By Alex Hutt

Born and bred in Saskatchewan but based out of Vancouver, Joey Stylez’s rap/hip-hop is infused with his childhood in the Moosmin First Nations. Going by the moniker of Joey Stylez, Joseph Laplante’s debut album is Blackstar, named after his Plains Cree grandmother.

What is apparent is that Stylez operates within a mix of genres and not just the rap/hip-hop industry.

“I started off making street rap music, and along the way when I started getting good at recording. I decided to experiment and push the boundaries to see how far I could go. The more advanced I got at recording the more advanced the style of my music got. I wanted to make a sound that no one was creating. A lot of artists say that but most of them don’t actually create it,” said Stylez.

The reaction from the Native community has been especially supportive, as is evident by the single “Sugar Cane”, winning an Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Award for best music video.

“I’m very, very blessed to have my community behind me. I just won the Aboriginal People Best Choice Music Video Award and that showed me that my community is behind me. My friends have phoned in and requested me on the Much request channel, and this was even when I was doing a lot of reservation shows. Not a lot of people can say they have their whole nation behind them supporting everything they do.”

Another song, “Living Proof”, is about the residential schools that forced First Nations kids into Christian schools were they experienced abuse. To Stylez, the official apology was a start in repairing the damage done.

“It’s definitely not enough, but it’s one of the things that needed to be done for the healing process to take course. Now we need to put funding into different programs and workshops so that people can be educated about the problems and the after effects of the schools. If the elders stick to the traditional schooling and people practice it, then the healing will begin to happen.”

In the native community, rap has become an outlet for the youth who are trying to break out of the “cowboys and Indians” relationship.

“It’s a huge outlet. A lot of native people in the prairie provinces relate to rap. It keeps a lot of my friends out of trouble since they are up in the studio making songs and going on tour. It’s been a tool that is very useful to native youth to show that we can flourish and blossom. It shows that we aren’t just gang members, alcoholics and drugatics, and we are actually rap and rock stars. We can do anything we want, particularly rap because it was originally the voice of poverty. There are a lot of poverty issues in the prairie provinces and it goes back to the cowboys and indians. The cowboys forced the indians into reservations and that really put them into poverty. There are Third World issues around the native community in our country and a lot of Canadians don’t see it and realize how real it is,” said Stylez.

A criticism of Stylez’s music is that it is simply club music and does not carry a social message. Stylez counters this by displaying both the club music and social message angle in his songs.

“Some of it is club music because I know how to relate to folks who want to have a good time. Some of my songs have political and social messages in them, but sometimes you just want people to get away and not think about their problems like 'my phone got cut off' or 'I’m late on my rent'. I want to use my music as a getaway and an escape to them. A lot of my music is dark and abstract as well. I have a love song about a broken heart. There is a rap song about girls. I’ve never lived one kind of way and I’ve met a lot of different people. It’s broadened my sound and the way I think,” said Stylez.

“Critics sometimes don’t realize it’s just music at the end of the day, it’s entertainment. To get people dancing is doing your job as an artist. It’s important to continue to do that so people can totally forget about things like they just broke up with their boyfriend. It goes back to the Beatles and David Bowie. Sometimes critics try to look a little too deep into it. We do have a job to raise conciousness but we also have a job to entertain people.”

Blackstar has a lot of changing, evolving sound in the record that reflects his many different incluences, in life or in the music industry.

“I’m influenced by anything I hear. I have such an appreciation for all the arts including paint, sculpting, as well as music. I like everything from Joy Division to Ray Charles to Johnny Cash. If I hear a really old song from the 50’s and I find something in it that I like I will put that element in my songs. A 5-year-old kid can teach me something. If he says something I can take that and use it in a hook. I take inspiration from my life and let it dictate the songs. Sometimes I go through dark periods in my life and you can hear that in the music. I’m fortunate enough to be traveling around and going to fashion events and big nightclubs, so now my music is very happy and you can go to the club and dance to it. It’s great that my life is rubbing off on my music.”

Releasing Blackstar independently, Stylez also produced his own music videos instead of having a major label handle them.

“I’ve been doing it for a long time and will continue to do it. You don’t have to answer to anybody. I can come out on a floating carpet over the ocean with dolphins jumping around in a music video. On major labels, you have directors that make you stick to their concepts for the video. Me and my directors, which are my friends, we make our own treatments and concepts.”

The future of Joey Stylez looks bright, in music and also in the arena of acting.

“I’ve been doing fashion stuff and the merchandising stuff with it and our label. Theres been a couple of scripts that have been written for me, one from my friend in California and another friend wrote one about a native basketball team. I love films and I’ve always wanted to get into acting.”

For more information on Joey Stylez and Blackstar, visit http://www.joeystylezmusic.com.

Written by :

alessandro

 

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