Can a song about heartbreak be groovy? Canadian Rapper Kidd Dreadd and Rock Guitarist Bill Minnery show us it can be whatever you want it to be!
What we love about indie artists is how creative they can get, especially when left to do what comes naturally to them. They aren’t afraid to try things others wouldn’t dare to, a lot like children who don’t hide their play from adults. In fact, Sigmund Freud, in his 1907 talk on Creative Writing and Day Dreaming, touched upon this very point in reference the psyche of a creative individual.
He said, “The child's best-loved and most intense occupation is with his play or games... It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously; on the contrary, he takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real..."
Brantford, Ontario-based rapper Justin Benin AKA Kidd Dreadd and rock guitarist Bill Minnery do just this in Heartbreaker, their first collaboration together despite being firm friends. And it's not a collaboration for the sake of one, but a congruous and elegant mix of strikingly different skills and styles. Almost like the track was leading them and not the other way around. It reminds us of a time as children when, with our friends, we got every action figure we had, didn't matter which franchise they belonged to, and created our very own "episodes".
Mixing genres is not new, but there are very few examples that really do justice to it. As the saying in the film industry goes, "The best editing is the kind you don't notice". In Heartbreaker, we are floored by Minnery's effortless guitaring, complete with butter-smooth bluesy solos and ska strokes. Despite his technical proficiency, this comes across as such a simple track that's more than easy on the ears.
After a quick stalking session of both artists' profiles, we noticed both do a bunch of different things. Kidd Dreadd works with his family's emerging music company Mawlife Media. They also sell really cool merch, do check it out. Minnery, apart from being a superb guitarist, is an amateur bodybuilder and a wannabe boxer (his words, not ours!). He plays with several bands, works on his own solo projects and even performs with his family's indie rock band SIVLE (Pronounced Civil) where his mum is the vocalist (We wish our mums were rock singers too!). Also, it's just come our attention that SIVLE is ELVIS spelled backwards, cool again; We're in love with music from the 50s and always have been!
The cherry on this delicious cake, however, is Kidd Dreadd's groovy hook. We found ourselves bouncing to and singing 'Why Can't We Be Together.... Oooo Oooo Ooooh' all day, almost forgetting that the song is actually about a romantic tragedy.
Now it's time to pass this beautiful ear worm on to you guys!