This week, Canada’s Old Prince Shad rounds off his year with a one off show in NYC at Webster Hall Studio (4 December). To mark the occasion, and to round off a year in which saw him release a collaborative album with Holy Fuck under the name Holy Shad and his own fourth album Flying Colours saw him shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize for the third time, Shad and long time collaborator DJ T.Lo drop the appropriately named Boarding Pass EP - which you can listen to and PWYC for below.
During EP opener "Fire" Shad blasts the co-sign culture, insisting “all I need is a drum break and one take”. It’s a pretty clear and simple modus operandi, and one that has worked well for him over the years: Shad providing the speed of conscious, reference-heavy raps (over the course of the EP he manages to throw back to his early records, Rap Genius, T-Boz of TLC’s trousers, Hyundai and Russell Brand amongst others), while T.Lo provides the soulful beats and scratches, from simple but effective piano lines to the insistent loops of "Fire".
As Shad explains "T and I were both feeling like it was the right time for a project like this - both personally and creatively. We wanted to do something fun and soulful.” The EP is just that, and a lot more besides.
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