It was a beautiful June day. The sun was shining, not a cloud in sight. Everything was right. I had my girl by my side, I was chillin’ in the beach, I couldn’t ask for a more perfect, simple day in my opinion. To top it off, we decided to head on over to the McDonalds on Burrard street. If you’ve never been to that particular location, it’s a cesspool of a fast food restaurant. Not that I expect fast food places to be nice, but this is the worse location period. You got people left and right bothering you for change while you are eating. On even rarer occasions, you have people asking you for money while you are taking a piss or shit (I’ve had some guy look under the stall and ask me for money).

Anyway, back to my story, some guy comes to me and my girl while we are eating. He looked like a normal guy, Asian, probably in his mid-twenties. Looked like a nerdy kid, maybe he was a university student or something. He asked for money, but he clearly wasn’t a bum. I asked him, “what for, why do you need her money?” He said, “for food,” I just shook my head and rolled my eyes. A few seconds later he bothers another couple for money! I couldn’t believe it, we just gave him a few bucks, and he has the audacity to go and ask for more from some other people! I was pretty pissed to say the least, my girl wanted her money back. We walk out of the restaurant and for some reason I just have this sudden urge to confront him and give him shit. I’m normally not a confrontational person, but I couldn’t stand to see this guy, that is clearly not homeless. How many homeless people do you know with a cell phone or with a brand new G-Shock watch? When I saw him whip out his cell phone, I just lost it.

I go back into the McDonalds, I get in line with him where he is waiting to take his order, and I confront him:

Me: “You are not a bum and if you are you’re probably the most ballin’ bum I have ever met. Look at you with your cell phone, new Nike Cortez’, and G-Shock watch. Do you not feel any shame? My girlfriend gave you money so your skinny ass can eat.”

Him: “What are you talking about, no one gave me any money…”

Me: “You better give me your money back, before I kick your ass.”

Him: “I don’t know what you are talking about…”

As he said those words, my mind went blank, and all common sense just went out the door. I know the McDonalds on Burrard is one of the busiest locations in town and the place was packed too. I put my arm around his head and proceeded to put him in a headlock. He got out and as he was running I pushed him to the ground. Before I could start stomping the shit out of him, my dad (he works near by) out of nowhere comes out and tells me to stop, “it’s not worth it”. The old man actually saved me a lot of trouble. Imagine what could have happened to me. Assault charges? A new edition to my criminal record? I don’t want any of that, I already messed up plenty of opportunities in life because of a few mistakes.

My question to you readers, what would have you done? Is it ok to beat on a guy over $2? I want some feedback.

When you think of Canada what do you think of? Maybe Hockey? Pamela Anderson? Steve Nash? In the Hip-Hop world when I say “Canada,” you probably say “Kardinal Offishall” or lately “Drake”. Those guys are cool, but they don’t exactly speak for Hip-Hop Canada, in my opinion. Dudes here from East to West have been grinding hard for as long as Hip-Hop has existed. I can go on and on about the Hip-Hop scene in our country as a whole, but I’m going to bore you. Instead, I’m gonna highlight one particular area and I’ll start with the Fresh Northwest aka. the Vancouver Hip-Hop scene…

To finish the rest of this visit post hiphopmanifesto.org.

I can distinctly remember my dad buying my sister and I N*Sync’s debut album. At first I thought to myself, “Cool.” Of course I was five at the time, and I was impressionable, but no matter what age you may be, good music always finds a way into your soul. So there I was, in the basement of my landlord’s house, vibin’ along to Justin Timberlake’s squeaky-clean vocals and Max Martin’s impeccable production, with my dad’s Bruce Springsteen records keeping up the music credibility in my home. A year later, my sister (who happens to be one of those little girls that I’m talking about) purchased one of her first CD’s, Britney Spear’s debut …Baby One More Time. By then it was too late, and my sister was too vulnerable to avoid watching music videos. So, for the next 3 years or so of my childhood, I had to endure at least 1000 hours of “Bye, Bye, Bye”, “Dirty”, “Oops, I Did It Again”, and so on and so forth. The music industry was feasting off the profits of over-saturated boy bands, and self-proclaimed “virgins”.

Luckily, three years removed from that dark phase in my musical journey, I decided to inaugurate myself into the world that is Hip-Hop Music. Day in and day out, I did everything humanly possible to immerse myself in Hip-Hop culture. Be it countless hours of listening to Illmatic, reading up on the mid-90’s East Coast-West Coast rivalry, and even expanding my urban vocabulary. Nah mean, haha? There was also one other thing I was doing to keep up on the freshest shit on the steets, downloading music.

Yeah I’ve heard it all before, “Whats the big deal Kevin, you damn hypocrite.” Well the big deal, trick, is that, while downloading Asher’s latest album (Asleep In The Bread Aisle), for the sake of not feeling left out, is something I do not frown upon, it certainly hurts Asher’s dreams of makin’ that paper. Sure, these guys use $100 bills as Kleenex, but that does not mean they don’t deserve the success. It’s this “hipster mentality” that both hurt and help Hip-Hop, and subsequently, the music industry in it’s entirety. You’ve probably been bombarded with enough facts about the decline in record sales to publish a whole encyclopedia about it, so who am I to sound redundant. I just hope you can still look at yourself in the mirror when the Jonas Brothers are on top of the Billboard 100. Oh, too late…

Thanks to Disney, and its prepackaged group of stars, the recording industry can breathe for a second. In the summer of 2008, you could not turn on the radio, or go to the mall without hearing a group of young girls singing, “Burnin’ Up”. And not too long ago, High School Musical 3: Senior Year’s soundtrack managed to sell 297,000 copies in its the first week, coming in second to T.I. Lest we forget, Miley Cyrus and her soon-to-be-sexed-up image, has managed millions of albums sold, and a hit movie to boot. With P.Y.T.’s Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez creeping up the corner, I expect another good year or two for Disney revenues, more legions of screaming girls, and maybe just maybe, a healthy music industry.

“What team? Wildcats,”