Part of the 2023 mandate is to leave Montreal at least once a month. On Feb 4th, Shobiz514, my cousin Steven & myself piled into a car to drive to Toronto. Our mission was to meet K-Rino at a record store and then see Swave Sevah (and Shobiz' cousin) at the Beast Mode battle.
The Drive to Toronto
We rented the car from Enterprise and ended up with a relatively new Toyota Corolla. It cost us 105$ all in, with all the in city driving, to deal with gas. We went real quick from "A Crorolla, corny" to "say word fuel efficiency is the vibe" pretty quick.
I was our designated driver. I haven't driven in about 15 years if I'm being honest. I was low-key nervous until about 5 mins after pulling off the lot. Then it was go time and now I realize what people mean when they talk about the freedom a car offers.
While I'm a cyclist and generally believe in the freedom that offers, when we extend past the city, a car is absolutely next level. Or when you miss your highway exit in downtown Toronto at night, the pretty lights are kinda fire in the warmth of a car you are operating. Key emphasis on the idea of warmth.
It was -28 degrees celcius when I got into the car. The car was definitely not defrosted in full when I pulled out to get Shobiz at 5:30 AM. It was pretty toasty by the time we picked up Steve a little bit later.
Overall the drive was pleasant. Nothing really noteworthy happened. We drove, we spoke, the early morning energy had us excited and on full chatterbug mode. Arguably it was a nice bonding experience. Big recommend on road trips with missions.
Legal Weed in Toronto
We get to Toronto and pick up the homie James. We made good time so scooping him was no biggie and then we were on Spadina street looking for parking. Fun fact, the green parking spots are the ones you want. They cost money, but less money than the private not green spots.
We hit up a parking lot and park. I forget to lock the car, we go back and find out we parked in staff parking. For real double check this stuff. I know you drivers are like tsk tsk, but if you like me and never drive, don't go to staff parking. Look around for super not clear signs that make it hard to figure out. But when you do it is a sense of victory.
We head out to find the record store but first decide to look for legal AF cannabis. Why? one of our posse did not heed the "bring it from Quebec where you get good deals" advice. So my advice is, if you not crossing the border or flying, bring your own bud.
However James introduced me to rosin infused joints. Not resin, rosin. Don't ask me about what the difference is, but rosin cooler than resin if we infusing joints.
i copped some probably overpriced rosin infused joints. What I will say, I enjoyed them. It was like a nice hash joint, that someone else dealt with and my fingers were not sticky. I'm not pro legal weed really cuz 9 times out of 10 you can find better deals, but i couldn't realy find these rosin infused joints in Quebec so alas don't break the law.
Meeting K-Rino at Play Da Record
Before we go any further, I got to interview K-Rino in 2019. The experience K-Rino blessed me with allowed for me to go ahead and find a greater confidence when pursuing interviews. I mean my second ever interview was with K-Rino, special thanks to Steve because he definitely made that happen.
Low-key i wanted to update the thumbnail in the video you see above. That is me, meeting K-Rino. Honestly it was really cool to have this moment. But way more cool for Steven.
Steven is possibly in the top 10 K-Rino fans alive. A lot of people may make claims like that, but no Steven can identify K-Rino songs, from a single bar, pulling from any track in this mans extensive AF catalogue. Steven spent the last 15 years waiting for this moment, seeing the joy it brought him was truly the blessing in this trip.
K-Rino came up with Loki. He chose to come down in the coldest day ever and proceeded to freeze his buttocks off whilst filming a music video. He also recorded an entire album at the homie's crib in Toronto. The man is a machine.
Loki and K-Rino performed for us and it was truly the kind of intimate concert you hear people gush about when less than 30 people are present. They performed to us, K-Rino name dropped Steven when doing Perfect World.
Seeing my cousin knock off this bucket list item was pretty fire, it inspired me.
The not so private Airbnb
Shobiz514 was like we gots to hit the battle early. After a brief discussion we decided that 3:00 PM doors open did not mean we really needed to arrive at that time. We found out when his cousin was battling (late) and made the move to hit the Aribnb.
We found one in Scarborough that had 2 beds and a couch. There were 3 of us we said BET let's go. The only thing I really care about with airbmb is getting the entire place.
We pulled up at the house, we go to get unpacked and find out right quick this little lady that is hosting us, basically lives in the basement and "ghosts" when guests are there. Only there were evident signs of her being there, like laundry drying.
We also discovered there would be no couch. There was however a king size bed, which is large enough that we made due with what we have. I don't even know how to advise you to avoid this, the place was supposed to be private, it was not.
Facts is, it served it's purposes. We were comfy, did an outfit change and dropped out stuff off. The airbnb did give us locks for our doors so that's a plus. We chilled for a little bit and then went back into the car to drive into downtowner than we were before Toronto.
Side note, I left the lady a nice review as I wanted her to leave me a nice review. 5 star for 5 star gang.
Arriving at the Beast Mode battle
This was the first time I went to a battle that looked like a battle. I have otherwise been to two DMS battles, but those are at Belmont. Belmont looks like a concert is going to happen, this battle was an in a bicycle repair store and looked like this:
Overall the vibe was friendly and inviting. However we did learn that friendly has limits and it's not adviseable to talk to everyone at the battle. Especially when you are moving in a city that isn't yours. It's a good idea to cool off and wait until you get some signal the person has interest in you.
This may seem like sound advice, but you aren't aware of how alone you are sometimes until you are at an event in another city in a room where the only people you know are limited to the people you drove down with. We didn't have any problems but it was a moment of real awareness.
Beast Mode puts on good battles. I really enjoyed this event. Here is the full card:
We arrived around 6:45 PM and saw the second half of the battles. Unfortunately we missed the battle with the Montreal battle rapper VIP, but we had to mention that Montreal was in the building. The Basics vs VIP battle was pretty epic.
Swave Sevah vs Gripsloc & other battles
The energy at these battles was so good. I did not realize at first you are supposed to be all in the crowd on video to fill it out, lesson has been learned.
Every battle we saw had a great energy to it. We saw LMS battle and that was cool as I remember LMS from the Facebook group contests and dude really came a long way. I technically owe him an interview one day that he won in a contest thing.
During the Scott Free vs Johnny Knoxx battle we heard a loud thunk. Turns out a person passed out and it was like the loudest thunk. The battle stopped and that got dealt with.
Was probably a low pressure thing, but I'm not a doctor. Basically get your blood pressure checked out and drink water in the day. It's good for you.
The Swave Sevah vs Gripsloc battle was incredibly fun to see. I have seen Swave on the internet, but in person it's another level. He came and did his thing and it was a great experience to witness. I'm not trying to catch no smoke reviewing battles so I'll leave it at that.
If you have never been to a battle rap event, I can tell you it is worth doing. But be prepared to stand for like 8 hours. What you see online does not do it justice. You need to feel that energy in the room. The Beast Mode league really be doing it.
Cold Burger King & The Drive Home
After the battle there was another quick trip for legal recreational stuff. Then we realized that all the food around the battle spot felt like a homoginized blob of bad pizza. We had already eaten bad pizza.
However it was after midnight and we figured closer to our Airbnb there would be good food choices. We were wrong.
We settled on Burger King and ate it at like 1:30 AM. It was not a glorious meal, in fact the quality is bad for most times of day. However at 1:30 AM it was fire and I am glad we did it.
We slept, we packed up and checked out the Airbnb. We drove back and the ride had a different energy. We were tired, less conversational and more down to just "ride it out".
We got back safe and discovered that Montreal was no longer freezing cold. Toronto was already back at 0 when we got there. We legit watched the thermometer change 22 degrees celcius on our drive.
Skipping the frigid Montreal weekend was the perfect cherry on top. Car got returned safe and everyone had a grand time.
This the first travel log, hope you like it, more will come.