Posts with the: billboard tag.

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Snow Settles In

Source: Chris Lamb, www.teenmusic.com

In 1993 Jurassic Park was a monster movie and the Chicago Bulls NBA champions. Grunge rock was in fine form and airbags were the newest car safety devices since front-wheel drive. 1993 was also enthralled with the relatively new sound of rap and that year’s biggest rap song was undoubtedly Informer, a worldwide number one hit by Snow.

Snow recorded Informer as a troubled youth and his life instantly transformed from troublemaker into pop star. Fame and money followed in the wake of the single, taking Snow around the world to promote and perform his debut album ’12 Inches of Snow.’

Born Darrin O’Brien, Snow grew up in the Allenbury projects in North York, a subsidized neighborhood of the Greater Toronto Area. A school dropout in grade eight, Snow immersed himself in Toronto’s street culture, acquiring a criminal record and an interest in music. Reggae and hip-hop were particular favorites and Snow developed a unique rapping sound that became known in the East Coast music scene. While on vacation in New York Snow began recording ’12 Inches of Snow’ with producer MC Shan.

The album was released and the first single, Informer, found heavy rotation on radio and TV. ‘Informer’ sat at #1 on the Billboard Singles Chart for seven weeks straight in 1993 and is entered into the Guinness Book of World Records twice – as the Biggest Selling Reggae Single in U.S. History and Highest Charting Reggae Single in history.

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Snow Signs To Virgin Music Canada

Source: www.chartattack.com

Old skool multi-platinum rapper, Snow has been signed to Virgin Music Canada for a worldwide recording contract. The first record will be released sometime in October, and abroad in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France with the rest of Europe receiving it later in the spring of 2001.

The first single from Snow is titled, ‘Everybody Wants To Be Like You’ from the untitled record and already has label executives very excited. General manager of Virgin Music Canada, Bill Banham said that he’s very pleased to have Snow on their label where he can be his ‘creative self’ and show off his talent.

Deane Cameron, president of EMI Music Canada said that Snow is developing into a great songwriter and has a very exciting future. Snow had one successful album, 12 Inches of Snow, which was released in 1992 and sold over six million copies worldwide based on the success of ‘Informer.’

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Canadian Rapper Signs With Japan’s JVC Records

Source: Larry LeBlanc, www.billboard.com

Some six years after his Jamaican dancehall-derived single “Informer” topped charts around the world, Canadian artist Snow is putting the finishing touches on a reggae-based pop/rock album that he hopes will return him to the charts.

Even though the follow-ups to that 1993 breakthrough fizzled, Snow is intent on revitalizing his career and wats to let his detractors know that his much-publicized liquor-soaked, hell-raising days are behind him.

“I love [music] and hope I can now have a career at it,” says the soft-spoken Snow, married and with a 3-year-old daughter. “I used to have only one foot in the [music] industry. Now, I want to put two feet in. Eleven months ago, I quit drinking. I’ve realized I have to stay out of trouble and focus on music.”

In March, Snow (real name Darrin O’Brien) signed a deal with JVC Records of Japan, which will release an as-yet-untitled 13-song album in that country and the rest of Asia. Snow is looking to license the album elsewhere.

Recorded at Snow’s home studio, the tracks were produced and written by Snow with longtime New York-based collaborator M.C. Shan and Nashville-based producer/engineer Glenn Rosenstein.

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Joey Boy Has Fun With Snow

Source: Mick Elmore, www.billboard.com

Local rapping sensation Joey Boy has become the country’s first artist to record with a well-known Westerner.

His song and video “Fun, Fun, Fun” with Canadian rapper Snow is set for release at the end of the month through Bakery Music — and Joey Boy returns the favour on Snow’s as-yet-untitled forthcoming album on EastWest.

Snow, the Canadian rapping success whose album “12 Inches Of Snow” spent 38 weeks on The Billboard 200 in 1993, had a large part to play on the Thai rapper’s third album. Joey Boy spent a few weeks with Snow in Toronto earlier this year recording and honing his rap technique. “At first we had no plans to sing together,” says Joey Boy. “We became friends. Then he asked me to sing a song with him.” Friendship led to the artists collaborating on tracks for each other’s albums (both albums are due in late November).

Snow sings “Fun, Fun, Fun” on Joey’s album and appears in a video now in it’s final stages of editing. Joey Boy joins Snow for “Joey And Me” on the latter’s album. Joey Boy says the the Toronto experience has improved his rapping and that the new album will highlight that difference, for it features a more American hip-hop and Jamaican reggae beat.

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White On Black : The Rap On Rap

Source: Elizabeth Renzetti, www.theglobeandmail.com

The controversy over “voice appropriation” – one culture or race telling the stories of another – is most heated in the field of literature, but popular music is where appropriation often becomes the equivalent of a brazen daylight heist.

From jazz to blues to reggae and rock ‘n’ roll, white folks have long been borrowing and adapting and making piles of money out of music that black folks originated. Keith Richards cheerfully admits he lifted his licks from Chuck Berry; others have not been as gracious.

The trend spread to hip hop, a genre encompassing rap, funk and dance music that began in the inner cities of Los Angeles and New York in the late seventies. White boys began scratching vinyl and rapping, with results ranging from commercially successful and listenable (Beastie Boys) to mercifully forgotten (Vanilla Ice).

Most trends, especially those carried on the airwaves, don’t stop at the border and this one is no different: In Canada, too, you can find hip hop and Jamaican dancehall music – rapidly chanted lyrics over a swaying beat – in the least likely places.

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