#collizhun

Donuts By TOUGH DUMPLIN

In the spring of 1999 I was asked to perform at the Planet Mars reunion show in Toronto. Anyone who came up in Hip Hop in the 90s in Toronto knows what that invite would have meant to me. Planet Mars was like the Lyricist Lounge of Toronto Hip Hop. You’d get boo’d off the stage if you couldn’t spit. Nefarius was scheduled to perform at the event as well. On the Monday before the show, Kwesro of Nefarius passed away. The show still happened, I still rocked, and I met Collizhun for the first time as he gave a moving tribute to Kwesro on the day they were supposed to rock together. It was a sad day but a day where Toronto Hip Hop came thru as fam to lift one of ours up. In the fall of 2000 I started Ryerson University, and Tristan Tough Dumplin and I reconnected. He was my first real ‘producer’, he took me under his wing & nurtured my talent. I signed my first deal with Apollo Records, he was signed to the label as well, and I recorded almost an entire album with Collizhun’s production at a studio that cost 1g a day. We tracked straight to reels, and to this day that album is kept under lock & key by the record label owner. I have no idea what the songs sound like, I never got copies. Rookie mistake. Collizhun taught me so much though: stage presence, working a single, marketing, promotion. He introduced me to every single one of his contacts, I met every hip hop radio show host & dj in the city at that time working the singles “Work it Out” (recorded at DJ Power’s crib) and “What We Gonna Do” ft. labelmate Adversaree the N.M.E. It was a different era. College radio still reigned and people delivered singles on CD in person to the shows. This performance is from that era. I was asked to perform at the AGO - Art Gallery of Ontario for H.Y.P.E.II, and Adversaree, Collizhun & Subliminal came to hold me down. That was the crew, we always held ea other down. This is a video time capsule of Canadian Hip Hop History.