shad

MC Shad, lyricist from Rwanda via Canada, Master’s student and AfriPOP star is our new Hip-hop hope

For almost the entire final quarter of 2008 I wondered what had gotten into me. I’d spent the majority of that year ignoring rap music. My favourite Hip-hop album was the most non-rap one out there. It was also the most hated. And I understood why: Auto tune is wrong, Kanye is no singer, how could he so unfairly put his ex-girl on blast etc etc etc But Love Lockdown will never not be the jam for me, and also, Young Jeezy is an absolute monster on Amazing. Never dreamed I’d say such a thing with any conviction.

Thank God for Shadrach Kabango. On his Myspace page he blogged about his own best-of-2008 awards. Apparently, 808’s and Heartbreak did it for him too. Therein my affirmation.

Especially as I come up even more on this MC Shad, a Vancouver-based Hip-hop artist whose Rwandese parents are from the Tutsi tribe, 800 000 of whom were massacred in the 100-day genocide which began 15 years ago this month. Among them were his direct relations: the father, sister and brother of his mom, retired lab technician Bernadette Kabango. She delivers her personal account in devastating detail in I’ll Never Understand, a poem on which Shad bases a song from his first album When This is Over.

In glaring contrast is the leafy suburbia of London, Ontario where Shad was raised, developed a fancy for Claire Huxtable and got into rap. Listening to him you’ll hear strains of Common, whom he cites as an influence. The Old Prince is his most recent album. And on it, the single The Old Prince Still Lives at Home is more than just a spoof of the opening theme for the sitcom ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’; it’s a metaphor for personal growth. You see, princes aren’t meant to grow old, they’re supposed to mature into kings with far-reaching dominion and their own castles.

So he’s serious but also self-deprecating.

For such a fierce freestyler, his attitude is surprisingly reluctant (“Cats say that he’s the illest cos he raps like it’s his hobby”) and at times even vulnerable (“right now my style’s somewhere between a playful quote and a lost child trying to pray for hope.”)

By the time I get to ‘Brother Watching’ (now my favourite song for three months), I’m open. The warmth of his sincerity thaws my icy indifference into a puddle around me and I realize I possibly could be bothered about rap music again. For now.


AfriPOP: How old were you when you moved to Canada?

Shad: Just a year old. I was born in Kenya and my older sister, who was born in Uganda, was 3.

AP: You ever go back to Africa?

Shad: Yup, I’ve been back to Rwanda about 4 times. Once we spent a bit of time in Uganda but I’ve never been back to Kenya. My folks only lived there for a year or 2 so we don’t have anyone to visit there. The extended fam is mostly in Rwanda. And now my folks live there with my little brother. They retired and moved home about a year and a half ago.

AP: Oh word? What made them come to Canada to begin with?

Shad: Well my parents never really had a country their whole lives. They were forced out of Rwanda when they were young. Which is why they lived in Kenya, U.G, Congo… always as refugees, never accepted or particularly safe. So they wanted my sister and I to have a home.

AP: How do they feel about their country now? Are they hopeful?

Shad: They’re hopeful. That’s why they’re there. They believe things can change and that they can contribute something to that change.

AP: And your little brother?

Shad: He’s 10 now. He was born here in Canada but his birth parents are from Burundi and Ethiopia. My parents adopted him 2 or 3 years ago.

AP: How come?

Shad: They had a relationship with a social worker because they had fostered a child before. They fostered my brother for a bit and then…felt like it was the right thing to do

AP: What’s it like when you go to Rwanda?

Shad: Now that my folks have a place there, it feels more like normal life cos we’re not bouncing from place to place and I’m not meeting everyone for the first time. So when I go back now, I have a bit of a relationship with some fam.

AP: How about the language thing? Can you speak Kinyarwanda?

Shad: The language thing is harder with the older generation. I only speak the basics. But I speak French and English and most people there speak one or the other.

AP: Fluent French?

Shad: Yup

AP: To rap in even?

Shad: (Laughs) I could but it wouldn’t be so good. It takes beyond just being comfortable in conversation. You gotta know the common language as well as the formal language and understand the culture, and have practice playing with them together. I’m not there!

AP: Would you say you grew up listening to a wider range of music than your average kid from the hood?

Shad: Yeah definitely. We came up listening to everything.

AP: When and how did rap come in?

Shad: I wonder about that. I grew up listening to everything but I gravitated towards Hip-hop. Maybe subconsciously I connected with it because it was what people that looked like me were doing. I also didn’t play any instruments until later in high school. So it was a way for me to have fun with music when I was 16 or so.

AP: I notice you rap clean…

Shad: Word. That’s just how I talk. The opportunity to communicate through music, or even communication period I think is a serious responsibility is a serious responsibility because words are so powerful. They affect people deeply so I try to be responsible with that.

AP: What are you studying?

Shad: A masters in liberal studies – mostly literature and philosophy. Very fun, very unemployable…

It’s something for me to work on when I’m not on tour. Also just to develop personally, intellectually, creatively…

AP: In one of your songs I almost sense that you wish to keep making music and making money separate?

Shad: Well, don’t get me wrong. I really like making a living from music, but I don’t want to ever make music for money if that makes sense. Having other options helps me be able to do that.

AP: Like what?

Shad: I dunno, I have a business degree. I have a bit of interest in teaching. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing right now than this and I’m grateful for the opportunity. But if it comes down to just trying to pay the bills, I’d rather do something other than music for that. I’d rather not mess up something I love. But who knows what’s in the future.

AP: Do you “still live at home”?

Shad: I’m not the person I hope to be yet. Still on the journey!

US heads can catch Shad on the VANS Warped Tour this summer.