Dharma Arts

Imagine consuming so much music you had your computer’s daily functions devoted to the sole task of downloading new tracks. Consider the obsession of an individual who carries 3.5 gigs of new songs to work every day, with a mission to intently sift out the gold contained within (and later purchase for her permanent collection). This is only the research phase of DJ CPI’s mix-making process and it’s thanks to tastemakers like her that we ever find genuinely good music in the over saturated arena of the mp3 download era.

Between foraging through sound files, gigging at niche events and holding down a full time job as a systems analyst, CPI (aka: Caitlyn Pascal) has produced a prolific collection of avant-garde mixes over the last ten years. Best thing about them: they’re all available for free on her website.

Her latest mix, City Hearts Aimed Skyward, has been devoted to Dharma Arts and its readers. “I like working with music and this gives me an excuse to spend so much time doing something productive with it,” she responds when asked “why do you bother”?

There are lots of other reasons to bother. There’s the social power that comes from informing people’s tastes. The street cred. The automatic file backup from having people across the city (country, world) with copies of your most vital mp3s. And there’s the existential benefits – yes, mix tapes leave a legacy. Through her “aggressive mixing style”, this DJ constructs themes, assembles stories and evokes emotions before releasing them all into unsuspecting ears. CPI calls it “letting go of the exclusivity” and to her, the expulsion of months’ worth of meticulous music selections is therapeutic.

Now if you’ve yet to hear of this seasoned DJ, CPI isn’t entirely surprised. Many folks have never even heard of the genres she dabbles in. Her eclectic leanings and refusal to side with one genre make her an unlikely booking for big club owners. Besides, “I do it for myself,” she reminds us. You might get hooked on her sound one minute after hearing a sexy party mix, then next thing you know she’s releasing something like Monastic Deathcore which throws you right off. But even these mixes serve a purpose. “I got hired from that mix,” she laughs, explaining how it led her to create a soundtrack for dancer Lana Morton for the annual 8F8M event, an International Women's Day performance.

Her latest release – a hip hop mix – is another one that might polarize fans and newcomers. Like the magazine it’s associated with (ours!), it asks that you scratch beneath the surface. It says, I promise that if you just listen, I’ll throw off your preconceptions.

Because CPI is of two camps: the I like rockin’ beats camp and the I hate uncreative, misogynistic bullshit camp. “After 2005, I thought, there’s just not a lot of good hip hop,” she explains, “but this mix is four years in the making and there’s a lot of great stuff in here. I searched for the least misogynistic tracks, but couldn’t resist putting in a few just for their innovative beats.”

A strong believer in new forms of promotion, CPI has had much success with the viral transmission of her mixes. Whether it’s collaborating with visual artists on 2006’s Rock Out With Your Cock Out, starting a blog on Facebook to share tracks or teaming with likeminded e-zines to get the word out, her inventiveness is proof that turntable stars need not be born on the dancefloor. “I depend on word of mouth to make it cool.” So if you like City Hearts Aimed Skyward, go to CPI’s site, download tracks, tell a friend, buy her a book – and while you’re at it, tell them about Dharma Arts too!

You can learn a lot from a conversation with Dangerously. Heck, you can learn a lot from just listening to his lyrics. Big words. Big concepts. Big glasses. It’s for these reasons and a few more that he gets categorized as a nerdcore rapper. But with the coining of any new genre comes those who want to distance themselves from it. Dangerously is one of those people.

His association with mc chris (lowercase) and MC Frontalot explains much of why he gets lumped into the sub genre. mc chris regularly cites Dangerously as one of the only nerdcore rappers worth listening to. While Frontalot’s album Nerdcore Rising features him as a guest vocalist. There’s also the fact that nerdcore is often about geeky white guys rapping on geeky topics and the incriminating evidence that Dangerously’s best-selling mp3 is The Elements by Tom Lehrer – a song about all the chemical elements known to man. So to be fair to those who erroneously brand his style, coming face to face with the – ahem – ‘smart-looking’ artist will do little to discourage the nerdcore affiliation.

A new resident of Ottawa, this Halifax export is something of an acquisition for our city. Aside from being legendary within the east coast music scene, he’s multi-talented. As Buck 65 starts a new gig hosting CBC Radio 2’s drive home show, Dangerously informs us that he was once Buck’s successor on a Halifax community hip hop show. He was also a columnist for the Halifax Daily News, writing several edgy pieces including an open letter to another Haligonian rapper turned Ottawan.

While Dangerously might not write exclusively about geeky topics, he does take issues of human/women’s rights and personal integrity quite seriously. In the open letter he admonishes Troy Neilson (aka: Pimp Tea, aka: Brockway Biggs) for his use of the word “pimp” and affiliation with American rapper Nelly’s Pimp Juice brand.

“Where does the humour lie, in the word “pimp”? What’s the funny part?” he asks, adding “A pimp is a person who profits from the exploitation of others. […] Is that how you want people to think of Brockway Biggs? Of Troy Neilson?”

Like CPI, who had to wait four years to find decent enough hip hop to make a mix, Dangerously is frustrated by performers who buy topics “off the rack” – even if they are from his hometown. “I don’t like letting people get away with easy shit […] people are fundamentally good but they fall into easy – things they know will get laughs”.

Conversely, Dangerously falls into topics that produce friction. Like the provocative A Single Gay Male on his Thirtieth Birthday, a song which raised the eyebrows and tempers of gay-bashing industry peers. Add to that he has lectured on gender issues at Saint Mary’s University and that his long-term girlfriend is a political speechwriter and a stereotype smashing image emerges. But Dangerously is quick to explain that he’s not representative of a new movement. “It’s 2008. If you haven’t paid attention to the changes in hip hop. You’re out of touch.”

To get in touch or to take a taste of Jesse Dangerously’s sound, City Hearts Aimed Skyward should do the trick. As seriously as Dangerously takes the lyrical side of his art, he stresses that he doesn’t want to “diminish the base level appeal of big beats and danceable rhymes,” adding, “CPI’s mix has a great selection of tracks that don’t err in either direction. The selections are intricate and interesting and made even better when they’re blended as Caitlyn does.”