Iqaluit rapper moves towards the main stage
“I’m rapping to talk about real issues, about the things I grew up with”
Mister Lee Cloutier-Ellsworth, who performs as FXCKMR, commands live shows with his bassy, gravelly voice, danceable beats and profane lyrics. (Photo by Sarah Rogers)
You can call him Mister.
Mister Lee Cloutier-Ellsworth commands the stage with his bassy, gravelly voice, danceable beats and profane lyrics.
The Iqaluit rapper, who performs as FXCKMR, is on stage at Floechella, Nunavut Music Week’s outdoor venue on the sea ice, where fans dance along and move their lips to his songs.
The 21-year-old hip hop artist hasn’t been a mainstream fixture in Nunavut’s music scene, but he expects that to change soon.
“I’m in it all the way now,” Cloutier-Ellsworth laughs. “I don’t want to ever find another job again.”
In just a few short months, FXCKMR’s career has quickly taken off.
This spring, he signed on to Nunavut-based label Aakuluk Music, which he said has been a game changer, offering Cloutier-Ellsworth financial support to travel to a Montreal studio to record, as well as publicity and booking support.
Then FXCKMR was invited to take part in Nunavut Music Week in April, playing live shows at its Floechella event and snagging an interview with CBC host Tom Power on the arts and culture program Q.
“That was crazy,” he said. “It was so cool to have the community there, to get that feedback.”
Now FXCKMR has a 10-track album in the works, due out later this year, and an upcoming gig in Toronto—one he hopes is the first of many this summer.
Cloutier-Ellsworth was born and raised in Iqaluit, the son of television producer Sylvia Cloutier and cinematographer Qajaaq Ellsworth, but also spent time in Kuujjuaq, Ottawa and Montreal.
He recalls hitting a creative period as a student at Inuksuk high school, when he started collaborating with fellow students Kunuk Kotierk, Brandon Ashley and Thomas Lambe, who produced music under the moniker the 307 Gang.
As the group split up to go to college and pursue other projects, Cloutier-Ellsworth kept writing and producing beats.
His lyrics have explored suicide, poverty, mental health and food insecurity in Nunavut.
“I’ve just tried to keep it real,” he said. “I’m not just rapping to rap, I’m rapping to talk about real issues, about the things I grew up with.”
In his track Zzzzzz, FXCKMR tackles depression:
It’s hard to go to sleep, my mind is defeated
I been fighting myself with the darkest of demons
I ain’t gon’ let myself die til’ I got what I needed
and everybody around me get lost in their dreams
The content of his upcoming album is equally dark, he warns.
“It’s pretty wild. You’ve got beats, some screaming and yelling. I’m talking about suicidal thoughts, intense anxiety and loneliness,” Cloutier-Ellsworth said.
“It’s a little peek into what it’s like to be in the dark side of my mind. It’s meant to throw you off guard and creep you out.”
The tracks he has put out have an addictive and ambient quality, and Ellsworth-Cloutier’s smooth delivery as an MC suggests experience beyond his 21 years.
Today, Cloutier-Ellsworth splits his time between Iqaluit and Montreal, where both his mom and MakeWay Studios are based.
Though Nunavut has a small and growing hip hop scene, Cloutier-Ellsworth said it’s yet to hit the mainstream, which makes it hard to get gigs.
“It’s still pretty quiet,” he said. “It’s bubbling up, but there’s still no consistent platform for us.”
FXCKMR is set to play a show in Toronto June 12, opening for The Jerry Cans at the city’s North by Northeast music festival.
He’s also set to release his single, titled Pretty Muthaf**ka with a Face Tattoo, ahead of his album, which is due out later this summer.
You’ll be hearing a lot about FXCKMR. #NunavutMusicWeek pic.twitter.com/7vgD6gLuy3
— Benjamin Rayner (@IhateBenRayner) April 27, 2019
With files from Emma Tranter
Cultural Appropriation.
How?
Laughing my rear to a tear! No appropriating at all. Id love for you to elaborate
From Wikipedia: The word “rap” had been used in British English since the 16th century. It was part of the African American dialect of English in the 1960s meaning “to converse”, and very soon after that in its present usage as a term denoting the musical style.
The earliest precursor to the modern rap is the West African griot tradition, in which “oral historians”, or “praise-singers”, would disseminate oral traditions and genealogies, or use their formidable rhetorical techniques for gossip or to “praise or critique individuals.” Griot traditions connect to rap along a lineage of Black verbal reverence that goes back to ancient Egyptian practices, through James Brown interacting with the crowd and the band between songs, to Muhammad Ali’s quick-witted verbal taunts and the palpitating poems of the Last Poets. Therefore, rap lyrics and music are part of the “Black rhetorical continuum”, and aim to reuse elements of past traditions while expanding upon them through “creative use of language and rhetorical styles and strategies. The person credited with originating the style of “delivering rhymes over extensive music”, that would become known as rap, was Anthony “DJ Hollywood” Holloway from Harlem, New York.
Rapping can be traced back to its African roots. Centuries before hip-hop music existed, the griots of West Africa were delivering stories rhythmically, over drums and sparse instrumentation. Such connections have been acknowledged by many modern artists, modern day “griots”, spoken word artists, mainstream news sources, and academics
Good post, that seems to bring no rebuttal.
I will add, African people have historically expressed their suffering (and they know a lot about suffering) through music and have since being brought from Africa during the days of the slave trade. Today, rap music represents the financial suffering black people deal with in the US.
Using any definition of cultural appropriation, when any Inuit artist or any First Nation artist adopts rap or hip hop, they are blatantly guilty.
If throating singing is ‘uniquely’ Inuk, then rap music is more so uniquely black.Therefore, logic dictates that if one can appropriate throating sining, one can also do so with rap music. I personally don’t mind about people appreciating and borrowing from other cultures. What’s better than sharing things that are wonderful?
I agree with you, the notion of cultural appropriation is a strange one in the first place. However, I would gladly apply it to those stingy Inuk’s who think no one else can throat sing.