So, we'd do that and eventually we started branching out to include other people to assist us. We would Airbnb our houses to fund our music. Basically, it was in order to make money and stuff like that. We started the music and art collective two years ago. Ĭan you explain Ensemble and the work you do there? That's where I met a lot of the people I work with now for my collective, Ensemble. It also helped me to not be as sheltered because it's a city where there's a lot going on and big condos everywhere and a lot of parties… I really broke out of my shell once I moved to Toronto. So it's good to be around people that have great creative ideas because it sharpens your skills and abilities. It does give you hope for yourself that you can also do it and just the creative minds in that city are really great. You slowly see underground artists like Jessie Reyez or Daniel Caesar doing big, phenomenal things right now. The city definitely inspired what I'm doing. Right now, I'm back and forth between and Ottawa and Toronto.
Was your move to Toronto inspired by the vivacious music scene there, especially with the great rise of artists like Drake, The Weeknd, PARTYNEXTDOOR? I'm not the type to be into chains and stuff like that because where I'm from we don't really see that every day. There's not that much opportunity, nothing that's really glamorous in the city and I think that's really reflected in my music.
There's a very modest approach to things in this city. It really made me modest in terms of the music I made, how I approached the industry, and how I come up with the lyrics. Ottawa is a very big town, small city type of vibe. I really view my city as motivation to continue doing music, especially since a lot of people saw me as the hope of bringing awareness to the hip hop scene in the city. And that just became a thing for me: getting better at rapping. From there, I was doing freestyle battles in the neighborhood. I got really into hip hop then and doing graffiti then. Someone would bring a boombox and everyone would just start breakdancing and skateboarding. I lived in front of these projects where people would just hardcore bump on the playground. Ottawa was actually the place that really introduced me to hip hop. How has your upbringing in Ottawa impacted your music and vision? Getting the hottest wardrobe and making sure you had the brand new shirt and pants, that were out at the time. New York really influenced the way I dressed, that was a big thing as a kid. The Diplomats were really popular at the time. Erykah Badu, Mary Mary, those were a lot of my big influences and I'd say I incorporate all that into my music.ĭid your time in Brooklyn influence your sound at all?įor sure, especially when I spent my time there, there was a lot of hip hop groups. I would say it has some Neo-soul, some R&B and hip hop mixed in as well. My music always has to include soul in it, whatever I'm doing. I started with singing, moved onto rapping, and now I'm doing both.Įvery time someone asks me that question I have a hard time pinpointing exactly what it is. I just recently got back into singing and found my voice. During that time is when I hit puberty and I lost my voice so I wasn't singing as much. So then I started freestyling and rapping for a good while. Yeah, it was a very weird transition because I actually started with R&B singing and then in middle school there was a thing called Freestyle Friday on BET. It's one of those things where I say things in a way that resonate with myself and I know there are other people who feel the same way I do.ĭid you start off as a poet and then find the world of R&B or was it the other way around? I don't really think twice about "oh, is this really appropriate?" I know someone will resonate with it. Can you explain that title?īasically, a lot of the lyrics in my songs are about the reality of my life, things I've personally experienced or lived so that's where the raw poet comes in. On your website, you are described as a raw, street poet. City Fidelia's sound and vision as an artist is unique enough to set him apart from these icons and pave the way for his own path of success - one he has already tasted with his single "Lately," reaching 5 million streams on Spotify. He is not to be cornered into the same side of the ring as Drake, The Weeknd, or PARTYNEXTDOOR. City Fidelia is one of the biggest rappers in Ottawa, Canada.