARD (PROD. CRISTO METH AND LANTZ)

Happy anytime the homie Redway gets some coverage.

Toronto isn’t the greatest city on earth if you’re looking for participation. The citizens of North America’s fourth largest metropolis are perfectly happy to just stand by and watch, a fact most astutely observed by artists who often perform to a venue where a majority of the patrons line the perimeter of the space, happily nodding their heads along to the music. It’s a city of observers who appreciate things from a distance, unready to jump in until they’re sure that they won’t be embarrassed by a show of positive feedback. And it’s why Redway is about to board a plane to New York for a pilgrimage he’s made dozens of times in the past four years.

This will be one of the few trips where the 25 year old rapper, born Shane Redway, will be flying. He’s more accustomed to taking the 12 hour trip on the Megabus in order to stay at his aunt’s house for a few months, a ritual he’s been partaking in since 2010 when he decided that he had more to learn from the Big Apple than Hogtown. “People in Toronto always had this perception of me as a cocky, arrogant rapper, and people in New York just thought I was nice with it, so obviously, I stayed in New York more.”

Despite his young age, the Jamaican Mississauga-native has been rapping for over eight years. He cut his teeth battling teens from around Mississauga at events organized through Facebook and held at public spaces like the town’s city hall where the crowd in attendance often numbered in the hundreds. Redway’s biggest hit came when he recorded a single inspired by a Toronto nightlife networking site, tdotwire.com. Titled “TDotWire Freak,” the song garnered local radio play and made Redway into a sort of micro celebrity upon its 2006 release. Leveraging the success of the song, Redway got to working on a debut mixtape, a project that would be hosted by Big Page and titled Rapper Guy. Upon it’s release and lukewarm reception, Redway got a taste of the Toronto politics that would go on to sour his mood for years to come when Big Page had begun to tell people that Redway paid him to host the tape. The rumour hurt Redway’s credibility, but he understood why people weren’t on his side. “People started to say, like, ‘Redway’s trash, he’s not that good.’ But I won’t lie to you, I never had substance then.”

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Previous: NEW VIDEO: REDWAY “ON FIRE” (SHOT BY DUKEZ & TRISTAN PRIME)

Nice likkle feature on Zaki via AfroPunk.com. Just in case you needed to get caught up with Ms. Ibrahim.

If you’re an indie music fan, you should definitely get acquainted with rising vocalist Zaki Ibrahim! The South African-Canadian singer/songwriter brings new flavor to soul music with her majestic voice, dope style and eclectic instrumentals. In 2012, she released her third album Every Opposite, creating timeless and inimitable sound with producer Tiago Correia-Paul.

In the mid-2000’s Zaki moved to Toronto to pursue her dreams and soon became popular in the city’s live music community. Following her more international recognition, the songstress was granted the opportunity to open for Erykah Badu. Some of her accomplishments include being nominated for a Juno Award in 2009 and having her song “Ansomnia” featured on the ‘For Colored Girls’ film soundtrack in 2010.

Most of Ibrahim’s music is equipped with fast paced up-tempo beats with a hint of house and tribal instrumentals that make you want to dance, but it’s apparent that her main goal is for listeners to tune into her lyrics and exceptional production.

VIEW FULL FEATURE HERE

Previous: VIDEO: ZAKI IBRAHIM – SOMETHING IN THE WATER (LIVE @ ADELAIDE HALL)

Noisey.com chops it up with Ms. Miller. Definitely not calling her Ms. Mill anymore, lol!

p.s. Thx for the shout!

Noisey: You shortened your music name to Andreena as opposed to Andreena Mill. Why did you decide to do that?

Andreena: My last name is Miller, it’s not Mill. And Mill was kind of, a decision that was just made by old management, cause everyone always used to call me Mill. And when I stopped working with that management, I just wanted to do a whole revamp of everything, and just wanted to do things my way. So, I dropped the Mill, cuz it’s not actually my last name, and I wanted to go by Andreena. You know, everyone always gives me nicknames. So, I just wanted people to call me by my actual name.

Describe the R&B scene in Toronto.
There are a lot of R&B singers in Toronto. The R&B scene is actually pretty dope. There’s a lot of people that are doing R&B in Toronto, there’s a lot of producers that do R&B in Toronto. I just feel like its identity as a whole, when it comes to the Canadian industry, is not as accepted as I feel it should be. Especially by now. But there’s a huge R&B scene in Toronto, it’s just taking some time for us to really get it off the ground. 

You describe your sound as “Electric Rock’n Soul”. Could you expand on that?
At the end of it all, the root of my sound is soul music. If you listen to my album there are definitely influences and different types of music and sounds that are not necessarily a staple in the R&B world. For me it’s just taking something that is usually standard, piano, drums, guitar, bass, and just expanding on it with different sounds. That’s really what this music is. 

Whatever happened to you being the “first lady of the ATF” with Drake?
When we did “Closer To My Dreams,” I was nine months pregnant. When we did “Last Hope,” my daughter was three weeks old. From there, he continued to do what he does and took the bull by the horns. But me, my priority became my daughter. So I stayed in Toronto. And that’s really what I had to focus on. She comes first, she comes first before me being the first lady of anything, you know? She’s my first lady.

READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Previous: NEW VIDEO: ANDREENA – AS DEEP AS YOUR LOVE (FULL VERSION) (DIRECTED BY REZA DAHYA)