After The Smoke Is Clear 704
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Below this write-up, you’ll find the track list, complete with artists, albums, and the city they represent. You can listen here and follow along, or if you’re using the Mixcloud app, hit the “…” to check out the track list while you listen. There’s also a video below from the Twitch stream where I slapped this mix together. I’m having fun week to week, come through and say hi, hang out and listen to music. I’m streaming often on weekday afternoons, either working on ATSIC, listening to the new releases on the radar each Friday or Saturday to make picks, doing Fly In Formation interviews on Tuesdays, or working on my own music when I can find time.
Another round of solid new releases from across the country this week! I think I bought something like 29 different songs, plus another handful that were sent over for me, so there was plenty in the vaults to choose from.
This week I spun both the A and B side of Roshin’s new one, starting the mix off with his solo cut “Lysol” and following up a few tracks later with the B side “Wolf Back” where he links with Sayzee. I always ask people on Fly in Formation who they’re checking for in their scene, and I’d bet both these guys mentioned the other when I did, so it’s good to see them actually jump on a track together.
I don’t know much about Pulp Cruz or Jamal J, but I recognize Saint Kay as a Montreal artist, and the three of them had all sorts of slick shit to say over an organ loop on “praise”, which is off of Kay’s iso! iso! album.
Ivason Black sums up the next one pretty sufficiently saying “time tested theory, the rhyme says it clearly” - you can tell this isn’t an amateur rapping to you on his new one “Acolyte”. I think the live remix worked aight on this one, sometimes I fuck em up and end up replacing the monstrosity I create with the standard MP3 in post production.. but this mix is live and unfiltered, flaws and all.. that’s what we’re looking for in the age of AI perfect sheen right?
Lotus James dropped a single that I think must be from the album he told me was coming when we spoke in Fly in Formation’s third season. At that time he was promoting a smaller project (that was densely packed with clever bars) called “Wordplay King”, but he said he had a more full fledged stand alone album coming, and that the first album was just a primer of sorts - building up to Love Lotus, which I’m guessing this is the first single from, considering “love Lotus” are the last words we heard. I’m not sure who John Pate is, but he held his own in the “Magic & Bird” equation on this one.
I think Ayoo Bigz hit us with my favourite track of his yet this week, “Real Badmon” where he draws a line in the sand and clearly declares his position on white supremacists who seem to be infesting the world. Because of the company he keeps, I was pretty confident that A.B. wasn’t some sort of bigot before I heard this song, but it’s still always nice hearing white guys in Hip Hop visibly pushing back against racist assholes. I think sometimes it’s not even the artists intention, but they start accidentally courting a crowd that has no business partaking in Hip Hop - people with no respect for the kulture, who just gravitate to rap because the mainstream often excuses their toxic masculinity or various hateful mindsets. It’s fucked up and weird that those rap fans exist (probably more out here on the prairies than in a lot of other places), and I applaud white emcees who tell that crowd to fuck off. No place for racial hatred in Hip Hop.
Tariiiq has been killing it lately, single after single on point lyrically, with content that meanders from brags to introspection to social commentary and remains stylistically tight and sonically pleasing. “HIT EM WITH THE FUNK” this week checks all those boxes. Looking forward to talking with Tariiiq April 7.
I talked with Frost Gamble in season 1 or 2 or Fly in Formation, and I’ve been playing him and Tone Chop steady for the entire 7 year run on After The Smoke Is Clear. They’re gearing up for a full album drop called “Beautiful Foundations”, which was the name of the first single that I aired earlier this year. This track, “Play No Games” features cuts from DJ Eclipse and doesn’t drop on streaming platforms until Feb 10. Tone Chop is scheduled to be joining us next time Frost joins me on FiF, coming up May 5 - right close to the anticipated release date for the full album, so we should have plenty to talk about. More live remixing fucking around trying to add a chop of a baseline to this one. I can’t give you the full version untainted this early, cmon.
Big recognizable sample on Killah Dilla’s new drop “Postman” with Reazhun and Sado. I think these guys are all Toronto based, but I’m sort of in the dark still as far as the details, don’t trust me on that. I think they’re Canadian. It’s tough to tell when people don’t have bios posted, but I gather at least Killah is from T.O.
Then it’s a third drop from Edmonton’s Unified Kin - “Brothers Take Flight”. They sent a few tracks they’d finished through - I think they might be up on Soundcloud or something but not on your big streaming platforms. I’m here for it. These guys put in their dues on the streets of YEG and are all verified cypher beasts. The ability to translate those impromptu sessions of freestyles into song writing isn’t always something that improv rappers ever master, but these guys have also been putting in the hours to practice with the pen and song writing, evidently. Hope to hear a bunch more from this camp, they deserve the shine - this is the remnants of a shattered collective called Colli Con that has been losing members to street life for years, and I’ve got nothing but respect for the fires they’ve walked through.
Def3 told me he had a bunch of collabs with big name EDM DJs coming up when I talked to him on Fly In Formation last time, and I’ve been hearing them roll out one by one ever since. He’s got Chozen & Noetika providing the soundscapes on “Tooth, Nail & Claw”, and his mission to push boom bap lyricism into the festival space seems to be proving fruitful, at least sonically. I’m sure once the cold weather is gone, the people at the outdoor festivals will be loving sets made of these songs.
Skizza & AK called in B1 the Architect and RationL to flip a bunch of math terms and shape names into bars about emcees trying to copy their work on “Geometry”. Again, I love seeing the people I know and endorse working together across provincial borders, so I’m in fan mode on this one. The live remixing on this one wasn’t flawless, but I left the blemishes in cuz fuck it, we live!
Toronto emcee Errol Eats Everything is always fun to hear lately, and seeing him beside names like Statik Selektah and Rome Streets shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did - he’s dope and deserving of the cosign, but watching Canadians get American recognition is still notable because the market down there is undeniably big enough that it fully eclipses our national scene. Working with Americans helps get more ears, which is the whole point.
The first artist I ever spoke with for Fly In Formation is back active after a few years of relative silence - I’d see his name on promo for shows and see him pop up on the occasional track, but since his “Northernmost Millions” album he’s probably been back in the lab cooking, and the last couple drops have been dope. I love that he’s recruiting veterans like Touch182 and putting together collabs with artists I’ve never heard of like Xlnts - who definitely caught my ear and held his own on “Stroll Down Jasper Avenue”. Hopefully Ned has another mixtape style album coming soon, his first one was exactly what I always wished someone was doing in Edmonton when I lived up there - there’s so much talent that having someone shake hands with all the cliques and crews and bring them together in one spot should be the recipe for a collaborative masterpiece.
Calgary emcee K The Chosen links with a producer I hadn’t heard of named Gremlyn, and the two pour up a steaming hot cup for us on “Always Fresh”. The outro “maybe we should combine names and be called the Kremlyn” line makes me suspect we’ll be hearing more from these two.
Bubski is known as BubskiTheRapper on iTunes, and he does certainly rappity rap for us on “Which Room (Tap Shoes)”. Smooth horn grooves give him plenty of space to talk through his history and past loves. I was so close to nailing the live remix, but blending is one of those things where one button touch at the wrong time fucks shit up. I liked the “Your love is mine” sample behind his love raps on the second verse, but another run at this would have probably produced smoother results. Oh well, go listen to the original if you don’t want me fucking with it, I’m just here to point at good shit and have fun.
Speaking of fun, the momentum of a beat like Gearl has on “Your Luv Iz Like”, complete with the shouted sample chops really give this one a sense of urgency. The bars aren’t anything brain blowing but I like the overall vibes.
Things slow down for one from Edmontonian JusJRDN, who has been finding his stride since I last talked with him on Fly In Formation. At that point he was taking pre-orders for a vinyl album drop that IIRC was called Mount Olympus, and since then he’s managed to vault clear over the 100k subscriber mark on Youtube. He’s talented and deserves the attention, but a lot of guys are talented and deserve the attention, so I’m really looking forward to asking him what it is that he’s been doing to grow so fast when I talk to him for FiF #126 Feb 3!
Lex Leosis explores her saphic side and the journey to bi-sexuality on “Wholelottawomen” - which could have fit in on a dance episode but instead ends up bringing some variety to this mix.
KRA$H OUT is K.Stone’s new album, and I’ve been playing tracks from it each week - shit is dope and you should go listen to the full project, or buy it or something. He’s been making some strong statements in clips on his socials lately too, which has me excited to talk with him coming up on March 10.
That’s it for this mix. I heard a few crackles throughout the mix, but I don’t think it’ll ruin anything for anyone. Might have been a sample rate issue somewhere, or maybe a buffer issue.. or something. I’ve been wrestling with my audio set up since I upgraded my interface and swapped my old USB mic out for a Shure SM7b at the desk. Sending the audio from Ableton to OBS so that the live stream can hear Ableton’s audio is a huge pain in the ass, but I will hopefully prevail. Til then the making of ATSIC sessions might be janky.. this one I only posted half the actual DJ session because the first half was double monitoring to the stream, creating a shitty echo.. cuz it’s always something. I did have rapper Kr3wsuffix come through for a couple hours while I was buying music before I hit the turntables, but I fucked that up too because I forgot my studio mic needs phantom power. It’s a lot of plates spinning simultaneously to trouble shoot problems mid-livestream, so it took me a while to notice stream wasn’t getting his side of the convo. Learning curve in full effect, next time I’ll do better, probably.
Fly in Formation is back to weekly episodes every Tuesday for 2026 until July, with the interview with Fresh Kils online now! Next up is another longtime Canadian producer who’s worked with a wide swath of artists, Vancouver’s Starkore! That’s Tuesday Jan 27 at 7pm MT/ 9 ET. You can watch every interview I’ve done up until this point on Youtube. Leave a comment, hit like over there, show some love and run up the playlist on a muted tab - it’ll help the algorithm show my content to more people, which will get more Canadian music in more ears.
Tune in every Tuesday for interviews with artists across the country as I continue to learn more about local scenes and artist’s creative processes, talking to artists we play regularly on ATSIC. Come through, hit subscribe on Twitch to skip the ads, and hang out and listen to Hip Hop.
I buy every track I play on ATSIC (unless it’s sent to me directly). Streaming barely pays, so it’s essential to support indie artists by buying their music, tickets, or merch to keep them creating. Listening to #ATSIC on Mixcloud is free for you, and makes sure that each song you hear pays the artist at least SOMETHING. Spotify pays 0.006 CAD per stream, and that’s only if the song hits 1000 plays in 3 months. Assuming a song gets 1000 spins, that means it takes around 125 Spotify plays to earn an artist the same .76 cents they earn from my 1.29 purchase on iTunes. Spotify is also now investing the billions they earn into weaponized AI drones, which is just awful, frankly. Fuck those guys - I use it because it’s the only realistic way to keep up with all these drops from all these artists, but I never listen to anything more than twice on there - because I go buy a digital single of anything I like that much. You could to, and the music industry would thank you.
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