Humble the Poet: 5 songs that changed my life
Humble the Poet is getting ready to take part in the 2017 edition of CBC's Canada Reads. He'll be defending Andre Alexis's Giller Prize-winning novel Fifteen Dogs and appeared on q to discuss the book on Feb. 23.
Canada Reads will get underway March 27 but in the meantime, the Toronto MC and spoken-word artist born Kanwer Singh, spoke to us about five songs that changed his life.
Editor's note: some of the songs contain strong language.
Wyclef Jean, 'Gunpowder'
"Probably one of the most impactful songs that changed the direction of my life was a song called 'Gunpowder' by Wyclef. I was in high school. It was probably the first time I heard music with substance, message, with purpose and not just simply there to entertain and it set me on a whole new trajectory in chasing music."
Outkast, 'Elevators (Me & You)'
"Seeing Andre 3000 rocking the turban in that video for the first time felt super cool and made me explore hip-hop and I'm a rapper today because of it."
The Roots feat. Cody ChesnuTT, 'The Seed (2.0)'
"It's just a happy song [for me], every time I hear it it's just amazing."
Pusha T feat. Pharrell, 'S.N.I.T.C.H.'
"That song always just hits me because in the same year Pharrell made 'S.N.I.T.C.H.' [2013], he also made 'Happy' and also worked with various composers on movies and it's like he's done so much amazing work in one year in different genres and it reminded me, 'It's OK, you don't have to stay in one lane.' So that did a lot to guide my own creativity."
Common feat. Lauryn Hill, 'Retrospect for Life'
"It was [one of] the first times I heard a song that had very little on the superficial level to connect with. He's talking about having a child with a woman and I was like 16 when I heard it and hadn't been in his shoes. I'm still not. But he did such a great job of articulating that experience that I felt it and to know that music can have such an emotional impact on people made me fall in love with it even more."
— Del Cowie, q digital staff