Artist Of The Week - Seazon

Seazon is an MC who is instantly recognizable to the majority of Canada thanks to his stint as host of MuchMusic’s Rap City. He actually won his way into the job via a nationwide battle called The MuchMusic Temp Contest. Along with the gig at MuchMusic Seazon also earned $25,000 towards a car, $5,000 spending money and an apartment. After selling the car to gain the necessary funds to release his music, Seazon started pushing even harder for his career to jump off and being associated with MuchMusic, which is the Canadian equivalent of MTV, was a huge boost. He received airplay for his first video, “One By One,” on the network, but he’d eventually leave his post there to pursue rap full time, deciding to live by the mantra “never had a plan B / this is all I ever planned to be.” He left with all his contacts fully intact and a healthy knowledge of how the world of music television works. Recently Seazon’s latest single, “The Reporter,” a witty take on world events, impacted radio, and today I’m sitting down with him to discuss the song, his much talked about live shows, and the goals he has for his music.

Adam Bernard: Why did you choose emceeing as a way to get your message across?
Seazon: Because I couldn’t sing, to keep it completely real. But nah, I don’t even know why I chose it, I don’t even think I chose it, it kind of chose me, I kind of ended up doing it before I even knew what I was doing. In hindsight Hip-Hop was just the easiest form of expression for me, it was natural for me and I was really good at rhyming words so it just came easily and I learned how to express myself through Hip-Hop. The way Hip-Hop is structured, even compared to something like R&B, because of the way it’s so condensed it really does allow you to express yourself in a lot more detail as opposed to an R&B song which is mainly melody, and the amount of lyrics in an R&B song compared to a Hip-Hop one is just so minimal.

Adam Bernard: You recently released the single “The Reporter,” which documents a lot of society’s ills. Society is a pretty messed up place, how did you decide which aspects of it you wanted to tackle?
Seazon: It was interesting because with that song there were a lot of lyrics I kind of had to cut out. My aim was to try and talk about society’s ills, shed some light on some things you don’t really hear in Hip-Hop but at the same time entertain you and not be too heavy, just make it a bit light, make it funny, add a little sarcasm in it. Through that song I sort of got labeled, in a way, as a conscious rapper, and personally I hate the term conscious rapper and I think where a lot of “conscious” rappers go wrong is they have a strong message but it’s so strong and opinionated it’s only preaching to the converted, whereas this song, especially with the video where I get dressed up like a white dude and do a little sketch comedy, it’s trying to crush the medicine in the ice cream in a way, and that’s kind of how I approach my music in general. I’m a message driven dude, not every song has a crazy message, but I do try and say something and when I do that I want to say it in a way where it appeals to the people who might need to hear it the most. That’s why I love a 2Pac, because he had his messages but he still had his bullshit songs and that’s what got him the fan base that he had, so when he did stuff like “Brenda’s Got A Baby,” “Dear Mama,” “Keep Ya Head Up,” it reached the people who needed to hear it. That’s the kind of philosophy I tried to take on with writing “The Reporter.”

Adam Bernard: I’m glad you mentioned the video because it’s pretty impressive. I know it’s online, but what other avenues are you exploring to get it out there? Are the doors MuchMusic still open for you?
Seazon: Oh yeah, it got added to MuchMusic in April. I’m just getting it out there any way possible. My manager is real good with entering the video into internet competitions. We won one, a Music Nation competition. Any way I can to get exposure I’m going to take advantage of, whether it’s through the MySpace or the YouTube, any way possible, even if it’s public access television, because the reality of it is I’m an independent artist and certain things aren’t accessible to me. Everyone has that dream of wanting to get it on BET or MTV or whatever but the reality is you really need to get your money up and you need to have product and you need to have a reason for them to play it and a lot of that shit is label politics and stuff, so me being independent I just have to work different angles, get my rep up.

Adam Bernard: Part of your rep has a lot to do with your live performances and I know you put a little something extra into each one. Describe what seeing Seazon in concert is like?
Seazon: It’s always something new, that’s a definite. In Toronto I’m really known as that dude who has the crazy conceptual live shows. You might see me come on stage being carried in a coffin, or doing army sets, real thematic kind of shows, just to try and do something different. I came up watching shows and they were straight wack where you’d have dudes with a water bottle and a towel pacing back and forth just rapping and to me that’s not a show. I watch people like Busta Rhymes and I’m like OK that’s a show! But the vast majority of rappers these days don’t really have an entertaining show put together. Shows are really the only way you make your money these days so you gotta step that up. I also just did a tour a little while ago called The Barber Shop Show, that was a conceptual showcase revolving around your local urban barber shop where we had a barber’s chair on stage and a host who was the resident barber and different artists came in and out talking to the barber and the host would facilitate conversation and segue into the artists’ songs. Things like that where it’s just taking it a step further, something to definitely make you remember the shit and just have some fun with it at the same time.

Adam Bernard: Sounds dope. One last question; what do you hope to accomplish through your work?
Seazon: Really I’m just trying to get my music out on the biggest level I possibly can. I’m not trying to say that I’m that typical artist that’s just looking for a record deal and I think that’s the end all to everything, I know that is just the beginning, but mainly I’m trying to really just get my message out because I feel like I’m a messenger in a lot of ways. I have an abundance of songs and all of them have their messages hidden in them that I feel need to be heard. I feel I can definitely fill a void in the music industry right now in terms of just substance, content, that kind of stuff, so I’m really trying to get it on to the biggest platform possible, if that means releasing a couple things independently and leveraging things to try and get a bit more exposure, a bit more money behind me, I’m down for doing that. In the meantime I produce all my music and I’m always trying to produce for other people, I’m doing some ghostwriting, ghost production, just trying to get my money up any possible because that’s just the way the industry is. Any way I can get my foot in the door I’ma try and do that.

For more Seazon check out myspace.com/seazon.