March was month that kept Toronto full of excitement with some very stylish celebrity sightings. Sway gives you the rundown of our most fashionable favourites.

The ladies represented in style at this year’s 2011 Juno Awards. Supermodel Chanel Iman donned a DSquared number while Melanie Fiona and Tre Armstrong rocked the red carpet in earth tones, and Keisha Chante had heads turning in her frothy white gown.

The men keep things sharp and sophisticated as Juno’s host and international superstar Drake looked dapper in a finely tailored suit. Rapper Boi-1da  looked clean-cut in contrasting neutrals and K’Naan served up edge in a leather motorcycle jacket.

During the fashion week festivities musical artist Sean Jones was spotted modelling for Penicullus Bellum. Celebrity stylist June Ambrose keep “the tents” abuzz at LG Fashion Week during Jay Manuel’s Attitude runway show, and actor Samuel L. Jackson keep up the excitement by making an appearance at the Klaxon Howl presentation.

Special thanks to junoawards.ca for the images.

Penicullus Bellum Images courtesy of Magnet Creative.

June Ambrose picture spotted at GeekyChic.ca and Samuel L. Jackson photo spotted at Actor Guru.com.

Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter

By Erica Phillips

“Fifty years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to stay at the same hotel at the same restaurants, drink at the same fountains,” Troy Carter said. Today, Carter and his biggest client, Lady Gaga, do all that without a blink.

Carter, the founder, chair and CEO of Coalition Media Group, a talent management and service production established in 2007, was in Toronto recently for Canadian Music Week. He is aware of the contrasts, being a black man, managing Lady Gaga, and that 10 to 15 years ago, this partnership would not have been so likely. “People don’t expect a young black man to manage a white artist,” Carter told a packed hall at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

That’s the beauty of being in the music industry. Music breaks down so many barriers across the board. He says watching his children play, it “looks like a Benetton ad.”  They’re into Drake, MGMT, and others, a really eclectic mix, The California-based Carter said it’s really cool what’s happening in music right now.

Internet music also breaks down all barriers; you can become an international artist from day one. “So many barriers are broken just from the digital age,” he adds.

A large part of Gaga’s appeal is in the LGBT population, however, Carter said at the end of the day it’s about human rights, civil rights—and gay rights falls under that.

Carter, who is from Philadelphia, started his career working with Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbook Entertainment. He has worked with a variety of artists, including the Notorious B.I.G. and Sean “Diddy” Combs and Eve.

He spoke primarily about Lady Gaga, who he started working with a few years ago. She broke in Canada and Australia first. Her debut album, The Fame was released in Canada in 2008, six months before being released in the U.S. “Canada is the music industry’s best kept secret. What you have here is amazing. Keep taking chances,” Carter said.

As a manager, he is only as good as his client. She has the ideas, but Carter’s job is to harness and execute those ideas, make sure the partners are inspired, and that they have the right information to help manage her as a person.  “There’s a tremendous editing process,” Carter said.

Furthermore he still has to do artist development, you can’t forget about the basics. There’s a real partnership with an artist; she understands what we do,” Carter said.

He’d like Gaga to be recognized for her songwriting in the next few years. She writes when she is inspired and that could be anywhere, her dressing room, before going on stage; new technologies allow her to do that; when Carter’s on the road with her, he can hear her writing.

Carter has turned down artists, potential clients. As a manager it’s important for him to be fair to the artist and to himself.

The future of female rap is calling from the beauty salon where she’s primping for interviews amidst the flurry of activity surrounding her biggest gig to date — a spot opening for Outkast rapper Big Boi at Toronto’s The Guvernment entertainment complex this past November. The future’s name is Reema Major. She is all of 15-years-old and enjoying the heaviest hype for a Canadian urban act since Drake.

Poised and upbeat, Major confesses she’s not at all sure how the show came together, noting that like much in her meteoric rise, it’s all due to the grace of God. And some canny hustle on the part of her manager and producer Kwajo Cinqo, who has been around the block a time or two as a member of Ghetto Concept. Cinqo was the initial link to Gene Simmons, which in turn led to Major’s current signee status with G7/Universal/Interscope. But we’ll get to that.

It’s all a long way from a jail cell in Khartoum, where the Sudanese native was born. Major says her jail cell birth was the result of a mistake on the part of the authorities, and her parents were released. But the sheer terror of the error wasn’t lost on the family and they left Sudan to embark on a trek that would see the young Major live in Kenya and Uganda before landing in Windsor, Ont. in 1998.

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Reema Major – 15 going on 25

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Musically, Major broke through on the strength of her mixtapes and that continues to be the strategy. Currently, she’s simultaneously at work on a mixtape and her debut album. She reveals that sessions are going very well but hesitates to name drop any collaborators, stressing that Cinqo continues to contribute the majority of the beats.

As befitting her rapping roots in freestyle, she’s fierce as a lyricist, often demonstrating a worldly insight beyond her tender years. “When I’m freestyling, I don’t know what I’m going to say next,” she says. “Freestyling is completely in the moment and I love that. It’s what you do right there and then that counts.”

It was quite possibly that raw talent is what Kiss front man Gene Simmons saw when he met Major this past summer. “When Kwajo first told me Gene Simmons wanted to meet with me, I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ He’s a man of tremendous knowledge in the music business and he was just really supportive and easy to talk to. I was humbled that someone like Gene Simmons would think that I have ‘it’ — that thing you need to succeed.”

Up next in Major’s journey is her mixtape The One. But after that, the future’s all stardust. With so much up in the air, there’s no telling what she’ll be doing next. The likeliest thing is the full-length album release. “At this point, my music is all me,” she says. “I’m writing from my direct experiences, my ups, my downs, my hopes, dealing with my life. Writing is always how I have dealt with things. I only spit what I know.”

It’s no surprise she has a lot to say. Until 2009, Major split her time between Kansas City and Toronto, relocating to Toronto permanently as it has a more creative rap scene and a better launch pad for her success. Case in point, she was the youngest performer at this year’s prestigious urban music showcase Honey Jam, an annual Toronto event, and was the first Canadian female to participate in a hip-hop cypher at 2010’s BET Hip-Hop Awards.

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The line outside the venue, about four people wide and extending for a 100 or so meters, was visible as soon as you turned onto Polson Street.  Concertgoers huddled together in the stinging early winter air hours before the doors opened to see an artist who has yet to release an official album.  Pretty impressive.

The venue hosted a who’s who of Toronto hip-hop and media.  Attendees included Kardinal Offishal, 1LoveTO, Drake’s ATF /OVO crew, Hiphopcanada.com, Rochester, Hustlegrl and Stolen From Africa to name a few.  Inside the venue, there was palpable electricity as the audience grew increasingly excited for his arrival.

Young upstart and Toronto native Jahvon, label mate to Sean Kingston on J.R. Rotem’s Beluga Heights record company, opened the show to a lukewarm reception.  Producer and artist Rich Kidd followed with his signature high-energy baritone and call-and-response stage antics.  The Ghanaian native ended his set with his Jackson 5 sampling single “Take it Slow”, which sounds like a droopy eyed bedtime ode drowned in slurps of cough-medicine haze.  He shouted out all major areas in Toronto, paying special allegiance to Ridgeway (his hype man touted a Ridgeway street sign as he performed), before exiting for the headliner.

J. Cole, clad in a varsity jacket bearing his horns and a halo imprint and a patch with adjoined Canadian and American flags, wasted no time in launching his set.  From the outset he gave it his all.  He conveyed a commanding stage presence, crowd control, and that ill defined have-it-or-you-don’t aura or ‘swag’ as it’s referred to in hip hop.

The first half consisted of fan favorites from his second mixtape The Warm Up. Evidently still in shape from his basketball days, he exhibited excellent breath control when fiercely rhyming every nook and cranny of “Dead Presidents ll”, “Lights Please”, “Grown Simba”, “Last Call” and “Dollar and a Dream Pt 2” among other Warm Up cuts.  The crowd comfortably chimed along with him, further solidifying the fact that he has strong support in Toronto.

This 25-year-old college grad from Fayetteville, North Carolina, seemingly a regular guy, is a conduit for something else otherworldly when performing. First there is his tireless voice that betrays fury and earnest passion in equal measure.  Then there are the rapper intangibles – hand and body movements that define cool, accurately timed pauses and head nods to accentuate a rhyme, and a natural rapport with the crowd that builds as the show progresses.  In other words, the kid’s a star.  If you didn’t gather as much from listening to him, you will from seeing him live.

Not since our very own Drake Drizzy Rogers (nicknamed so because Lil Wayne initially thought it was his last name after receiving e-mails from Drake’s Rogers account) has an unsigned MC generated so much hoopla in this city.

Cole ripped through numbers from last month’s mixtape release Friday Night Lights – “Who Dat”, “Blow Up”, “You Got It”, “Higher” and the Drake assisted “In the Morning”.  As was expected the hometown hero came out to support the visitor to rapturous applause.  Drake’s appearance was understated, perhaps purposefully so.  He came out wearing a seemingly old dull green hoodie that he used to cover much of his head.  He stayed for a few minutes to perform his verse off of his own “Up All Night” before saluting the city and leaving.

As the show was closing Cole performed his guest verse on Jay-Z’s “A Star is Born” twice – first as a rendition with the keyboard then over the actual beat.  It was an apt closing.  If that night was any indication, it seems he will be in the public eye for a while to come.

Drake had actually been nominated for two Grammys at the show earlier this year, months prior to the release of his platinum-selling debut, “Thank Me Later”.  Thanks to a change in the requirements that allow previous nominees to be nominated for the award (but only if they did not win the award they were previously nominated for), he still finds  himself eligible for the Best New Artist award.

Go Drake, go!

On the surface, there’s nothing particularly captivating about Jermaine Lamarr Cole.  Stars are extra-ordinary.  They dress, speak, act and enthrall through peculiarly odd characteristics and personality.  This eccentricity is central to their creativity.  After all, they’re artists.

J. Cole likes basketball, grew up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is a Communications and Business graduate from St. John’s university.  That about sums it up.  Or does it?

Then how did he land a deal with Jay-Z, and manage to become a priority artist on the mogul’s Roc Nation management company?  Unlikely as it may have been, he managed to become one of the most anticipated artists in hip-hop music.  He released three critically acclaimed mixtapes – The Come up, The Warm Up, and last week’s Friday Night Lights – and in the best hip-hop tradition provides tidbits and anecdotes of his life on different songs for the listener to string together.  The composite reveals itself slowly, and you find yourself subscribing to his life story.

He raps from the gut.  There’s a zealous hunger and energy in his voice.  There are no gimmicks, no auto-tuned ballads or a well manicured-image.  He makes quality music about ordinary life, and through poetry and cadence makes it fascinating and addictive to listen to.  He jumps on songs alongside former drug dealers with their romanticized accounts of sex, murder and mayhem and he steals the show.  It’s 2010, where J. Cole the former honour roll student and a Jewish Canadian dominate the culture.

Sway spoke with him in the lead up to his December 3^rd concert in Toronto.  He’s understated and polite on the phone, only growing excited when a question peaks his interest.  Currently on a busy road schedule, he excused himself and in-between bites of lunch we discussed Friday Night Lights, his upbringing, his future, and the Jay-Z/J. Cole/J. Electronica trifecta at Roc Nation.

So congrats on Friday Night Lights.

Thank you very much man I appreciate that.

I was listening to the mixtape and first off I want to get into your background.  You said you’ve experienced it all from trailer parks to middle-income life.  So give us an idea of your upbringing and Fayetteville.

In Fayetteville man I just feel like I got to experience every part of the city and every part of life other than being wealthy or rich.  So from watching my mom super-duper struggle to – single mother, one income, working at a restaurant or whatever with two kids – to getting a stepfather so now it’s a two person income, we get a little bit nicer house.  So I feel like I done experienced all of those phases of life, and really the best part was just the people and the vast amount of people I got to meet and experience.  Just from my friends that I gravitated to but also I was smart.  I was in the honours classes and the AP program and the AP classes.  So I really got to experience the other side to.  I’m half white but that doesn’t mean I was hanging around white people.  But luckily because of the types of classes I was in I feel like I really got a good sense of how to interact with all types of people.

I noticed that a lot of your music focuses on when you got to New York and beyond, whereas you don’t touch on your childhood that much.

Right, exactly.  I mean, I do kind of though.   If you listen to “Farewell”, you listen to “2Face”, those are like Fayetteville stories you know.  I feel like I mix a lot of [when] I grew up and left out, and a lot of me being in [Fayetteville] trying to find out a way to get to where I want to go.  I feel like it’s a good mixture of both.

Going on to “2Face”, a prevalent theme in your music is you talking about faith and being tested all the time by the devil or what have you.  You even have it on your logo [with the horns and the halo].  So where does [that side of you] come from, it seems like that composes a lot of your content?

Yeah it’s like that line I got [that] goes, “J. Cole set of horns and halo”.  I like using that.  A lot of the God and devil references or whatever – I feel like it’s really what all people go through.  No one person is all the way good, and no one person is all the way bad.  I feel like even if it’s just a small scale we all struggle with good and evil you know what I’m saying?  Even when we feel like we’re good people we fight these demons and these temptations.  That’s why I always focus on or talk about that, that struggle and that battle.  It’s like the classic battle between good and evil.  The horns and the halo, that’s where that come from.

What do you aim to achieve with the first album?  On the mixtape you say, well I’m not sure whether you said it or somebody told you that you got something like an Illmatic.

I do have a lot of material for it, and a lot of great material for it.  It’s sounding incredible.  And I have heard people say, “damn, this is like Illmatic.”  I don’t think it’s like Illmatic but I’ve heard that.  Somebody told me [it’s a] mixture between Illmatic and College Dropout.   I’ve heard these comparisons.  That’s where that line came from.  So yeah I do think it has the possibility to be a classic If I could just stay on the path that I’ve been going.

I’m always interested in the process by which people make music.  I think you’re sort of like and MC’s MC.  I mean you really rap.  So how do you go about crafting a song?

Man, it’s something I’ve been working on for years and trying to figure out.  The way I work, just me personally, I usually do the beat first.  I write lines all the time, and thoughts and ideas and concepts, but I usually just do the beat first.  As soon as I do a beat that hits me and inspires me, I start writing.  That’s usually how my creative process goes.  A lot of time songs just flow out.  “Lights Please” just flowed out, “Losing my Balance” just flowed out.   A lot of times I don’t even go into it knowing the concept, I just write the first line and the song kind of writes itself.

So you’re 25 right? Take away the fact that you’re J. Cole, this guy signed to Roc Nation and whatnot on the come up.  Just looking at yourself as Jermaine, what does it feel like to be surrounding yourself with the Talib Kwelis and Mos Defs, the Kanyes?

It’s incredible, kind of unbelievable.  I always have those unbelievable moments like when Kweli texted me and asked me to get on a song with him, and I was in my bedroom, I hadn’t even changed places yet.  I hadn’t moved out my crib yet so I was still in the same small room that I was in before the deal.  He texted me, I’m reading that text in the room like man, this is the same guy I used to go see in concert, seen him perform so many times.  It’s moments like that, those full circle moments.  Just as a fan man, it’s unbelievable that I’m here.  I know I got a long way to go but it’s a very rewarding feeling to be able to look at some of the things I done so far.

Where does that confidence come from, to jump on a song with a Jay-Z?  Where do you pull from?

I don’t know man.  That just came from him asking me and I had to – I wouldn’t say it was confidence it was like fear almost.  Like oh man, he wants me on a song?  I got to produce, I can’t be whack.  I’m not the type that’s like ‘I’m about to go smash this’. It’s [more] like, ‘I hope I do it’.  That’s always how it is though with me.

I find that with Jay-Z you have arguably the best crutch in the game.  You’re signed to the best that ever did it.  But you’re very much an independent artist, you don’t really lean on that, you don’t promote that too much.

I just try not to because -  I try not to throw up too many Roc signs and scream out too much Roc stuff but that just comes from me just being an independent spirit.  Jay[-Z] built what he built and I appreciate him for letting me even attach myself to that brand but I think it’s a fine line between overdoing it.  I could probably use it a little more but I try to use it just the right amount.  I want people to know yeah he had a Jay cosign but it was pretty obvious that he did this on his own.  I want that satisfaction to be able to say that.

I know it’s early but Jay Electronica signed [to Roc Nation].  There’s the three of you on the label.  So do you have any thoughts of perhaps this being another era like a Bad Boy, like a No Limit, like a Rocafella?

I think it’s too early to call that, it ain’t my label.  It’s Jay’s [Jay-Z’s] call and his decision, I don’t know what his vision is for the label.  Maybe that’s what it is.  If so that sounds fun, that sounds incredible, but I don’t know I’m not sure.  All I know is Jay Electronica is incredible.  So to have him on the label as well, it’s a beautiful feeling.   It makes me feel even better about the situation.

On one of your songs you say “I may arrive last, but when it’s all said and done, I’m a be ahead of them”.  A long time ago Drake commented that he saw himself as the [new] Jay-Z  and you as the [new] Nas.  Now that some time has passed, what do you feel about the statement?

Now that the situation’s over I just look it at it for what it was.  It’s just a compliment man, that was it.  It just showed you what he thinks of me.  You know to compare me to Nas – Nas is a legend.  Anytime somebody compares you to Nas is a compliment.  I just feel like that’s how he felt.  I don’t think that I’m Nas or Jay, I just want to be the first J. Cole you know?  But I know exactly where he was coming from when he said it, so it’s all love.

Last thing any comments, anything you want to say to Toronto before coming here [on Dec 3^rd]?

Aw man, I cannot wait.  That’s one of the shows I’m looking forward to most.  I haven’t performed there yet, other than on stage with Jay.  I’ve done a lot of the major cities in America.  I always like to figure out my fan base you know what I’m saying?  If I do Chicago and the show’s sold out, or if I do Detroit and there’s a little more room for people, and I’m just interested to see what Toronto is like.  I hear that I got a lot of fans but I never really had time to get there.  I’ve heard it’s a beautiful city, so I can’t wait.

Former Degrassi star-turned-rapper Drake is ready to make his feature film debut – as US President Barack Obama.  “I hope somebody makes a movie about Obama’s life soon because I could play him,” Drake said in an interview with  Paper Magazine.

The Toronto-born MC has already done his research by watching all the president’s addresses.  “Anytime I see him on TV, I don’t change the channel, I definitely pay attention and listen to the inflections of his voice.”

Drake also said he isn’t interested in stereotypical film projects.  “I don’t want to do the basketball movie that everyone does.  I don’t want to do the typical black film that everyone expects.”

“I think that I have enough experience to actually be involved in a real meaty project full of substance.”

By Del F. Cowie

Saukrates has been a fixture on the Toronto hip-hop scene for a long time. But with the release of Season One, could he, at long last, join the growing list of Toronto hip-hop acts to break big? Here’s a look at the recent history of local chart-toppers:

KARDINAL OFFISHALL
With Saukrates, Kardi was a participant in the early-1990s youth program Fresh Arts. Signed, in 2007, to Akon’s Konvict Muzik, his single Dangerous went to number five on Billboard’s Hot 100.

K-OS
Saukrates appears on the local crossover hero’s latest single I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman. But it was k-os’ 2005 single Crabbuckit that earned him three nominations at the Canadian Radio Music Awards.

K’NAAN
Toronto Life called summer 2010 the “Summer of K’naan” after the Somali-born singer’s infectious single Wavin’ Flag was chosen as Coca-Cola’s World Cup anthem.

DRAKE
The former Degrassi star is now the biggest urban music export in Canadian history. After mixtape and guest spot collaborations with Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye and virtually the rest of hip-hop royalty, Drake’s first official album Thank Me Later was the most anticipated hip-hop album of the year across North America. Drake makes an appearance on Saukrates’ track Fades Away.