NOW MAGAZINE #TBT Article: Street Rappers & CBC RACE RUCKUS
- wwetvsports21
- Feb 4, 2016
- 3 min read
"A young black male walks with a pronounced swagger, smokes joints freely, then downs a couple of gulps of brew. Another plays basketball all the time. Then he takes off his shirt and shows off his collection of gunshot wounds. Images lifted from John Singleton's 1991 coming-of-age-in-the-slums flick Boyz N The Hood, right? No, uh, it's actually CBC-TV, circa 2001.
In June, The National aired a coarse 20-minute documentary segment titled Street Rappers that was intended to explore the connection between rap music and violence in Jane-Finch and to somehow convince unsuspecting viewers that the CBC is "down" with the hiphop community and its issues, Drop The Beat-style. The doc centred on two Jane-Finch-based rappers named Speng and Stick-up, whose group, the Smugglas, rap exclusively about guns, death and violence. Viewers were supposed to get some insight into how youth in the area see their lives taking shape".
READ MORE OF THE NOW MAGAZINE ARTICLE HERE
That was a piece from Now Magazine from August 31, 2001. It was on the heels of the popular and controversial debut of Street Rappers music video and CBC National News Documentary by the same name. The target of the complaint was Jane and Finch's rap group The Smugglaz then known under their stage monikers Stickup Kid and Speng.
It was such a hard hitting story that changed the course of Toronto hip hop forever. Before this time period there were other street groups in Toronto such as Point Blank, GCP, and Point Blank. From that time forward other street oriented hip hop at the gangsta level of The Smugglaz became more of the norm in the city.
The group members had never publicly responded to the documentary that had comments from Doug E. Fresh until in the Before The 6: Now or Never Toronto Rappers & Hip Hop Documentary that first debuted at the On Film Festival in November 2015 in Toronto.
The documentary above has become the second most watched Toronto hip hop documentary only trailing behind the very same CBC National News documentary from the summer of 2001. The comments below are from the NOW Magazine article about "Street Rappers" The Documentary.
The doc, she says, "is offensive and hurtful to kids, especially because it reinforces a very regressive message that education is not the way out of the burbs, that rap music is the only way out, and maybe basketball. That kids have no other hope." The Network's subcommittee plans to send the CBC their grievance, she says, with hopes to work with them on a "second piece on the community -- a more honest piece."
Lennox Farrell, who's lived in the community for over 26 years, says he tried to tell the The National folks about the good things going on in the area (like the fact that two of his four kids are in medical school), but only a smidgen of this info made the final cut. In terms of how young people focus on "getting out' of Jane-Finch, Farrell says, "There are youth who are doing math to get out or doing computers to get out, and there are those who aren't doing anything to get out. This is where they live. This is where I've lived for 26 years, and I'm not doing anything to get out. I'm trying to keep it a good place to live. It has a sense of community, it has a sense of history, it has a lot of very vitalizing people and institutions."
The comments made by those critics failed to realize that the two members of the group would end up signing a talent agency deal with award winning promoter Chris Mckee which housed some of the biggest acts in North America a mere five years later. Through this association, the group would tour with the likes of Naughty By Nature, Royce Da 5', and Emenim's crew D12.
They would also later contribute to Paramount Vantage / MTV Films movie "How She Move" with their single "Jane and Finchin. The critics of the time failed to realize the two started a new path for kids to achieve in the competitive world of entertainment.
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