No dis, McEnroe is a real hip-hop franchise

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/07/2003 (8372 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FOR a style of music that’s supposed to be all about “keeping it real,” modern hip-hop tends to be depressingly phoney.

It’s tough to find a mainstream artist who isn’t trying to project an image; i.e. the World’s Most Bullet-Ridden Bad-Ass, the World’s Most Often-Laid Lothario or The World’s Most Bootylicious Bitch-Goddess.

Sadly, commercial hip-hop is stuck in some kind of fantasyland where daily life involves brandishing a concealed weapon, putting on a diamond-encrusted crucifix and dancing with a chorus line of butt-shakin’ bikini babes.

Authenticity has become the sole domain of political rappers such as New York’s Talib Kweli, storytellers sucha as Halifax’s Buck 65 and most spectacularly, Brandon-born ex-Winnipegger and master of the confessional rhyme, McEnroe.

Based in Vancouver, this 29-year-old producer and MC is the CEO and sole full-time employee of Peanuts & Corn Records, a Winnipeg-centric label which releases some of North America’s most honest and unusual hip-hop.

Over the past decade, he’s produced no less than 20 albums by 10 recording artists, built Peanuts & Corn into a modest indie powerhouse that has sold 30,000 units and — somehow — managed to work on his own material.

The fruits of the past decade can be heard on Disenfranchised, the first full-length album of McEnroe’s career.

This remarkable recording exemplifies everything that’s appealing about the Peanuts & Corn sound: Inventive use of samples, plenty of live instrumentation and above all, an incredible commitment to honesty in the rhymes and lyrics.

McEnroe, whose real name is Rod Bailey, raps about the frustrating, the humiliating and the potentially embarrassing — in other words, the mundane stuff of genuine everyday life.

But he also delivers an inspirational, completely autobiographical message about how important it is to follow your muse and fulfill your dreams. In his case, that involved making a career in hip-hop as a white kid from Brandon who became an engineer before following his girlfriend to the West Coast and getting laid off.

“There are people who’ll never like me, mostly hardcore hip-hop people,” says the often expressionless musician during a recent Winnipeg visit which saw him marry that girlfriend.

“It’s hard to say why. One, we’re from Canada. Two, we’re mostly white. And then there’s the perception that we’re trying to change hip-hop and move it away from gangsta hip-hop and the ghetto.

“But we’re not trying to do that. We’re just trying to do our own thing.”

If you’re wondering who the “we” is, McEnroe is referring to his core group of collaborators: Churchill-born MC John Smith, Winnipeg’s Gruf The Druid and two Brandon-born musicians who used to perform with a younger Bailey in the seminal Manitoba rap trio Farm Fresh — DJ Hunnicutt and MC Pip Skid.

McEnroe tends to deflect attention from himself, which is interesting, considering how much work he puts into his sole source of income, Peanuts & Corn.

“I’ll take credit for being a good producer and working my ass off for 10 years. I am the engine at the label.

“But it wouldn’t be fun without all the other guys.”

Until now, McEnroe has been content to lurk in the background. But Disenfranchised has the potential to change all that.

In Vancouver, where he rarely performs live, influential street paper The Georgia Straight put McEnroe on its cover and ran a 2,100-word story which declared Disenfranchised “the best Canadian hip-hop recording you’re likely to hear all year.”

“I have no profile at all out there and suddenly I’m on the cover of The Straight,” Bailey guffaws. Apparently, he’s the first rap act to make the alternative weekly’s cover since Swollen Members, four years ago.

Fame and fortune may not ensue, as the one-man Peanuts & Corn operation isn’t about to mount a takeover of the music world. But you can find the label’s music in stores which carry indie records.

McEnroe plans to remain in Vancouver, where his wife works as a fashion designer. Manitoba, however, remains his spiritual home, as he acknowledges he could not do what he does if he didn’t grow up here.

“I doubt it. We’re different and I guess that’s why we’re marketable,” he says, switching back to the first-person plural again.

“There are better rappers and producers around, but they all stick to a formula. We don’t.”

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca