Video: Wasiu – “Bout 02 Blow” (Prod. by V X N Y L)

Premiered by Noisey, the 24 Year-Old Montreal Rapper Invades the Underground With His Crew In Intense Visual For “Bout 02 Blow”

04.30.2015

Critical Praise for Wasiu:

“Wasiu is the hip-hop voice of Montreal.” – i-D

“The young Montreal rapper has been working steadily to make a name for himself and it looks like he’s on the right track.” – Pigeons & Planes

“Wasiu is another one to look out for this year.” – Complex

“Many rappers twice his age would be wise to take notes…” – Okayplayer

“Wasiu is pretty much the embodiment of Montreal’s cultural shift.” – Noisey

“Wasiu has exhibited a desire to creatively tackle a variety of topics, and he raps about them in a way that proves he’s a more-than-formidable emcee.” – HYPETRAK

The Video:

Shedding light on the issues of racism and media coverage of minorities in North America, Wasiu and his crew invade the Montreal underground and in an intense visual for “Bout 02 Blow.” In the video, which premiered via Noisey, Wasiu covers himself with a Haitian flag while laying down his forceful, clever rhymes over the harrowing beat by V X N Y L. “People were scared. They were staring. They were giving us attention. We had the power,” he explains. “Bout 02 Blow” is Wasiu’s latest track from his yet-to-be-titled debut album.

“When I say ‘Bout 02 Blow’ I’m talking about a couple things,” Wasiu explained to Noisey. “I’m about to blow up in the rap game, I’m about to explode in a blind fury because I’m not getting the props I deserve, and I’m about to blow, like a terrorist. And when I say terrorist I’m referring to the way media builds this fearful image of Blacks, Muslims, and minorities, and it gets fed into the minds of the masses. But what we as people don’t realize is that this also empowers us and we just have to realize what we possess.”

The 24 year-old rapper is putting his city on hip-hop’s radar with visceral, aggressive, in-your-face music that speaks on both optimistic and pessimistic perspectives of human themes. In their premiere post of “Many Dreams,” i-D hailed Wasiu “the hip-hop voice of Montreal.” “My music is empowerment, and defeat. It’s the whole spectrum,” he explains. “My music is a reflection of the human experience and condition, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the ugliness behind what’s beautiful, the beauty behind what’s ugly, or just the duality nature of the universe.”

Watch “Bout 02 Blow”: https://youtu.be/PAVLFO8_qe4

Check out the Noisey premiere: http://noisey.vice.com/en_ca/blog/premiere-wasiu-bout-02-blow-video-2015

Listen to “Bout 02 Blow”: https://soundcloud.com/w-a-s-i-u/bout02blow/

Please contact Michelle or Rory if interested in talking with Wasiu.

Wasiu Background:

For Wasiu, being a pariah has always been a constant. A child of divorce from a Nigerian Muslim father and Haitian Protestant-Christian mother, he was torn between worlds, seen by both communities as impure, and a “mixed breed”—not entirely Haitian, not quite Nigerian. Even though he’s Québecois (a Québec native), his immigrant parents tainted his claim to the province. Raised by his mother after his father moved to Toronto, he felt obliged to fit in with her side of the family. Resentments towards his father’s beliefs and culture led him to drop his father-given middle name—Wasiu—so that he wouldn’t be teased in his predominantly white school, where he battled black stereotypes by pushing his intellect past expectations.

”I wanted to fit in and didn’t want to feel like a stereotype, so I’d force myself to excel but make it seem like it was no sweat,” he says, “In a sense, I was assimilating myself to white Christian standards, and dropped my middle name to evade humiliation. That same name now is the one I use to represent myself, and it empowers my blackness due to its African origins.”

Overcoming adversity and using those lessons as lyrical fuel is Wasiu’s strongest suit. He is preparing his debut album which funnels his life experiences into a culturally defining opus that balances both optimistic and pessimistic perspectives on human themes. “I’m showing what people view as both the good and the bad,” he says, “and how without the bad, you can’t have the good, and so you start to appreciate the bad… for the good.”