"DANCEHALL QUEEN." TIFFANY ALEXIS, MONTRÉAL, QC, CANADA, 4 OCTOBER 2016.
"For my friends? I play my dancehall playlist. Busy Signal's "Hey Girl" — that is like my 2009 joint that carries me through life."
Tiffany Alexis. Photo by Joshua Telfer.
IT ALL STARTED WHEN...
How the lovely couple, Tiffany and MC Cee (aka Craig Thorn), came into my life is a funny story, and if you know my family, not a surprising one.
So my Mom frequents the Toronto Apple store where Craig happened to work at the time, and one day chats him up, as she often does with friendly strangers (was it the charming Aussie accent? Who can say?). Momma Tyson finds out Craig is a talented, ascendant MC, and mentions she has a daughter living in Montréal who runs a hip-hop monthly. Craig and Tiff had designs on La Belle Province, and so when they moved to town a few months later, I invited them to check out Hip Hop Karaoke at Le Belmont.
(Yes, I did just search through my inbox and found an email from Mom with the subject "Fellow hip hop artist in TO.")
I've met Craig twice at the Apple store over the last two weeks. His Mac knowledge was great as I'm upgrading my OS and other stuff. One thing led to another and I found out that he and his girlfriend are moving to YUL in July (to attend McGill in the fall) he is also into hip hop. Check out his site: WWW.THEMOVEMENTFAM.COM
I know that you and Patrick will be gone, but hope that you can give him some good contacts for both school and music. He was extremely helpful to me so I thought that I would "pay it forward" Hey, he may have a contact for you in SFO!!™
Love, Mom
It's 26C today!!
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network
Fast forward a couple years later, and with a move to California on the horizon, the community we had built up around HHKMTL over the years wanted to know what was next for the event. We knew that Tiff and Cee would be the right stewards to pass on the torch and they have truly built it into an incredible thing over the years, all the while balancing their full-time gigs and personal passion projects. To describe these two as a power couple would be an understatement.
What's your passion/hustle/profession?
Tiff: I'm a managing partner at High Season, a digital creative agency where we handle social media and marketing services, and we manage artists. The three artists we currently represent are Canadian-based Cee and Notion out of Australia, and Jonathan Emile out of Montréal/Jamaica (he's fantastic at reggae). My passion within that is to amplify brands — whether that be artists or businesses — in the digital space.
Craig: I'm primarily an MC and now a craft beer podcaster/blogger. I don't know if entrepreneur is the right word necessarily (I feel it's a bit wanky), but I guess I am one since we own High Season together, where I do social media strategy and artist management.
What kind of music helps you focus at work?
T: I listen to eclectic soul. I'm a big Soulection fan, that's life for me. I pretty much only — that's what I work to, or I make playlists that pretty much feature the artists that I discover through Soulection — or that Joe Kay discovers. So I listen to Future Beats. Eclectic Soul. Forgotten Gems. Timeless Sounds.
C: Work is Soulection as well, or I guess the Future Beats. There's another dude in the UK called Complexion, it's the same stuff as Soulection. He has another 2-3 hour radio show so we just run those while we're working.
When you’re winding down?
T: Soulection for everything! Haha.
C: Same thing, same type of style.
Working out?
T: Dancehall. I would say Spice right now has me. She has a track right now called "So Mi Like It" and that's always a good time. But Spice has me right now because she reminds me of Lady Saw back in the day, when she was this gangster dancehall queen coming out, which makes me really happy.
C: I usually just listen to new music, like stuff I haven't had time to really soak up. If there's a new album, like the last thing I listened to was the new Mac Miller album, even though it's not really appropriate. I'm not usually a big fan, but that was super cool. I feel that if you've got the headphones on, at the gym there's no distractions. You're not doing anything else so you can just focus on that. I find it's a great way to soak up the new stuff.
Cooking?
T: Soulection.
C: Soulection.
Kickin’ it with friends?
T: Me and my friends, we all listen to dancehall music.
C: We would probably put on hip-hop, a mix of stuff whether it's the newer school or the 90s stuff, trap — not the ignorant stuff completely but the new sound — whatever, a bit of everything. We'd put on G-Eazy because he's not ignorant, or at least he's a "fun" kind of ignorant.
What’s your most memorable musical moment? This could be a live show or festival that really stuck with you, meeting a music icon, etc.
T: This was really tough to choose because I had three, but I'm just going to say the Forest Hill Drive tour in Montréal. That was last year, I think last year September (and I never remember dates). But that's how amazing it was, J Cole was incredible. I feel like I've never had such a connection to an artist. And I felt like I was just -- I wasn't even using my phone. Like I wasn't Snapchatting, I wasn't Instagramming, I wasn't doing anything, I was so focused on J Cole. I felt like he built such a great connection with his audience no matter how large the stadium is or how small. Which makes me really sad since he said he's not really going to be performing anymore, or that he's having his last performance for a long time.
C: Mine was, I met Aaliyah on December 4th, 2000, in Melbourne. She was shooting Queen of the Damned, right before her death (August 26th, 2001). I met her at a club, briefly, got her to sign the back of a business card, which I have laminated back home. What did she write? She just wrote her name. And she was sort of there, standing on the stage where you could dance on the stage and she was there with her brother, who looks a lot like her and he's got trippy eyes. I remember I touched her elbow. And then I got a pen from the bartender and just said, "could you sign it?" I then I kinda sent shit off because someone behind me asked for the pen, so I probably fucked her night up. It was a club, a full on club, she wasn't in a VIP section. You know, it was Melbourne so they're like really behind, I don't know. I should've got a photo. But there were no camera phones lying around, nobody was carrying a camera in their pockets then.
Favourite love song? Slow jam? Between the sheets track?
T: Mine is not a love song. I'm very big into the sad love songs. So mine is "Be With You" by Mary J Blige. I'm a big Mary J Blige fan and I love her when she's in pain, she's at her best. But not when she's interview-singing to Hillary Clinton [laughs]. I don't know who her management is, I don't know what's happening, really. She had the Chick-Fil-A incident and now this singing into Hillary Clinton’s eyes, it's just getting really weird. But I love her nonetheless.
C: "Brown Sugar" by D'Angelo. That's the joint. Voodoo definitely is a whole between the sheets album right there.
You need to hype up the crowd at a house party real quick. What do you put on next?
T: For my friends? I play my dancehall playlist, which I play on Spotify. Busy Signal's "Hey Girl" — that is like my 2009 joint that carries me through life.
C: Mine would be "You Got Me" by G-Eazy. That always seems to go off. I feel like he's not that big in Canada, because he's from San Francisco. He's definitely more regional, but he's still pretty big.
If you were stranded on a desert island with only one album, which would it be?
T: Frank Ocean. channel ORANGE, The Island Def Jam Music Group, 2012.
C: Kanye West. College Dropout, Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC, 2004.
Dinner with any artist, dead or alive. They're paying. Whom do you choose?
T: Honestly, it's straight up Kanye West just because he's crazy and I need to understand what's going on. Not with Kim. I need Kanye one-on-one time to understand what's going on. Untainted.
C: I was going to say Kanye, but I'm going to go with Erykah Badu. What would I ask her? I kinda just want to listen to her talk. I feel like she would be the type to just say stuff. You'd kinda just pepper in, ask her the occasional thing and point her in different directions. I haven't really thought about it but I feel like she would just say cool stuff and you would be just fascinated.
Best format? Cassette tape, CD, iPod, Vinyl, etc.
T: If I had an actual turntable I'd be listening to vinyl. I listened to Sade on vinyl at our neighbour's house and, oh my gosh, I think we listened to Amy [Winehouse] and it was incredible. I guess I'm just a digital music person because I'm a streamer. I stream like cray.
C: I wish we had a turntable. I've got a bunch in Australia still, and I've got three D'Angelo records here on the wall. They look cool and they are unopened, sealed, in the plastic, but I just can't listen to them cause we don't have any turntables here. I like the iPod, I feel like downloading is dying but I really find that convenient. Though now the gym has WiFi and we've got that Premium Spotify stuff now so we've got free streaming. I'll stick with the iPod for a little while longer. I think it's got a little bit more legs.
T: You know what really got me with the streaming services? It's the playlist. That's what it is. I love that curation.
I hear you. You want to pick a few tracks but you don't want to pick the whole thing. Or maybe you just want to be surprised by someone whose taste you think is pretty good.
T: Exactly, that's actually what it is. Like that Alt R&B playlist, I've found so many artists I love from that.
It's just like, you know, back in the day when we actually listened to the radio, you had a DJ who chose the tracks for you?
T: Exactly, and I used to record them on a cassette tape.
Yeah, I hear you. You're just standing there and pressing the button, then you stop it, rewind a little bit, and then go again. Bootleg cassette tapes off the radio.
T: Yeah.
What’s the most prized album/mixtape/musical memento you own? Your home is on fire and this is the only thing you can grab before it all burns down. (Sorry, that one’s grim.)
T: There's this gorgeous canvas of Erykah Badu that we have in our living room, and it's one of three, and Craig bought it off of a kid in Australia. It's fantastic, it's beautiful. I would grab it off the wall in a heartbeat. Even if the fire was edging by my foot I would make sure to save it. Even when we were moving, it was the most precious thing, like "how is Erykah Badu doing?" It's just a gorgeous canvas, the kid is crazy talented.
C: We have a record label that's called The Movement Fam. I had the logo tattooed about a decade ago, in 2009. I have the original sketch that the tattoo artist made framed on the wall. I reckon that would be pretty important to grab.
Merçi, Craig & Tiff!
"DANCEHALL QUEEN" TRACK LISTING
- Spice. "So Mi Like It." So Mi Like It, VP Music Group, Inc, 2014.
- Busy Signal. "Hey Girl." Loaded, VP Records, 2008.
- Frank Ocean, Earl Sweatshirt. "Super Rich Kids (Album Version)." channel ORANGE, The Island Def Jam Music Group, 2012.
- Mary J. Blige. "Be With You." My Life, MCA Records Inc., 1994.
- Sade. "The Sweetest Taboo." The Best of Sade, Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited, 1994.
- Frank Ocean. "Sweet Life (Album Version)." channel ORANGE, The Island Def Jam Music Group, 2012.
- Amy Winehouse. "Mr. Magic (Through The Smoke)." Frank, Universal Island Records Ltd. A Universal Music Company., 2003.
- Kanye West, Rick Ross. "Devil In A New Dress." My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC, 2010.
- Jorja Smith. "Blue Lights." Blue Lights, FAMM, 2016.
- SPZRKT. "Drown." Bonfire, STRT TRBL Music, 2014.
- The Weeknd. "Montreal." Trilogy, XO&co., Inc., 2012.
- JMSN. "Cruel Intentions." It is., White Room Records, 2016.
- Frank Ocean, Andre 3000. "Pink Matter." channel ORANGE, The Island Def Jam Music Group, 2012.
Cee. Photo by Joshua Telfer.