Music

Reginald: Man Behind the Mask

Published

7 years ago

February 2, 2018

MC Staff

by Gina Lee

Twenty-four-year-old Reginald Clark has been waiting for our attention since 2010, when he dropped his first mixtape, The Canon: Waiting for Your Attention. Since then, the South Philadelphia native has been unenthusiastically grinding at his nine-to-five, a deed that most of his followers can relate to. Reginald further explains his distaste for the nine-to-five on “Brain Dead Slave” featuring GodlyMC, a song from his new project, Man Behind the Mask, which dropped in October 2013.

Reginald, a straightforward realist, knows exactly where he stands in the hip-hop music industry. He seemingly has no place at all, as he would later explain. But that doesn’t stop him from creating thought-provoking music that challenges the viewpoints of today’s traditional hip-hop. Reginald shares with us introspection in the form of an emotional eight-track album with songs touching on a somewhat dismal reality, which he calls his own. Reginald admits that his introversion is one of the things hindering him from making it mainstream, but makes it perfectly clear on tracks like “Hope in the Sky” and “Be Free” that he can’t hide who he is. Unfortunately, who he is, is something the city of Philadelphia has yet to discover.

Main Course: People tend to think your name is Reginald Canon, but it’s not. So, what’s The Canon?

Reginald: People always get it so confused. Reginald Canon is not my rap name. The Canon is a whole separate thing. Like, you know I’m Reginald; The Canon is a separate entity in itself. The Canon is the full body of work, the story that I’m trying to portray all along through a series of projects. My first one was Waiting for Your Attention. That was the first part of The Canon. And my second one, Man Behind the Mask, that’s like, not so much a continuation of it [Waiting for Your Attention] . . . but this is who I am when you actually get an introspective view. My next one is going to be a little bit further, a little bit more advanced sonically, and a little bit more honest. Like my friends, they’ll call me “the Canon” and I’m like no, I’m not The Canon.

MC: Tell me about how Man Behind the Mask came together.

RC: This album was rushed because the whole marketing and promo board just kind of blew up. I lost my publicist and I never really had a manager, and my producer was getting tired of waiting for the records to come together, so I’m like, alright, one last session and I’m going to put it out and that’s going to be that. I finished what I needed to get finished just to make sure everything was under wraps. I have songs that were supposed to be on there that I couldn’t get on there, because I couldn’t get them finished. I felt like what I had to do from that point was piece the story together with missing pieces.

MC: How many songs haven’t been released that you would have wanted to be released?

RC: There are probably three that are just sitting there. Three that really, really need to get heard. I have this one song, it doesn’t even have a title. It’s like, one of my greatest works ever.

MC: On Twitter you wrote, “Nobody likes Reginald’s music. Shame on them.” Do you really believe that?

RC: No. I don’t. That was in response to something. I believe people like my music. I don’t believe that enough people like it. People will come up to me and tell me all the time they really love this song, and it’s always a different song. They’ll come up to me and tell me these things. That makes me feel really good. I know people like it.

MC: What are you lacking as an artist?

RC: It’s that chameleon type thing. I don’t want to blend in. I don’t want to be fake. I kind of want to be as straightforward as possible. To make it in the music industry, you have to be fake to a certain extent, and that’s just a hard pill for me to swallow. I’ve missed out on a lot of opportunities just because of that.

MC: On “Hope in the Sky,” you refer to a bittersweet life. What’s the bitter and what’s the sweet?

RC: I’m not that social butterfly guy. I’m more of an introvert. I’m not going to give you anything more than what you ask for. People don’t like that. People like overexposure. I can’t be out there because it’s just not me. The sweet, essentially would be breaking through all of that. Me actually being comfortable enough with myself to be whoever I am, around those people that want to criticize me and judge me.

MC: As an outlet, does the city of Philadelphia give you what you need as an artist?

RC: No, because there are a lot of politics involved. People have their own little circles. By me not wanting to be a part of that circle, it makes it that much harder for me.

MC: Do you think you would do better as an artist in a New York City setting, or maybe Atlanta?

RC: Not necessarily because you take yourself wherever you go. People like to put other people in boxes, I think that’s another layer to it too. What box are you really going to put me in after you listen to my album? Where do I fit in at?

MC: Do you think you belong in this era of music?

RC: Hell no. No, I don’t because this era is not really geared toward a person who wants to be totally honest and blunt like I am. If I had to pick an era, I think I would pick the ‘90s. I think I would totally dominate the ‘90s.

MC: What artists from Philadelphia are you listening to at the moment?

RC: There’s literally one that I’ve been anticipating to come back out. Asaad. He’s a really great artist.

MC: In 2012, Complex Magazine put out a “10 New Philadelphia Rappers To Watch Out For” list. Asaad wasn’t on that list and a lot of people were mad about it.

RC: Yes, because he inspired a lot of what a lot artists have done. To listen to his music, when you really dig into his music and understand what he’s talking about, he’s a good artist. That’s the one Philly artist that I pay attention to.

MC: Who are your hip-hop influences?

RC: Biggie because my dad used to listen to Bad Boy tapes everyday. I would listen to a lot of The Lox. The Lox were crazy. Nas, too in a way, but Nas came much later. And Outkast, definitely.

MC: Outside of hip-hop, what are you listening to?

RC: I think I suggested J*DaVeY the other day to you. That’s kind of more the wave that I’m on musically, listening to really alternative stuff.

MC: Is Reginald looking to promote himself more this year?

RC: I’m about to get back in the studio. I definitely plan on doing some more in 2014. My issue with music, I realized . . . is I always tried to capitalize off of my art so much that I wasn’t capitalizing on the art of capitalism. I didn’t learn the art of capitalism. I just tried to capitalize off of my art and it made me realize I have to come into this game with a totally different perspective. I’d rather take a chance on this [music], something that will make me happy, then to work at a post office for the rest of my life.

To learn more or to download Reginald’s latest project, Man Behind the Mask, visit www.thecanon.bandcamp.com.

Music

The Beat Goes On…In Two Songs?

Tre Prada heard a beat this morning that sounded like one of his song, and it turned out to be Cardi B’s. We take a closer look at the two.

Published

4 years ago

February 5, 2021

Matthew Maratea

You ever hear a song and think to yourself, wait a minute, that sounds like a beat I’ve heard before? That’s how Philly native Tre Prada started his afternoon.

Here are his thoughts on the new Cardi B song “Up” which dropped at midnight on Friday morning.

When you listen to it his song “Goonies”, a song that dropped back in October of 2020, the notes and the beat seem to be remarkably similar. We’re gonna drop the videos here. In this case, hearing is believing.

Now let’s compare that to Cardi B’s brand new, 13 hours old video.

We want to know what you think about this. Do you hear a similar beat? Do you think the songs are different enough? Do they sound like any other songs you know? Let us know on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram what you hear and what you think about this situation. We’re here to talk about it and other issues in the music industry.

Music

Black Music Month, Celebrating the Voices of the Unheard

Published

4 years ago

July 31, 2020

MC Staff

by Tiffany Livingston

Our culture is saturated in pure soul and through our music; we sing and perform songs of the Gospel, rhythm and blues, rock, funk, conscious lyrical hip-hop, and rap music. Growing up in the 90’s was a black liberating era listening to artists such as, Arrested Development, KRS-One, Tupac, and too many great black music artists to name. I took pride in being black only because the songs resonated with me. I started to become conscious of my blackness and for the first time in my life, I began to see racism and the mistreatment of my people for what it was because the music provoked me to open my eyes (Woke). I was becoming of age at the perfect time, becoming aware, strong-minded and took pride in celebrating my blackness through music.

Growing up, music always played in the house. Sounds ranged from Gospel to Funk, Soul, R&B and the ever so infamous Hip-Hop. We would do our chores Saturday morning and cook dinner, dancing and singing along to music. The famous words my Father used to say to me (and he still does till this day) were “Who’s that Singing?” My job was to not guess, but know who it was especially since they were black artists. Arrested Development released a song called Tennessee. It was 1992 and I was about 9 years old. I was probably wearing pattern vests, silk/polyester shirts, and patent leather shoes (LOL). The song wasn’t too far from my first intro to music “Gospel”. Front man MC Speech rapped about black awareness and asked God for his direction during a troubling time; A prayer in the form of song over a hip-hop beat. It felt good to be black. I felt the love through the music, movies and the books I read. Self-love, reflection, and bold expressions is what black music is for me.

The following year in the late Fall of 1993 music began to take a turn into political hip-hop when KRS-One’s controversial single Black Cop was released. The track “Black Cop” was a song that challenged the thoughts of black men who willfully joined and accepted position as a police officer. Why would a black man want to become apart of a system whose goal has always been to kill, taunt, and destroy urban communities as a people? Black slave turned black cop is not logical– KRS-One. Police Brutality has been an on-going issue for centuries, not decades. He was just shedding light on the issue and he rapped about it. My people, like many others, have had too long of a journey fighting just to live. Sadly! This song is so fresh and prevalent in 2020 (Victim Name Here) and it’s shameful, scary and makes us feel unsafe. We are not a scared people and we fight back. We fight through our music and we fight through our voices to fight injustice and systemic racism. I could go on and on, but my goal is to celebrate Black Music. KRS didn’t stop there. He ended the Return of the Boom Bap (1993) album with the single, Sound of the Police. It was my freshman year in High School in 1996 KRS-One released another challenge, but it was for music artists with Step Into a World. “Yo, I’m strictly about skills, and dope lyrical coastin’ relying on talent, not marketing and promotion”.(Step into A World) – KRS-One

Before J. Cole’s Change and Kendrick Lamar’s Alright there was another conscious/Hip-hop artist on TV named Tupac Shakur (2pac). I remember watching The Box music video channel and Urban Xpressions (Philadelphia TV) show waiting for my favorite artist’s videos to come on. It was the highlight of the weekend and something to talk about Monday morning at school. If you know of Tupac you may have been told only about his “Gangster Rapper” persona from his time with Death Row Records, but I know him as a Poet, Expressionist, Actor and Activist. While making music, Tupac was gaining film credits in a few fan favorites, Juice and Poetic Justice. During this time he continued to make music and in 1993 Tupac showed the Sista’s some love with his Keep Ya Head Up single featuring Dave Hollister from (Blackstreet):

Poetic Justice, featuring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur

“Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots I give a holla to my sisters on welfare Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care.” -Tupac (Keep Ya Head Up).

He continued his love for black women with another song Dear Momma a tribute to his own Mother/Activist the late Afeni Shakur. On September 13, 1996 Tupac Shakur was assassinated. The hip-hop community lost not one, but two great artist and not even a full year later on March 9, 1997 The Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie) was also assassinated. I know a lot of folks question the word assassination when it comes to a “Rapper” as they would say, but they were more than that.

Both deaths affected the black community and as a teenager at that time I was angry, we were angry. We hate violence in our communities as well as racist cops (not every cop) killing black men and women, which has been going on for far too long. The music Tupac made was for his people and the gangsters too. One of my all-time favorites is the song Changes recorded in (1992), then later released in 1998 added to his Greatest Hits Album 1998 . He spoke on black-on-black crime, police brutality, and ways to heal the black community:

“And the only time we chill is when we kill each other It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other. And although it seems heaven-sent, we ain’t ready to see a black president”. – Tupac (Changes).

Former President Barack Obama with his wife Michelle

Little did he know 13 years after his death a black man from Chicago named Barack Obama became America’s President in 2009. I wish he was still alive to see that some things do eventually change, and some stay the same. Most of the time us black folks know that, “that’s just the way it is things will never be the same”. (Changes)

Music

Beast Mode

Published

4 years ago

July 30, 2020

MC Staff

Beast Mode, shot by Philly Music Videos, highlights the brutality experienced by African Americans during this time of Quarantine. Featuring Marcus G and Xin, these artist go all out to address what’s occurring in minority communities throughout the states.