Rapper’s delight

M-Kaps’ new album reads like the new Wikipedia entry of Canadian hip hop

Supplied

Local hip hop artist M-Kaps unveils his sophomore full length, Another Day, Another Sodoku on Saturday at the Park Theatre. The MC started getting into hip-hop as a teenager a decade ago, but things didn’t get serious until 2009 when he released the Supremium EP, a collection of tracks he had been working on during the five years prior.

“I went away to school for audio engineering and recorded (Supremium) when I was out there,” he says. “That led to K-A-P-Supreme because it’s all the same songs, plus a couple new ones.”

M-Kaps says he started recording Sudoku back in 2012, mostly at Winnipeg’s Studio 11. He says he was influenced by The Roots and Shad during the recording process.

“If you listen to a lot of hip-hop, you can probably tell that there’s a lot of early Lupe Fiasco on the first record and now I’ve phased out of that,” he says. “The content is similar, but the style of how I get it out is different.”

On Another Day, Another Soduku, M-Kaps had the opportunity to work with different producers instead of working exclusively with the Happy Unfortunate’s DJ Envoy, which he did on his previous recordings.

One of his favourite tracks, “Cruel Without Knowing”, contains a beat provided by Muneshine, a Toronto-based rapper who’s known for his Juno-nominated work with D-Sisive. 

“When I got it back from mixing and mastering, that was the best I ever felt about a song. It came out exactly how I wanted it to,” M-Kaps says. “It’s one of the more candid songs on the record, in terms of being honest, being real.”

Ghettosocks – one of M-Kaps favourite Canadian rappers – makes an appearance on the song “Half Truths”.

“I actually met him when he came through on his Train of Thought tour,” M-Kaps says. “The Happy Unfortunate opened up the show and I’m featured on one of their songs so I got to perform. I had already locked down Muneshine and (Toronto producer) Fresh Kils for production so having that common link between us, it was definitely a good icebreaker.”

More or Les is another Canadian emcee who makes an appearance on “Half Truths”.

“If I’m in my car, his work just makes me want to pull over and think of rhymes,” M-Kaps says. “I think he really brought it on that track. I don’t know if he wanted to compete with my verse, but when he sent his back to me, I almost thought I’d have to rewrite my verse, just to keep it at a par level.”

Published in Volume 68, Number 2 of The Uniter (September 11, 2013)

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