EFEM
Efem first entered the world of Hip Hop in October
of 1998 and soon after began penning his first lyrics. Emceeing seemed to be
the next natural step for him as he was already competent at beatboxing, Djing,
and Breakin’. His rap style took a while to take shape as he was deeply into
old school rap and lived in a city where Hip Hop was a small minority. “When I
first started rhyming I was still listening to Grandmaster Flash and the
furious five thinking ‘damn this is ill’”
Efem later became more heavily influenced by such great writers as Talib
Kweli and Common sense. “My writing really picked up after listening to Kweli
and common and other tight battle emcees. I’d be listening to a track and
there’d be a punchline or pun that’d made my head hurt for days and ever since
then I’ve strived to write verses like that”.
Living in Belleville made it very hard
to get heard; especially because there were no open mic nights and the only hip
hop played at clubs was commercial. Still, Efem was not discouraged and kept
working on his lyrics, practicing his scratches, and getting constant hip hop
updates from the rest of his crew in Toronto.
The KINETIC ALPHABETICS group was
formed in 1999 when Efem and his friends Mighty Mike and Ethereal decided to
join forces and start producing underground tracks. Starting with underground
mixtapes and eventually working up to tracks, the group has now been played on
the radio several times.
Efem’s list of lyrical achievements is short but to
the point. In March of 2000, he won the crowd over at the first local open mic
night in Belleville. This started the idea going and soon there were open mic
nights every other Sunday. On the 1st of October, 2000 Efem became
the Lyrical Battle Rap Champion of Belleville by winning the Contest held at
the same venue and claimed the $50 dollar prize. Since then, Efem has appeared
as a guest on Belleville’s Saturday Night Jam party (92.3 CJLX radio) 3 times
and has performed live beatboxes, freestyles and tracks.
“When I won the comp, they called me Belleville’s
Beatbox because I performed ‘if your mother only knew’ as a demonstration
afterwards” It appears as though it can only go up from here for Efem. Tight
lyrical concepts and punchlines, harsh battle tracks, fresh beats and of course
beatboxing all come together to make this emcee stand out as force to be
reckoned with. Reppin B-ville all the way, Efem proves that even in a city
where hip hop culture is not that acknowledged an underground emcee can still
get his voice heard.
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