when you signed with Jon Bartlett and Kelp Management . Was that a deliberate decision to stay self-managed for so long , and what were you learning about the business ? |
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PHOTO : COLIN MEDLEY |
Honestly , it was such an exciting time . It felt like being in a movie , honestly . Just every day was like a crazy adventure and I was learning so much . I did put out Hope in Dirt City while I lived there , but I wasn ’ t as productive as I normally am . I feel like it was more just a time of absorbing ideas .
CM : In the book , you delve into the early internet period and how you honed your craft , especially as lyricist , on message boards . Can you recount how you made your earliest recordings , especially loops and beats , with the very limited household computer technology of the early 2000s ?
Pemberton : Yeah , it ’ s really funny ; no one understands how I did this . So basically , I used to use the Windows Sound Recorder program that came with your basic desktop computer . And this is a program that has no visual interface , really , for sequencing . So , what I would do is I ’ d take it , I put a song in there , and I would cut an element of it , and then put it to the end . And then I would just kind of , one by one , make a beat out of these samples without being able to visualize it , without being able to see what I ’ m doing . And so , I ’ d make this kind of herky-jerky kind of music that was super weird . I actually did that for a long time . There ’ s some stuff that never came out where I did that , that actually sounds kind of hard . Like I was saying in the book , it sounds like when people try to make experimental music now . I was unintentionally making avant-garde-sounding music .
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CM : At one point in the book , describing your first EP , you say , “ My verses on the EP are claustrophobically cluttered , self-indulgent , and way too clever for their own good . I had not yet developed a consistent musical identity and instead pushed a vaguely political , morally authoritative stance that was based on pretty much nothing .” It sounds like everything you were going for on that EP you eventually perfected on last year ’ s politically-charged Parallel World , which won the Polaris Music Prize . Given the early 2000s was the height of commercial rap ’ s preoccupation with flaunting money and could be very superficial , where did your political consciousness come from as a teenager ?
Pemberton : Well , you say that was an apex for commercial rap , but it was also a big time for underground rap . That ’ s what I was listening to at that time . So , that means they had a really leftist stance , mostly . I was listening to Sage Francis and stuff . All these artists who were , I would say , moralistic . There was this strong moral character to a lot of the rhymes and I felt like I related to that . I think , also , just politically , when I was in school , I was in Amnesty International , I was going to protests in the Mall of America , watching a livestream of Mumia Abu-Jamal from jail in like 2005 . So , I ’ ve always felt politically engaged from an early age . It doesn ’ t even really come from my family . It ’ s just what I gravitated to as a young person .
CM : After leaving Upper Class , you stayed self-managed up until October 2021 ,
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Pemberton : Well , at the time it was a conscious decision , because I didn ’ t trust anyone . I didn ’ t trust anyone to have my best interests in mind and I just really wanted to take control of my career and every aspect of it . That way , the only person I could blame would be myself . And so , once I started doing it , I was starting to see results , and people were responding to what I was doing and I was able to book my own shows . It was really nice feeling because I learned that I was capable of more than I thought I was . At first , I think it ’ s a common thing for artists to kind of settle into this thing . It ’ s like , “ Well , I just make the music . I don ’ t really know anything about the industry or the other stuff .” But the more I learned , and the more that I took on , the more empowered I felt . So , I just kept going with that .
Eventually I started delegating stuff , like getting a booking agent . I got to a point where I was burning out . I got to a point where it was just like every waking moment of my day , I was doing something for my career , and it was not healthy . Also , I think the DIY ethos , I feel like sometimes you can do it to a certain extent . But there are certain things that people can do better than you . Like , I ’ m not a videographer , so I don ’ t make my own videos because it takes me 10 times as long to do it than somebody who ’ s a professional . Or a booking agent can negotiate with promoters better than I can . You know , there ’ s just certain things that I had to learn . So , for me , getting a manager , it was just like , “ Is this somebody who can help me get to another level ? Is this somebody who can facilitate things that I find challenging or stressful ? Is this somebody that I can trust to translate my vision ?”
So , I realized I really like John a lot , and I really like Kelp Management . I like working with them . I like working with people who have ideas that I don ’ t have . I like people who will come up with their own ideas . I like people who bring things to me , and that ’ s the situation I have now . So , I ’ m pretty happy about it …
I think , especially now with TikTok and the way social media is becoming , you can do so much yourself . You really want to build up your own platform as much as you possibly can , because that ’ s something that you can take with you everywhere . You know me , I ’ m a really independent person , I ’ m an independent thinker , and I feel like everything you can do as independently as
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40 CANADIAN MUSICIAN |