
Transit
Calgary, Alberta, Canada | Established. Jan 01, 2013 | SELF
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His mid-life crisis record?
Daniel Bennett laughs at the suggestion. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the local artist who records and performs under the name Transit is only 24.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t find some truth in the question and how it pertains to his latest album Super Man Took Steroids, which was released to iTunes Tuesday.
Listen to the songs, listen to the rhymes featured on the 10 tracks that make up the record and you can’t help but get a sense that he’s questioning and coming to terms with a great deal of things in his life, many of those that most young performers either don’t concern themselves with or would rather pretend don’t exist.
It’s not often, for example, that you’re given a window into a rapper’s reality that’s as patently mundane but as disarmingly honest as: “My homies live cheque to cheque sipping Lucky Lager, but I’m trying to be somebody’s father.”
Bennett, though, is fine with the tone it sets for Super Man and, ultimately, what it says about him compared with the Victoria-born kid who hit out radar three years ago with his simple, Jann Arden-assisted local ode to his new home Calgary.
“It’s the internal battle of trying to be a 24 year-old with so much more responsibility than most people my age ... It’s a very honest album,” he says. “One of the things that sets me apart is a complete vulnerability. I’m not afraid to talk about things that aren’t really cool to talk about.”
He laughs. “You think about hip-hop, the main image would be someone creating a single mom, not marrying one.”
That was probably the biggest change in his life since dropping his last album Stale almost exactly a year ago, marrying Elise Roller, frontwoman from local rock act Go For the Eyes, which also made him an instant father to Roller’s young son.
Bennett admits it’s a change that he welcomed but has also meant a great deal of adapting to, with his personal life, but also how he approaches his music and the business of getting it out there. Fiercely independent but also admittedly opportunistic, he was always willing to drop a free track as soon as it was completed, collaborate with others for the fun of it, or do shows for little or no pay if it meant getting the Transit name and music out there.
Not now, not anymore.
“Now that I’m a father my perception of music has changed (in that) I can’t be doing free shows, I can’t be doing anything like that,” he says. “If I’m going spend time away from my family doing something I need to make it profitable.”
Perhaps that’s why he’s so excited about Super Man and eager to push it beyond the local limits, with not only local release dates to look forward to — Friday at the Republik and an all-ages show Saturday at the National Music Centre — but even a trip in March to Austin for a showcase at the SXSW festival, which he was just accepted for.
Technically and artistically he considers it a huge step up from his past work, and it’s hard not to disagree. True, it’s in keeping with the slicker, poppier and more positive side of the hip-hop spectrum, but it’s even more free-flowing and goes down even easier.
The first single We Don’t Say It Anymore, featured vocals from sensational yyc singer Jocelyn Alice is a full-on rap-dance anthem, as bright, shiny and catchy as anything on hit radio. And other tracks — the selfie-loathing George Clooney, the giddy and cheeky Friend Zone — have a flash and confidence that only sell the songs, not sells them out.
“I think it has the most potential out of any record I’ve put out, the most potential to break out to a wider audience,” Bennett agrees.
“The thing I really, really strived for with this record was making something accessible enough where it could have commercial crossover without losing anything I’ve already built. It’s a really fine line.”
Even the other collaborations on the record speak to how fine that line can be and how he’s willing to dance on both sides to serve the music. Two of the other artists featured are up-and-coming local MCs he met through his work with the Boys and Girls Clubs (Jam and 17-year-old rapper The Blue) and fellow B.C. native Immaculate, while the title track features Minneapolis rapper Astronautalis who’s just begging to blow up in the States.
And, of course, there’s the final collaboration on the disc, which not only musically brings Bennett full-circle, but also shows where he’s at now, personally and musically. That’s the song he recorded with his new bride Roller — the post-flood Alberta Anthem, which earned the newlyweds a pretty welcome $10,000 when it won ATB’s All Albertan Song Contest.
“It’s a more grown-up version of my Calgary song,” he says. “I was a 19-year-old kid who went to (defunct all-ages club) the New Black and wanted to rap about his friends. So this is a more grown-up take.”
At the ripe old age of 24.
Transit releases his new album Super Man Took Steroids with an 18-plus show Friday at the Republik and an all-ages gig Saturday at National Music Centre. - Calgary Herald
There’s a cheap gift. Then there’s a free one. And in Transit’s mind, there’s a huge difference between the two.
Which is why beginning Tuesday the Calgary hip-hop artist will be offering his fans a new digital five-song EP of fresh material titled Public Domain, which they can get as a free download through his bandcamp site (transithiphop.com) and via dropcards at various stores around town.
It’s meant as a thanks for the support he’s received over the past year since the release of his album, 22. To show how much he means it, he lays his best rhymes on the line and even taps some Canadian rap trailblazers for guest spots.
“I really wanted to give back to my fans and show them how much I appreciate them,” says the rapper (born Dan Bennett) while sipping on a Ship pint. “I wanted to give them a free EP, but I didn’t want it to sound like a free download. A lot of the time when you download a free album, it’s b-sides or songs that didn’t make the cut or low-quality recordings, whatever. But I wanted it to be on par with any other album.”
That it is, as Public Domain is a tasty and substantial sampling of the Victoria-raised musician’s easy, pleasing style, and features a pair of high-profile collaborations with some of his early influences growing up one province over — Madchild from Swollen Members and Sweatshop Union’s Kyprios.
He says that working with the two on separate tracks on the record was something of a realization of how far he’s come in his craft and in this business, inspired initially by the success he and his friends saw those artists and their acts having. “To us, that was our Vancouver Island mentality. It wasn’t like, ‘You might be the next Tupac,’ or something like that. These guys were dudes ... from our stomping grounds, that went and did something so we really looked up to those guys,” Transit says, noting Madchild’s appearance on the cut Go Get ’Em Kid was a particular thrill. “It was like a childhood dream coming to fruition — this dude that I dreamt of being as a kid and now I was working with him ... It’s just truly incredible hearing one of your heroes name-dropping you on your own song.”
Ironically, that song — which pairs together two generations of B.C. buds — is something of a local anthem, a darker cut to appeal to those of his “grimier” fans who may have been turned off by Transit’s poppier turn with the actual song, Calgary, which propelled him into the mainstream. But while Go Get ’Em may show off his current civic pride, the pairing with Kyprios on The Grizz does take him back to his West Coast roots, both literally — the video, which also drops Tuesday, was filmed there — and figuratively, with it being a wistful lamentation over the late NBA franchise, the Vancouver Grizzlies.
He calls the team’s relocation to Memphis after only six seasons “one of the most heartbreaking things that’s ever happened to me,” which is why he wrote the track as something of a love song, with Tennessee being cast as the other guy in the sad, sordid breakup which Transit still finds painful.
“People would always say, ‘Oh, so you liked the Grizzlies when they were in Vancouver, so you must like Memphis.’ But, no, I don’t. To me that’s like seeing another dude with my ex-girlfriend.”
As for the actual breakup song on Public Domain — the superb Baby Duck, which might also be one of finest things he’s recorded — the inspiration for that was a whole lot less personal. He is, he reports, happily still in a long-term relationship, and had to dig deep for the fictional resentment that surrounds the narrator being reminded of a lost love every time he hears the Chili Peppers’ song Scar Tissue.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/board+Transit+latest+musical+journey/7118384/story.html#ixzz29stb1eqz - Calgary Herald
There are a number of good reasons Transit’s new album features the title 22 and depicts the local rapper as birthday boy in front of a candle-topped baked good. For one, well, he is the ripe young age of 22. Another is that I guess you could say, artistically, he’s all about having his cake and eating it, too, making the music that he wants while having incredible success doing it.
And, most importantly, his new collection of material is a celebration, a confident statement of the sound and ideas that he thinks really are who he is.
“Part of being a 22-year-old is finally growing into who you are,” says the artist born Daniel Bennett. “You’re not your parents’ beliefs any more, you’re graduating college, you’re finding a job, you’re figuring out who you are. So this is kind of my (defining) album, this is, ‘I’ve figured out my sound.’ ”
It’s a sound that much of the mainstream world got its ears tuned to a few months ago with his viral video hit Calgary, which saw him teaming with Mayor Naheed Nenshi and the local music scene — including Jann Arden, who contributed her vocals to the track — to dispel the myth that the city the Victoria-bred artist now calls home isn’t all about cowboy hats and C&W.
And while that song appears on the new album, it, by no means, is defined by it.
True to the title and his explanation, the 10 tracks showcase an artist who’s very much discovered his sound after, he notes, trial and error. As professional sounding as any hip-hop record you’ll hear —independent or other — it mixes the smooth flowing storytelling of past lyrical attempts with laid-back, easy beats that were, perhaps, a little more aggressively delivered on his earlier shots at dance floor anthems such as Not For Clubs.
Part of getting the balance right was the manner in which it was recorded, surrounded by friends and family in a home studio, where that organic feel and familiarity bled into the sound — something the musician was very much counting on when he set about putting it all together.
“I’m really weird about my music, it’s like my baby, so if I’m in this pro studio with these 50-year-old men, I don’t feel comfortable around them. Just like you wouldn’t feel comfortable with your kid around them. So that’s my feeling about (recording), I like being comfortable and that home vibe feel.
“I also challenged myself on this album to not use any illegal samples — so no instrumentals that had any ripped-off samples, which is pretty much the core of hip-hop. . . . So, for instance, there’s a song on the album called Escape With Me and I got a 16-year-old from Ontario to play piano on it and then, my sister, I brought her in on violin, and a vocalist and rapper from Victoria on the chorus and we built it all from the ground. It was a lot longer of a process but it was a lot more real to me as far as the creation of it.”
And, following the spirit of the music and Transit, himself, it’s also an overwhelmingly upbeat affair, with humour and positivity doled out in generous amounts.
For example, there’s: the tongue-in-cheek highlight I’m So Indie, which pokes fun at the hipster crowd he’s often associated and has associated himself with; and Underdog, the inspirational story of friend and late Airdrie native Tim Harriman, who, diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 14, later biked across Canada to raise money for kids with cancer, and then, tragically in keeping with the theme of the record, passed away at the age of 22.
Transit, as an artist, says he prides himself on being able to mix a little message into his music, and has the ability to deliver it to any audience — as evidence by Twenty-Two’s all-ages release party Friday night and the 18+ show Saturday.
“I’ve always had the feeling that if I’m going to say something and people are going to hear it then I want to do something positive with it. It would be a waste not to.”
Which is why he has no problems or qualms with the fact that many people came to know him from — and may only ever want to know about — the song Calgary, one which he by no means considers his best, but one which he’s proud of and thankful for nonetheless.
“I have zero regrets,” he says. “The intent of it was to showcase the Calgary music scene and to Calgary changing in general. When I wrote it, it was a long-shot that I would be recognized for it, because, hey, I’m a rapper in a city not known for hip-hop. But what ended up happening was the song got picked up by ‘respectable’ people and it brought me outside of the hip-hop community. It brought me into City Hall and it brought me onto (CBC’s) The National and all of these huge publications (like Maclean’s) and got me invited to speak to the Chamber of Commerce,” he says of the event, which will have him delivering a speech at the U of C Nov. 21 as part of the iF Series. “I want to be a part of a city changing and growing . . . and to have that song be just a little part of that is awesome.”
Preview
- Calgary Herald
There’s more to Calgary than just the Stampede.
That’s the message local hip hop artist Daniel Bennett, a.k.a Transit, is hoping to spread with his new single, Calgary (We Are Not All Cowboys.)
“A lot of people hold that stigma against Calgary,” says the 22-year-old rapper, who relocated from Victoria almost three years ago.
“I mean, it is a major part of our culture. It’s great. There are a lot of cool things that go on with the Stampede and with Calgary cowboy culture, but there’s also a lot of diversity.”
In the song, Transit drops rhymes that may seem nonsensical to the casual listener, but are actually shout outs to almost 30 bands and artists in Calgary’s independent music scene.
The line, ‘Until we fly like dragons up in the empire’, for example, may confuse listeners not familiar with local hip hop act, Dragon Fli Empire.
He says he hopes those who listen to the song will be inspired to take a closer look at Calgary’s musical talent.
“The metal scene is really big right now,” he says. “The rock scene is really big. The hip-hop scene ... I wanted to showcase that. I wrote the song and I ended up using my friends’ band titles to make up the story.”
The track features a catchy chorus sung by eight-time Juno Award winner Jann Arden.
The pair met earlier this year when Arden interviewed Bennett about his viral video, The 8-Hour Challenge, in which he and friend Dave Wallace mocked mainstream pop and dance music by demonstrating how easy it was to create it.
After the interview, Bennett asked the singer if she’d be interested in collaborating with him on a song. Arden agreed and the two made plans to record.
“She was totally down-to-earth and she came to the studio where I record, which is my friend’s basement,” he recalls.
“She, to me, is the epitome of a Calgary artist. She’s from here, she’s done so much for the city and she still lives here despite all her success. I hope if I ever get to that level that I can be that down-to-Earth to work with a kid the same way she worked with me.”
Last Sunday, Bennett released a video for Calgary directed by Wallace and featuring 18 of the acts mentioned in the song, as well as a cameo by Mayor Naheed Nenshi.
“Nenshi’s awesome because ... he’s very aware of how to reach people my age,” says Bennett, who got in touch with the mayor via Twitter.
In his tweet, Bennett told Nenshi he had a line in the song about ‘purple in rain in the sky because we voted Nenshi.’
“I said. ‘Jann Arden’s on it. Do you want to be in the video?’ ” he explains.
“Next thing I know I get a message from his message and the next day we’re in City Hall filming with him.”
Transit performs Saturday at the Marquee Room. - Calgary Sun
Calgary’s not just Smithbilt hats and oil sands headquarters, at least according to Daniel Bennett, a 22-year-old rapper who goes by the hip-hop alias Transit. In Calgary (We Are Not All Cowboys), a track recorded in a Calgary home studio, Bennett extols the virtues of the city’s music scene—a celebration of the new West that features Jann Arden singing a catchy chorus (she dropped by the basement studio) and Mayor Naheed Nenshi in the video. Nenshi, whose mayoral win relied heavily on social networking, agreed to the cameo after Bennett asked him via Twitter. - Maclean's Magazine
The first time he got our attention, local rapper Daniel Bennett, a.k.a. Transit, was trying to change how we view popular music, now he’s trying to change how outsiders view Calgary.
Bennett and his longtime musical partner Dave Wallace (from Victoria) first captured the media’s attention by creating a pop song in 8 hours just to prove that it could be done with ease. It took them under 8 hours to produce “Lights, Camera, Action!” and it took off, garnering more than 500,000 hits on YouTube. The pop parody even grabbed the attention of former Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, who asked them to think about signing under his record label as serious pop producers.
Not entirely enthused by Simmons’ offer, Bennett went back to making hip-hop. His new song and music video tackles the cowboy stereotype that dogs all who make a home here in the heart of the new west.
In the chorus of “Calgary,” Bennett stands alongside the who’s who of Calgary’s cultural scene as they all belt out "we are not all cowboys." Even our beloved Mayor Naheed Nenshi and songstress Jann Arden got on board, with Nenshi making a brief appearance almost two minutes in and Arden lending her unmistakable singing voice to the last third of the song.
It remains to be seen what kind of influence his video will have, but if Bennett can replicate the YouTube success he’s had in the past, there could be half a million more people in the world who won’t expect to be picked up from the airport in a chuckwagon. - Avenue Magazine
The first time he got our attention, local rapper Daniel Bennett, a.k.a. Transit, was trying to change how we view popular music, now he’s trying to change how outsiders view Calgary.
Bennett and his longtime musical partner Dave Wallace (from Victoria) first captured the media’s attention by creating a pop song in 8 hours just to prove that it could be done with ease. It took them under 8 hours to produce “Lights, Camera, Action!” and it took off, garnering more than 500,000 hits on YouTube. The pop parody even grabbed the attention of former Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, who asked them to think about signing under his record label as serious pop producers.
Not entirely enthused by Simmons’ offer, Bennett went back to making hip-hop. His new song and music video tackles the cowboy stereotype that dogs all who make a home here in the heart of the new west.
In the chorus of “Calgary,” Bennett stands alongside the who’s who of Calgary’s cultural scene as they all belt out "we are not all cowboys." Even our beloved Mayor Naheed Nenshi and songstress Jann Arden got on board, with Nenshi making a brief appearance almost two minutes in and Arden lending her unmistakable singing voice to the last third of the song.
It remains to be seen what kind of influence his video will have, but if Bennett can replicate the YouTube success he’s had in the past, there could be half a million more people in the world who won’t expect to be picked up from the airport in a chuckwagon. - Avenue Magazine
go to link below - CBC
go to link below for story - Global National
listen to the interview on the link below - Q Radio
listen to the interview on the link below - Q Radio
Full disclosure: there are times when Top 40 pop music makes me want to bang my head against a wall. But that's not doing anyone any good. Leave it up to two creative Canadians to prove that much of today's pop music is formulaic, unoriginal and, well, easy to make.
Victoria's Dave Wallace and Calgary's Dan Bennett, known together as Transit, challenged themselves to create a pop song in eight hours -- a pop song that would fit seamlessly between Katy Perry and Ke$ha on the FM dial.
Sitting on a couch, the pair -- armed with a computer to help set up the beats -- threw together a set of lyrics with the usual complement of ladies, clubs and disses.Not only did they pull it off, the duo had time to go out for burgers with no worries.
What do you think? Is Lights, Camera, Action a believable radio hit? And how much do you want to hang out with super-adorable Dan and Dave?
-- Arisa Cox - CBC
A song written by a Calgary musician and his friend to parody mainstream music is a hit on YouTube.
Dan Bennett and his collaborator, fellow hip hop artist Dave Wallace, of Victoria, wanted to demonstrate how formulaic and facile most Top 40 hits are.
The pair challenged themselves to write a popular song in just eight hours. It actually took far less time. Bennett and Wallace filmed the process as they wrote and recorded the song in Wallace's Victoria basement. Then they posted it on YouTube.
The result, Lights, Camera, Action — a dancy hip hop song with heavy bass and loud synth — has all the references a contemporary Top 40 hit needs, according to Bennett: clubs, money and "lovely ladies."
The mock-hit also relies heavily on Autotune, a computer program that's standard equipment these days for pop stars who need their off-key vocals disguised.
By Monday the video on YouTube had generated nearly 400,000 hits. And the song had been downloaded more than 5,000 times, Bennett said.
Even rock-legend Gene Simmons — who played bass for Kiss and now has his own recording label — contacted Wallace and Bennett. He offered the artists a music contract.
'I don't think I could stand myself if I had to sing in Autotune that much.'—Dan Bennett, musician
"He's looking for talent out of Canada," Bennett said, who also performs under the name Transit.
"It's very flattering, but we're not going to make pop music. I don't think I could stand myself if I had to sing in Autotune that much."
Instead, Wallace directed Simmons to samples of the pair's real music, a more independent brand of underground hip hop, Bennett said.
"…and then, after that, we didn't hear anything," he said.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2011/01/31/calgary-bennett-youtube-hip-hop-parody.html#ixzz1ELkmUSwa - CBC
As first reported by Metro in Calgary last week, Calgary artist Dan Bennett and friend Dave Wallace of Victoria co-created a song titled Lights, Camera, Action in just eight hours to expose “unoriginal” hit music on today’s charts.
What’s happened since the story ran?
DB: It got posted on Reddit and it became the No. 1 video on there and then it became the No. 1 video on YouTube (last) Friday.
DW: I couldn’t even keep up with emails. I have 1,800 emails and it was getting picked up by ... all these other sites. It just blew up.
Did you expect this kind of exposure?
DB: No. We thought we’d maybe get another 1,000 views, but stuff goes viral and it goes crazy.
DW: No way. For it to go as far as it is now, for me to be getting messages from people in Sweden saying they love it — that it’s inspiring them — it’s blowing my mind.
Part of the reason you did this was to show how easy it is to make a hit song. Now, with all of this success, do you feel like you’re selling out?
DB: No. It’s a thought-provoking topic that people want to discuss. The thing is (Kiss bassist) Gene Simmons contacted us yesterday to make a group that would be about that (kind of music) and if we did that it would be selling out.
Are you serious?
DB: Yeah, someone from his record label sent us a message ... It’s pretty cool when one of the main people of rock calls, but at the same time we don’t want to change our style for anyone.
DW: People are trying to jump on to this success, our 15 minutes of Internet fame, but it’s not going to happen. I don’t see much coming from this.
So, where do you go from here?
DB: Just keep doing what we’re doing, just keep trying to make innovative music.
DW: I have got lots of cool offers from people, lots of career stuff that I can look into.
More about 5 minutes with , 8-Hour Hitmakers
- Metro Magazine
All they started with were a few “corny rhymes” about characters from the hit TV show Friends.
Eight hours later, Calgary musician Dan Bennett and friend Dave Wallace of Victoria had created a song called Lights, Camera, Action, which they would willingly put up against any track on the top-40 charts.
Bennett, also known as hip-hop artist Transit, said it can be frustrating to see musicians creating “easy” pop music succeed over those trying to be innovative.
“We wanted to see how easy it is to push a mainstream, top-40 song like that out,” he said.
Within an hour of starting the project in a Victoria basement, the duo had developed the song’s up-tempo beat on a computer and worked through most of the lyrics.
Bennett said the project was so simplistic he and Wallace were even able to duck out for two hours to a local burger joint.
Wallace said the song is meant to challenge people to question what they’re listening to.
“It can be this easy to create, so be really conscious about (what you’re putting) into your ears and what you think about it,” he said.
More about 8-Hour Hitmakers
- Metro Magazine
Local rapper navigates a genre fraught with cliche
Andy Williams
Entertainment Editor
November 11, 2010
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Credit: Andy Williams / the Gauntlet
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There are those strange people out there who sail through life with absolutely no desire to listen to music. For whatever reason, they just haven't made a connection with one of our society's most pervasive forms of cultural expression. Hip hop artist Daniel Bennett-- also known by the name Transit-- was one of those people.
"Well, I always had music shoved down my throat. I come from a really classical music family and I never really connected with music," he says. "In fact, I used to never listen to music. I hated it because it represented lessons and getting forced into stuff I didn't want to do, and I said I'd never make music."
That all changed in grade three. Bennett stumbled across the forbidden genre of hip hop and made some big sacrifices to get access to it.
"I started sneaking in hip hop tapes to my room because my family is ultra conservative, I wouldn't have permission-- stuff like Eminem and Maestro," he recounts. "One day, I traded my lunch for a Maestro Fresh Wes mixtape in grade three and I didn't eat all day. I came home and listened to that mix tape and it really hit me that it was my music. It just became a means of expression throughout growing up. Whenever I'd be frustrated I'd just write out lyrics."
Since then, the unconventional Victoria native has set about building up his live show and his record catalog. Since his move to Calgary in 2007, he has released two albums, including his latest LP, Insufficient Funds, which dropped at the end of September.
Bennett has preoccupied himself with standing out. Though Eminem was an influence while growing up, Bennett rejects the emphasis on violence, misogyny and cash that have become mainstays of mainstream hip hop, as he pursues a different direction.
"People call it emo-hop, but I mean, it's just good music," he says. "The thing that sucks, though, is that you have to use these little words that you don't necessarily agree with just because every time I tell someone I'm a rapper or an MC, they just assume, 'Oh this guy's a wigger' or 'This guy is trying to be a gangster.' . . . I have to use these words that I don't want to use, like 'indie.' What does that even mean? It just means you don't have a record label. But it's just a way to let people know that you're not going to be talking about guns."
Bennett obviously wants to get his music to as many people as he can, but he's not hung up on signing the infamous record deal. Though signing a deal and getting radio play used to be the go-to way of making it big in music, Bennett has different ideas.
"Getting signed is kind of a mythical thing nowadays," he says. "My goal is to keep developing tours-- I just want to be able to travel around and pack places out. Right now, I can do B.C. and Alberta fine, but I haven't been out east. The next step is to just keep making music and touring, and once I'm out of school I'll be able to go a little bit harder with it."
His efforts are paying off. In December of 2009, Bennett added DJ Crosswalk, a.k.a. Jonathon Williams, to his live performances.
"I used to have to bend over and play the beats on my iPod," laughs Bennett.
He achieved another wave of momentum this summer with the release of a single.
"It's crazy because no one used to listen to my stuff. My first two years of being here I had one show, and now all of a sudden I came out with my "Not for Clubs" song and the next thing I know, I have like 20 shows in July and August. That's what's crazy. You never know what a couple months can do."
Bennett is currently in school studying behavioural sciences and is dead-set on working with youth once he finishes his program. He is on track to achieve that goal with his involvement in an initiative that mixes different aspects of his education and musical interests.
"I had to do a practicum for my program and I went into [The Boys and Girls Club], because I saw they had a basketball program, because that's what I used to be really into," he explains. "They saw on my resume interests that I was into hip hop and they told me that they had this studio just donated from the government. We started this program up and it's free studio time for any kids who want to drop in and make music. At first it was kind of slow going, but now we've got a solid core of kids who will come every week and they're recording their own albums, it's awesome."
With his volunteering and engagement with youth, maybe Bennett will affect a child the same way that Maestro Fresh Wes mixtape affected him, though the way the music industry is changing, it probably won't involve a cassette.
- The Gauntlet (U Of C Magazine)
Please see: http://issuu.com/welikewelove/docs/wlwl2/11 - We Like, We Love
Please see: http://issuu.com/welikewelove/docs/wlwl2/11 - We Like, We Love
Discography
Transition - Nomadic (2009)
Transit - Insufficient Funds (2010)
Transit - 22 (2011)
Transit - Public Domain (2012)
Transit STALE (2013)
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Bio
Transit is a Western Canadian Music Award nominated rapper, a Calgary poet laureate finalist and a winner of a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award. He has released 5 albums which have sold thousands of copies, and has collaborated with Rhymesayers recording artist Grieves, Astronautalis, Mad Child of Swollen Members, Kyprios of Sweatshop Union, and 8-time Juno Award winner Jann Arden. Transit has toured as a headliner several times and has also supported tours of Canada, the United States, and Europe with Apathy & Celph Titled, Zion I, Grieves, Astronautalis, and Shad, and has shared stages with internationally recognized names like Mac Miller, Tech N9ne, Swollen Members, Murs, Hilltop Hoods, Down With Webster, and 54-40, and has been selected to showcase at prestigious festivals like SXSW, CMW, and Breakout West. He has received national media coverage including features on Global TV, CBC TV, CBC Radio One, in Maclean's Magazine, and regular MuchMusic rotation of his music videos, which have also gotten substantial support online with over 1,000,000 views on YouTube. Transit has also been awarded several FACTOR grants to further the development of his career.
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