Crown Emcees — Family Matters

Client

Crown Emcees — Nic Cleav, Spliff Chief and AC Breeze

The problem

The Crown Emcees were a name on Vancouver Island before I was rapping. Three brothers — Nic Cleav, Spliff Chief and AC Breeze — formed the group in the late '90s, put out two albums produced by AC Breeze, and built the scene that a young Langdon Auger came up through on his way to becoming one of Victoria's most prominent emcees. Nic was too young to be on those first two records. Spliff Chief was Langdon's partner-in-rhyme and the one who mentored everyone in those days. He still shapes how his brothers approach a record, and he's the reason I stayed open to writing verses at all. Years later, with no new album out, Nic came to me. His reason was simple: nobody could make the beats the way he liked them but me. This was never about building a group from nothing. It was about giving an established act a sound they couldn't get anywhere else.

What I made

Almost every beat on the album, built from scratch for these three voices. The process was collaborative rather than catalogue-based. I'd ask each brother whether he'd already written verses to something, or had a BPM or rhythm in mind. Often they'd bring a reference track they liked, and I'd build something in a similar tone and key that was completely its own — no sampling. Some songs I worked from the chord progression; others I'd find notes that matched the bassline or pads of the reference and breathe new life into them from there. The sound draws on the authentic West Coast '90s and funk already in my style, with drum rhythms rooted in boom bap to pull in the East Coast influence Spliff Chief brings — he's a profound lyricist with an unorthodox flow, heavily shaped by Wu-Tang. Every track but one is mine, and I mixed the beats across sixteen song projects. On the visual side: the crown drawing is theirs and predates me. They sent a photo of the original from back in the day and I rebuilt it as clean vector art in Illustrator. I also hand-drew a wordmark for the group name, photographed it, vectorised it and tightened both up. The wordmark is unofficial — offered to them to use if they want it.

Images

The outcome

Production wrapped on the Crown Emcees album. Big Heat recorded the group's vocals and is mastering the record at his studio in Victoria, with West Coast veteran Spice 1 featured. There's a long line running through this one. I first met Nic in cyphers when he was eleven and I was sixteen — he could already freestyle better than anyone I'd heard in person, and honestly out-did me. Langdon Auger, who came up alongside the group, went on to master my own early albums, Lifted Productions in 2008 and No Better Time in 2010. Two decades on from those cyphers, I'm the one making the beats.