Quiet quiet loud

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This article was published 08/09/2023 (1144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Super Duty Tough Work released Studies in Grey four years ago, the Winnipeg ensemble — which blends jazz-school chops with radical political thoughts — had no idea who, if anybody, would listen to their debut album.

It was a low-budget, independent release from a band making an enthralling blend of golden era hip-hop and sprawling jazz, populated by dense and deft homilies about classism, racism, and colonial injustice delivered by MC Brendan Grey, who has fronted Super Duty as a popular live act in Winnipeg since 2014.

“You always hope for the best,” says the soft-spoken Grey, dressed in all black at a picnic table in Point Douglas on a Friday afternoon in August. “I don’t know what we were expecting.”

Certainly not what came next: a brief tour, often spent playing in half-empty bars, middling to decent airplay on national radio, and suddenly, a spot on the long list for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize, paving the way to a deal with Toronto’s Next Door Records to release the group’s subsequent album.

After half a decade building a local reputation, Super Duty Tough Work — currently composed of Grey, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Marisolle Negash, saxophonist Olivier Macharia, bassist Ashley Au, guitarist Gabriela Ocejo and percussionist Kevin Waters — got its first taste of a national embrace.

First came the answer, and then came the question: what would the band say and do next?

On the strength of Studies in Grey, the group signed with Misfit Music Management, led by Elise Roller, who strategized with the band on its next act.

It was important to the members to not lose touch with their pro-liberation, anti-capitalist leanings, even as they waded into music industry waters often clouded by the dangling lure of dollar signs.

In search of a producer, Roller reached out to Toronto’s Junia T, a fellow Polaris nominee who, upon hearing Super Duty Tough Work, had to pardon his own ignorance for somehow missing the wave.

“I felt so bad as a student of hip-hop, because I had no clue what was happening west of Ontario,” he says. In Super Duty Tough Work, he adds, “Canada has its own version of the Roots, (rapping about) Public Enemy subject matter.”

Last year, the producer came to Winnipeg for a marathon 10-day visit, first holing up with Grey and Negash to develop beats and sketch out potential melodies to use on the album. Later, the rest of the band stopped in to jam at Stereobus Recording, wowing Junia T with their fluid, dynamic musicianship.

The skill in the room was potent, something fans and collaborators have long known, says Nestor Wynrush, a local rapper and organizer who booked Super Duty Tough Work for a gig in 2014 alongside Grand Analog, another Manitoba hip-hop band relying on live instrumentation.

“People should not take for granted the talent, vision, dedication and risk-taking of this group,” Wynrush says, comparing Super Duty to Halley’s Comet to emphasize the rarity of its glow.

When all was said and done, the band had 32 tracks and more than three hours of music to draw from.

“I could have made a million beats out of those sessions,” says Junia T.

That body of work was hewed down to 10 tracks, and Grey pressed his pen to the pad and started writing the lyrics for an album titled Paradigm Shift, available for purchase today, Sept. 8, at wfp.to/paradigm via Next Door Records.

Paradigm Shift is an album firmly rooted in endurance and resilience, refusing to relent in its critique of systemic inequities, drawing parallels between struggles for liberation and against oppression both here and around the world.

Paradigm Shift reflects the uncomfortable truths inherent to living in Canada in general, and Winnipeg in particular.

“The ghosts that walk these streets, the victims of our deeds, the land-theft denial, the genocide, the greed,” Grey raps on Guillotine Dreams, an eat-the-rich anthem doused with paranoiac production and infused with nocturnal beats.

Balancing the heavy subject matter with infectious rhythms and cheeky wordplay was important to the band because at the end of the day, celebration is an inherent element of survival, Grey says.

Quiet Strength, the album’s sixth track, begins with a sample of the late feminist writer Audre Lorde’s voice, which serves as an unofficial thesis for the LP as a whole.

“Implicit in survival is joy, mobility and effectiveness, and effectiveness is always relevant,” she says. “None of us can move the earth one millimetre from its axis, but if we do what we need to be doing, then we will leave something that continues beyond ourselves, and that is survival.”

In the video for the song, Grey, Au and Negash sit on a floral sofa, towed throughout Winnipeg and across the Arlington Bridge, depicting the freedoms of movement, expression and speech.

“I felt a lot of pressure making this record because you want it to be good, right? You want it to be great. You want it to be something that people respond to, whether it’s listeners or the industry,” Grey says.

“Accolades and recognition or not, it’s really about making a valuable contribution to the culture, respecting the tradition, trying to move forward, and give something of value to the canon.”

And unlike four years ago, it’s certain that people across the country will be listening to what Super Duty Tough Work has to say.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com