Posts with the: quit drinking tag.

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Forecast Calling For Snow

Source: Ashante Infantry, www.thestar.com

Toronto singer Snow back on top with latest disc Nominated for Juno, 10 years after breakthrough

Reggae-pop rapper Snow’s problem is one many singers would love to have: Toronto radio stations have followed “Legal,” the hit song from his latest album Two Hands Clapping, with competing singles.

While Flow 93.5 plays the hip-hop inflected “That’s My Life,” CHUM-FM favours the adult contemporary ballad “Lonely Song” and KISS 92.5 FM spins “Missing You” a melodic urban track.

“It’s confusing for me too,” says Snow. “People come up and tell me they like my new song and I’m like ‘Which one?’ But, I can’t complain if they’re playing them all.”

Especially since his current popularity recalls his 1993 debut 12 Inches Of Snow and its hit track “Informer,” which sold eight million copies worldwide and entered the Guinness Book Of World Records as the biggest selling reggae single and highest charting reggae single in history. Long before the crossover success of Shaggy and Sean Paul, an Irish-Canadian kid held the No.1 spot on Billboard’s singles charts for seven weeks with a dancehall track.

Three moderately successful albums followed and now Two Hands Clapping is up for a Juno for Best Reggae Recording, the category Snow christened nine years ago.

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Allenbury To Jamaica

Source: Interview by Harris Rosen, Photos by James Barr and Harris Rosen, www.peacemagazine.com

Peace magazine photoshootSomehow it all seems to suggest things are more complex than they seem. Racial profiling, a season of street violence in Toronto, and the usual innuendoes that Jamaicans brandish the most weapons all become slightly more confusing for those seeking easy explanations. How? Just add Snow.

Born Darrin O’Brien in 1969, Snow grew up in North York’s Allenbury Projects, a place where the dreams of recent immigrants and old school Canadians square off against the often harsh realities of the city’s subsidized housing scene. It’s a place that, according to Snow, has changed dramatically over the past twenty years.

‘When I was growing up I didn’t know people who would break into people’s houses and steal their wedding bands,’ he says. ‘My neighborhood was a place where you’d see a lady come walking by with her purse and her groceries in her hand and somebody run up to her, grab the groceries and help her across the street and bring it to her house.’

Regardless of geography, this is but one tale from a city that’s currently embroiled in a rush of reminiscence about the good old days. From Allenbury to Cabbagetown to Eglinton West, people across Toronto can be heard talking about the 1970s like it was some kind of golden age. Listen to anyone over thirty and pay attention to that far away look in their eyes as they talk with this myth-like reverence about life before the sweep of crime, poverty, and social suffering.

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Darrin O’Brien Is As Sober And Soft As A Snowflake

Source: Marcus Maleus, www.westerngazette.ca

SnowConsidering the inexplicable popularity of Snow’s breakthrough single ‘Informer’ in the early 90s, many thought it would be the beginning and end of commercial success for the rap/reggae musician from Scarborough, Ontario.

Snow, also known as Darrin O’Brien, spent his early days listening to reggae music and attempting to make out the often mumbled lyrics. Growing up in rough and tumble Scarborough gave him realistic inspiration for hard rap/reggae music. Despite this, he insists he never came out with any particularly negative music.

‘Informer,’ the catchy reggae tune riddled with, at times, un-decipherable lyrics, proved to be an astounding success in both Canada and the United States. The song made its way into the Guinness Book of World Records twice. Once, as the highest selling reggae single in United States history and again as the highest charting reggae single in United Kingdom history.

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Snow Gives Sobering Message And Performance At Shark Tank Pub

Source: Amanda Newman

Snow performing at Shark Tank PubSnow performed for Belleville and a near capacity crowd at the Shark Tank Pub on Thursday night. Darrin O’Brien, known as Snow, who was raised in the Allenbury social housing projects in North York and is the voice behind the 1993 hit single Informer.

He performed that song along with material from his album Mind On The Moon released in October 2000. ‘The show was excellent. It was a more intimate show than we’ve had in the past. I think he enjoyed Belleville. This show had a lot of energy,’ said Fred Pollitt, director of student life at Loyalist College.

Snow was accompanied on stage by two dancers and fellow male performer Candy, while fans surrounded the area around the stage. Snow dropped out of school in Grade 8 and began drinking at age 13 hanging out with a bad crowd. ‘I might go back to school and learn some shit because my daughter is getting smarter than I am,’ he said on stage. When an audience member suggested he have a drink, Snow had this comment for the crowd:

‘I don’t drink alcohol, it’s good for you, but I wound up in prison,’ he told the crowd.

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No More Melt-Downs For Snow

Source: Andrew Flynn, www.montrealgazette.com

Snow will never fall again, that much he promises.

From alcohol abuse to jail to stardom to obscurity and back again has been a mostly upward journey, the only direction to go, the singer has decided.

Born Darrin O’Brien and raised in a heavily Jamaican section of suburban North York, Snow, 31, is clearly enjoying his reincarnation from international reggae-cum-rap star – thanks to his huge hit Informer in 1992 – to pop singer. Long gone are the days when he would go on a two-day bender and wake up in a lockup – or a hospital.

“Never again. I’m never going to let my daughter see me behind bars. Never,” he says. “I learned the hard way, but at least I learned.”

Just being around Snow is like experiencing a moderate to heavy caffeine buzz: his intensity is infectious, as if he’s got a nuclear reactor in his socks that needs to be rigorously stifled just so he can sit still.

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