Duke Buzzy

This is a story of being the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, and still going ahead & doing what's important to you.

Born in Toronto, Duke didn't see it again for over 20 years. He was raised across the lake from Yellowknife, on a diet of (mostly) Rock N Roll and chicken.

Found out about rap at age 12, immediately began writing. There were no other rap fans in that town, so he had to make his own beats. Learned how to do that with a $99 keyboard, a second-hand Roland 505 drum machine & 2 broken ghetto blasters (all wired together with cannibalized walkman headsets and hockey tape).

That was Duke's first studio, and he used it to win a $2800 grant from the NWT Arts Council for an album. He recorded the album at Pido Productions in Yellowknife over 6 weeks. It was a commercial failure, but then it was a country/rock/metal audience up north, and this was all before the internet was useful to artists.

The next few years involved moving to Ontario, as well as struggles with family and mental illness. Duke was finally diagnosed with chronic depression & started a long road of identification, treatment and recovery. It's still a fight everyday, but that's good. For a while there was no fight at all.

In 2008 Duke moved to Toronto to finish his audio education at the Trebas Institute, under the guidance of some of Canada's most respected engineers. Graduated Summa Cum Laude the next year.

Interned at Euphonic Sound in Toronto's Junction district, mentored by producer James Pew. During this time, Duke accidentally co-founded United in Flow with James, Shawn Daley and Mindbender Supreme. UiF was initially an awareness campaign for UNITY Charity (and a collaborative album with over 40 artists, for which Duke produced most of the instrumentals). It led to a short-lived weekly showcase of Indie Hip Hop at Sneaky Dee's (featuring performances by Mindbender, Cooper Solidmas, D-Sisive, NewBreed and others).

You hear people say "Never give up," all the time. It's become a cliche. Duke's here to tell you, it's also real and you should listen to it. Been in the gutter, but also crawled out of there to work with artists like Brownman Ali, Mindbender Supreme, Prolific, Trace Motivate and many others.

Duke can now be seen performing around Toronto (often in collaboration with other indie artists), and heard on his weekly Independent Can-Con Hip Hop podcast, "Between Bars on Round Table Radio".