Ottawa's Live Hip-Hop Jam Unites Artists for Unscripted Magic
The space gives local artists a place to perform, experiment and collaborate with artists from across the community.
The monthly event, held every third Wednesday, is a live jam where anyone in the audience can tag out musicians onstage to play an instrument or grab the mic.
Each month, a featured emcee shares hosting duties with house emcee Nick Pouponneau.
They are joined by Andrew and the Capital Syndicate, a seven-piece live band led by trumpeter and founder of the session, Andrew Knox.
Knox started his music career at Carleton University, where he studied classical and jazz performance on the trumpet, but he always felt a pull to something more organic.
"I ended up jumping in on all of the things that I really technically wasn't there to do," Knox said. "Everything else that was happening seemed more organic, seemed less planned out, therefore I wanted to be a part of it and, in the transition, I was able to be in a position where I could create an event like this."
Instead of rapping over recorded beats and looping rhythms, artists can step up, ask the band for a specific groove or 'vibe' and have the musicians create it live on the spot while they freestyle or perform over it.
Knox described the event as a "cross-pollination of various genres," with hip hop at the centre.
"We can reinforce the fact that live music and hip hop go really well together," Knox said.
For Ottawa rapper Mitchell Schwartz, also known as "Mo Sense," the jam session led him back to a part of his life he had stepped away from.
Mo Sense started rapping in his mid-teens and performed at shows and battles around Ottawa until his early 20s. Later, he moved to Colombia and joined a rap group there, then he shifted his focus to family.
"I thought that I'd put that chapter behind me," he said. "And then I met Andrew, and he invited me out to the first jam and kind of put me on the spot to go on stage. ... Now I remember how much I love this."
At the first jam, Mo Sense recalls he did not have anything prepared. When the band asked what he wanted to hear, he simply asked for something he could "vibe to."
The band started to play a "jazzy" groove and he performed the last piece he had written which dated back to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I could see the heads nodding ... people cheering," he said. "I was like, man, I've been missing this. It just felt like I was home."
He contrasts the atmosphere at the jam with how he remembers the industry when he started. Back then, he said, there were plenty of shows, events and battles.
But he said there was a stronger sense of competition.
"Even though there were events, it felt like everybody was very siloed and nobody really wanted to collaborate," he said.
Returning now, he said he finds people "way more open to collaborating and supporting each other and building a scene rather than just building up themselves."
Cranium Arts Project, a local hip-hop organization, supports the event as a sponsor.
Co-founder and music director of Cranium Arts Project, J. Morris said the jam fits with Cranium's focus on emerging artists.
"We really do our part to help out emerging artists within our city," he said, explaining that the event promotes independent talent. "It just makes sense for us to support."
Morris has attended every edition of the jam so far and highlighted the role of freestyle and live instruments.
"A lot of what's happening throughout the night is literally off the top, you know, it's all freestyle," he said. "Having a band on stage just adds to the element of like a musical performance ... rocking with a live band just brings it to another level."
He also emphasized the event's supportive environment, saying it's a place where performers can try out things without feeling judged.
"It's a completely different experience to take that talent to the stage and put it in front of an audience and just be vulnerable like that," he said.
In addition to performing, Morris and other artists have used the time to shout out their personal projects. For him it has been the release of his children's books, Little Minds and Bigger Rhymes and the Cranium Arts Project Conference and Showcase.
"To be able to go to an event like this and really just connect with other like-minded people ... allows you to actually make money too, which is awesome," he said.
Cranium runs an annual conference at the National Arts Centre that brings industry delegates to meet local artists.
Knox will be featured at the festival this year. "It felt great to be able to work with Cranium and I feel like their help is essential for our event to be a core element of the hip hop community," Knox said.
"Networking is key for any artist," Morris said. "Being put in front of the right people or just having that opportunity to meet the right people is very important."
That's where he and Knox see events like the jam connecting local artists with the wider industry and giving them a place to meet and work together.
Knox said the event is a way to blend two worlds, bringing together Ottawa's diverse music scene.
He said the city is home to talented hip-hop artists, instrumentalists and vocalists across genres, but some pockets of the scene don't have the same opportunities to collaborate.
"Having it as a jam really opens the space up for everybody," he said.
