With one year under its belt, the Big Ticket kicked off this month with fresh faces, alumni and crowd favourites. One of the artists who hit the stage was Canadian rapper Eternia. The femcee, who re-located to New York years ago, has not been on the stage for a while. The Big Ticket marked Eternia’s return to the stage and she didn’t disappoint.
WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO COME BACK ON THE STAGE AT BIG TICKET? Priorities changed in my life. So when priorities changed in my life, they kind of switched from me being about me, so my priorities changed from me promoting myself to me caring more about other people; in a professional capacity and also personally. So when that happened, I was looking into kind of leaving the rap game to be honest, leaving New York City, which is full of A-types, self-promotion and just pursuing a whole other career. And I have done that. I left New York City, I did a new career that is unrelated to music; but at the same time, I think an artist is always an artist, meaning we never retire, our art is something as natural as breathing, for me that’s writing raps, I’m more of a writer than I am a musician. So for me writing is as natural as drinking water. So even if I tell myself I’m not going to be in the music business, I can’t stop myself from doing what I love artistically. It’s something I expressed as being a homecoming jam and a tribute to my city. I all of a sudden got this burst of creative inspiration; it comes post break-up I think that’s what happens. So I hit up my manager like, ‘I’m ready to do this’ and he hit up Chris, the promoter, and it was just perfect timing so I’ve really been using his platform of Big Ticket as a platform to get some things off my chest as well.
WHAT DID YOU WANT FANS TO GET FROM YOUR SET? I think what generally happens is that it’s fast moving, fast paced, high energy and [I] kind of like to keep things fresh. I don’t like people’s ears to get used to something too long, so I just keep it like a mixtape fast and keep it moving.
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE BIG TICKET SHOWCASE AND ITS EFFECT ON TORONTO? I’ve attended twice now since I’ve moved home, I haven’t been living here for almost a decade, I think Chris likes to book people from all different facets of hip-hop, and I guess you could say sub-genres within a genre. I notice he likes to be very inclusive of all different types of fans and the music that they would like in Toronto so it’s not one type of rap music on stage. And that’s cool, as long as everyone can come together and get along and respect each other. If I see something on stage that I don’t like, I don’t assume my taste is everyone’s taste, so I understand that for everyone who likes Eternia there’s going to be someone else who likes trap music or something, which is opposite of what I do. I think Chris sees that, he capitalizes on that, and I think it’s a good move.
“I think an artist is always an artist, meaning we never retire, our art is something as natural as breathing, for me that’s writing raps, I’m more of a writer than I am a musician. So for me writing is as natural as drinking water.”
WHAT DID YOU DO TO PREPARE FOR YOUR RETURN? I’m not a veteran, I’m a professional, so we like to take care of our bodies and our mind so when we jump on stage we’re clear headed, we don’t act stupid, we’re not all drunk, we treat this like a job, and that’s what I’m doing… it’s my profession, it’s a job.
SO WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU? I just dropped a video, it’s a tribute, to Kendrick Lamar’s “High Power”, but I kind of owned it and made it my own; pHoenix Pagliacci sings on it, she killed it, she murdered it, we did a music video for it in Kensington at like 4 in the morning. I’ve been working on that the last couple weeks and months, it’s called “Final Offering”. We ran a graphic design contest last week for the single cover, the artwork, and we got a tie for the winner, two amazing pieces of artwork. I have an album, 50 per cent done with Moss, he just sent me over a bunch of beats and I just recorded them. We’re being real tentative and taking it one day at a time, making it about the music and not about the business. I think that for everyone it’s different, but for me when business gets involved you kind of lose sight of what is important, so as much as there are people like managers and A&R, these are people who are paid to handle business, so for me personally me and Moss we’re just focusing on the music.
Interview By. Aliecia Brissett
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