By Ariel Vogn-Bento
APPEARING TOMORROW NIGHT @
RED BULL SOUND SELECT PRESENTS: MANIFESTO w/ ISAIAH RASHAD,
TASHA THE AMAZON, TRE MISSION & DILLANPONDERS
REVIVAL, 783 COLLEGE ST. SEPTEMBER 17, 2014
“I don’t feel like ‘the chick’ in the room. I feel that if you wear that on your sleeve and you’re all about being the female producer then that’s what you’re going to be.”
Tasha The Amazon has pounced on the Toronto hip-hop scene. With new school rap mixed with tribal and dancehall influences, the raw sound of her debut album, FidiYootDem makes you want to blast her tracks in what ever type of whip you have with the windows down and cruise through the streets. Tasha raps confidently and unflinchingly about the party life with humour in her poetic flow. Ahead of performing at the Red Bull Sound Select x Manifesto event at Revival (783 College St.) alongside DillanPonders, Tre Mission and TDE’s Isaiah Rashad (RSVP here https://www.redbullsoundselect.com/events/2014/09/red-bull-sound-select-presents-toronto), Tasha spoke with Manifesto about her sound fusion, affinity for wild animals and being a producer in Toronto’s hip-hop scene.
MNFSTO: Your music is very unique; do you see yourself creating your own type of rap genre?
TASHA THE AMAZON: I think the stuff that [myself and production partner Danthrax] listen to is the stuff that’s on the cutting edge. I mean, I think what we do is different — but all the stuff that’s coming up right now that isn’t on the radar yet — allthe blogs are just picking up on it. I think everyone kind of has more room to do what they want with their music. Diehard hip-hop fans could just as well listen to my Tasha the Amazon track like anything else that’s coming out right now. I think maybe it’s like everything mixed within and kinda of having a lot of different cultures. Listening to a lot of different music definitely makes [the music] come out the way that it does.
MNFSTO: Creatively where has your passion for your music come from?
TASHA THE AMAZON: It’s hard to say. I mean, just living in the world doing stuff. I have a lot of interests, I do a lot of things with my circle of friends, like partying, a lot traveling and reading a lot.
MNFSTO: Have you always traveled a lot?
TASHA THE AMAZON: I didn’t travel a lot when I was a kid; I was raised by my grandparents. But as soon as I moved out, traveling has always been a priority for me. I’ve been to Europe a couple times. I’ve been all over the States and all over Canada. When I travel I don’t do the tourist thing, I go to one place and try to sink in
among whoever lives there as fast as possible and try to live the way the locals do. So I think you pick up a lot more worldliness when you do it that way.
MNFSTO: I noticed in your Cry of the Warrior video you went to Florida to shoot. Tell me about that.
TASHA THE AMAZON: We kind of were sitting around like, ‘What can we do next that’s cool.’ We like to shoot videos that aren’t crazy big budgets but they [have to] feel real… but not just hanging on the block doing your thing. So we had the idea of going to the Everglades and shot in the wild with these gators that are out there [chuckles]. It was simultaneously scary and awesome. We have a really tight crew of people and we’re all just on the same page creatively. There’s Danthrax who co-produces with me, Erikson our manager — he’s one of my best friends — and Colin Cooper who does the visuals and videos. We’ll just sit down and mash heads until something really cool comes up. So, it’s a collaborative effort. We shot with a Bengal tiger [for a new video]. I’m pretty psyched for that video to come out.
MNFSTO: What’s your fascination with wild animals?
TASHA THE AMAZON: Its weird…it’s not something that I consciously chose. I’ll make the music and then visually ideas come to me, I don’t know what it is, it must be the dancehall, kind of tribal elements that we put in the production. It just seems to fit and I think a lot of rap is about shooting [videos] downtown in an alleyway with
graffiti. We were thinking downtown is where we live and hang out, but how can we bring something else to it. A big part of that is bringing that wild, unhinged nature to the urban environment. It looks the way it sounds.
MNFSTO: How do you feel being a woman in the Toronto Hip-hop scene?
TASHA THE AMAZON: I’ve been a producer for a long time, and for me in general more than half of my friends are guys and it’s never been something that specifically sets me apart or anything. I don’t feel like ‘the chick’ in the room. I feel that if you wear that on your sleeve and you’re all about being the female producer then that’s
what you’re going to be. But if you just focus on making good music and being who you are, it’s not an issue for me or my friends or anybody I work with in the industry.
MNFSTO: What’s after ManifesTO?
TASHA THE AMAZON: I’ve been doing a lot of writing and trying to make some collaborations happen. Me and Tre Mission have been talking for a while [about] doing a collab track. I’m working on the next mixtape or album or whatever the hell it’s gonna be and it will be out sometime next year. And that’s just taking shape in the studio right now.
MNFSTO: If they don’t know you already, what do you want the people of Toronto to know about you?
TASHA THE AMAZON: It’s hard to put in words, because as a musician I kind of show through my music what I’m about. The best thing that new people could do is to download the mixtape and listen to it. All of me is in there.
