Clairmont The Second
'It's important not to blindly follow, and to understand that when you self-appoint yourself a position, you're also tasked with a responsibility'
Evan Dale
Evan Dale // September 8, 2024
Downtown // Clairmont The Second was nice enough to meet us downtown. That wasn’t at all by his design. The multi-hyphenate artist is from Toronto, and as such isn’t one for what the central part of the city does – or in so many more ways doesn’t – have to offer. Like most people from most places, he’s got a lot to say about his hometown – most of which is fairly critical of an overbuilt, heavily gentrified move away from what long made the city special, and what made it such a force of modern culture in the first place.
Unlike most people from most places, Clairmont is an artist. In seemingly every sense of the word, he creates vividly. A rapper, a vocalist, a songwriter; a creator of so many broad and intertwining audiovisual spaces, he manages to tell cohesive, immersive stories in the process of so much artistry. On a long walk through a number of different neighborhoods in Toronto, our conversationed angled at times towards a hypercritical love letter to the city, talking its sociopolitical polarization, the Drake and Kendrick battle, creative self-sufficiency, vintage video games, and of course, music.
CLAIRMONT: I would never move downtown, ever. It's very hectic. I also don't recognize people. After lockdown, it just feels like people are robots now I can't really tell what they’re thinking. It’s just kind of like they're dead behind their eyes. And then the deeper in the central part of the city you go, the more obvious it is. Even Union Station is still confusing to me. I don't come here often, but when I do I still get lost. It’s just a math equation all the time. But, yeah, it's just too loud for me.
RINGLEADER: Yeah, I think especially when it comes to doing anything that you do creatively, you have to have a little bit of that peace. And I feel like that's a tough thing to come by down here.
CLAIRMONT: Yeah, very much so. On the West is a little bit more chill, but at the same time it's Toronto as a whole is… Basically, I feel like the city wants to be a version of the United States, so they're doing construction everywhere at the same time, but not really fixing anything. So, everything is just traffic, and your streets are torn up, and there's pylons everywhere. It's crazy. And I think part of it too – when things start aligning with other things, it starts to make sense – FIFA, the World Cup is coming here in two years or something. So, that's gonna be madness, and hopefully by that time I don't live in the city.
RINGLEADER: Fair enough. If you could go like somewhere else, where would it be?
CLAIRMONT: Um, honestly, I'm trying to go out at least an hour and a half. Or an hour, just any direction, to be honest.
RINGLEADER: Still have access to it, but have a little more space?
CLAIRMONT: Yeah, I have family here, so I would still want to be able to see them, and still be able to come back when I need to. But honestly, I could go even further. If I'm going further, that means at that point in my life, I have a little bit of money, a little bit of change. So if I need to fly back in to do something immediate, I could do that. But, yeah, it's just It's not the same anymore.
Like, ten years ago, this was the coolest place to be. And the artists that were here and just the artist kind of movement and what was going on in 2014 was so… it was beautiful. Now it's just kind of… I don't know.
RINGLEADER: You mean like y’all are kind of post-Renaissance and you're dealing with the commercial effects of that?
CLAIRMONT: Yeah! But you know what? It's the commercial effects without the commercial success. That's the best way I could describe it. So, it’s just kind of like a place now. I don't know. I guess I'm proud to be from where I'm from specifically, but the city as a whole, it's not in the best place right now.
Toronto looks like kind of a joke to the rest of the world now, especially because of the whole battle too.
RINGLEADER: That’s not your guys's fault though.
CLAIRMONT: No! But that's a long story for people that have lived here as civilians versus artists versus whatever, that’s a loaded conversation too. But, I don't share many of the opinions with a lot of people. I have often unpopular opinions when it comes to what the city is and what it could be and how I feel about it.
RINGLEADER: I see that. I feel like every time that we've spoken in the past, you've always expressed a little bit of that feeling. It seems to be something you feel some kind of way about. But it's good you express it because I think a lot of people would rather not do that just to be able to ride whatever kind of energy they can.
CLAIRMONT: Exactly! And that’s going on heavy right now. Right now, everybody's not saying anything. Everybody's scared to say shit and especially here I think a lot of people in positions of power – people in positions of getting things or it looks like they're really successful – it's because they know somebody. And it's because they know somebody inside or they know somebody over here or there. And that's really what drives it. And then the optics make it look like – if you're scrolling on Instagram, or you're scrolling on whatever – it really looks like this person is doing a lot.
And maybe they are, but they have to do a lot of work in spaces that might not really matter. Does that make sense? Like, they have to keep working online in order to stay some sort of relevant in the most plain terms. People can't take four years off and not drop a project. They can't take two years off and not drop a project anymore. Depending on who you are, that may affect your financial situation. But in terms of just the relevancy, that dies with certain people's art.
RINGLEADER: Yeah, I mean, I think that effect is definitely happening across music in general, regardless of where you're at, just because of social media and the access to everything. People are just trying to create more. It's just all quantity over quality so often, you know, that it's all people are so focused on. Like, “can I do more” instead of, 'Can I actually like put something into this?'
CLAIRMONT: Exactly. Yeah. But I really appreciate what you guys do, man. It's so funny cause I thought you guys were from here. From the first – the early write ups that I saw, I'm like, “Oh, these feel like somebody who's been here.” So, I appreciate your words. It means a lot to me.
RINGLEADER: Yeah, for sure. I mean, for us, everything is just a reflection of the music and the art that we take in. You can't do what we do without you, so thank you.
King Street // We continued winding our way Northwest of downtown through the maze of construction that segmented what should be neighborhoods flowing from one to the other into a jagged map. From the CN Tower and Blue Jays way, we were on King Street.
CLAIRMONT: Man, if you guys came like 10 years ago, bro, there's so much I could point to. But it's changed so much. And I'm not down here as much as I used to be like in the 2014, 15, when I was coming up. There was a really, really cool scene then. And I find that everybody that I was attached to – or was a part of my conglomerate or whatever it may have been – everybody was just in space. That's the best way I could describe it. Like the Sonics were very much like outer space, very cool. Airy sounds and things like that.
RINGLEADER: From a listener’s perspective, you’re obviously taking from the same root of influence, even if in a different series of moments. The last single you put out – almost got me – has that spacey texture. It’s got those psychedelic chords, and a classic throughline of your sound back to the early days.
CLAIRMONT: Yeah, well, you know what? I find that there's so much that I forgot that I did and so much that I forgot that I do musically, that when I do it again, I'm like, ‘oh man, this feels like a new style for me and it is that. But in fact, I'm building on something deeper.’ Because when I go back like 10 years, I was trying to do this or that at another time. It just wasn't working in the same way – it sounded different but the spark was there. It was cool – it was working in its own way, but I did not have the skillset I do now.
RINGLEADER: That’s cool for it to subconsciously come back into your music later, in a way you can recognize while also noticing the difference.
CLAIRMONT: And it's important too, because I find that every few years I always forget kind of who I am creatively and I always forget what I'm capable of doing. Just like trying to balance shitty situations in life can really beat you into submission and make you forget certain aspects of yourself. But, then I always have this spark that has me deep dive into what I was doing. And I remember I'm like, ‘Yo, I'm actually capable of doing this and I'm capable of being one of the greatest to ever touch this.’ But I feel it's important that, just like after those shitty life situations, to forget while not forgetting all the work that I put in.
Queen Street // Block by block, Clairmont continued to recognize that he wasn’t really recognizing Toronto like he used to. Aside from a McDonald’s that had some sort of hallowed history, our walk down King, as it turned into a walk down Queen, become more and more a maze of scaffolding and construction-related detours. As he spoke, it became obvious that all the construction and environmental change in the city was a visual representation of some deeper turmoil in its culture.
CLAIRMONT: Anything cool in the city: give it like six months and it's going to be gone, because the city doesn't really care about preservation and then the people running it don't care about anybody outside of a certain tax bracket and they're just about making more money. So, they're just putting up a bunch of shit for no reason simultaneously. And I don't mean to shit on my city like this, but because I've been here and I've witnessed the change, I'm really hypercritical about it. It's so disheartening. And there's a limit to kind of how much I can do. But the person that – and this is a big part of what the discussion has been – the person that had more influence in changing more just got into a battle with Kendrick. And so…
I think that with this battle, it's important to not even really look at the songs, not to look at your biases, but to just look at how everything's playing out, because that's the only thing that will tell you the truth. So, I think a lot of people were talking about how like, ‘yo, how come everybody switched up on Drake? How come no one’s defending him?’
I don't know what the consensus is where you guys are from, like what you guys see on your timelines. But being here, there's a big group of people that really ride for this guy – very blindly though. I’m all for people having their opinions and what not, that's not up to me, you know?
But it's also important not to blindly follow and understand that when you self-appoint yourself a position, you're also tasked with a responsibility.
RINGLEADER: I always want to ask this, because it seems more and more common in every city we go to: do you feel like there's lot of gatekeeping going on?
CLAIRMONT: A lot of that.
RINGLEADER: It's not too surprising. It's always disappointing, but I feel like when people in any space – when they get to a certain level – a lot of times they end up tunneling inwards and not expanding their spaces. Unless you're always conscious about the way that you're moving and the things that you're doing, it seems as though it must be easy to kind of fall into a position where you become selfish about your standing and your reputation and the people around you and the perceived power you hold. People in certain positions just end up caving and doing that at some point, but it's disappointing because it is avoidable.
CLAIRMONT: It is. My experience from then till now, navigating the new world that has – and music has – changed and the way you make money from it and all of that has changed. So I'm kind of coming in blind right now and doing it kind of by myself.
Kensington Market // Turning North, we got further away from the mayhem that downtown had to offer. The city became quieter, and more residential – less commercial or soon-to-be commercial but still under construction. It was an area that Clairmont felt maybe he had spent too much time, but wanted us to see nonetheless.
CLAIRMONT: Have you guys been to Kensington Market or heard of Kensington Market?
RINGLEADER: A bartender told us yesterday to go check it out.
CLAIRMONT: Alright, we might as well go since we're over here. Yeah. I remember last year excessively looking online for things to do in Toronto and one of the things on that list is go to Kensington Market. I know this doesn't mean a lot from your perspective, but to me, that is a terrible thing to put on a list because it's just shops and it's not a thing to do, per se.
I want space, I want air, but I also want cool activities and I feel like I've done them all here. The ROM is cool, That's the museum. They have the AGO. The AGO is another art gallery and that one’s galleries rotate a little bit quicker. So there's new things that come in. But they shut down the Science Centre. Back to the preservation thing, the Science Centre is – I was born in ‘97, so for everybody around my age or a few years younger – a memory they hold. That was your favorite trip at school. Like every time you were on a school trip to Science Centre, that was what you always had to look forward to. And they shut it down because it didn’t fit into their vision of what they want Toronto to be.
A lot of the arts face the same fate. A lot of venues. There's like half the venues now that there used to be. A lot of them get shut down and a lot of them that are up don't really like hip-hop acts. They don't like rap acts. Obviously there's a connotation to whatever it is. Or what it brings and all that shit, so…
RINGLEADER: That's such an issue everywhere too it seems like. Because there are so many conglomerates that run all the venues, it’s really challenging for independent venues to survive without caving at some point to being bought out.
CLAIRMONT: It’s been an adjustment of trying to figure out how we are going to work and operate in the city despite all of these challenges, So, are we going to keep innovating on what we know and evolving our ideas, while still keeping it rooted in what made us who we were 10 years ago?
RINGLEADER: From an outside perspective, you’re an artist that is capable of keeping that kind of consistent energy in your music from project to project through the years that allows you to evolve without losing that connection to your roots.
CLAIRMONT: I don't like change too much – or at least in some ways – because I don't think I'm a fan of the new methods of promoting music and the new methods of certain apps and certain things. To me, it’s very like, ‘yo, this is how I did it this whole time. It's worked. I'm gonna keep doing it the way that I know how.’ I'm always learning new techniques, but at the same time, there's a little part for each – your growth and your roots as an artist.
RINGLEADER: You produce a lot of your own music, right?
CLAIRMONT: I produce everything. And if my name's not on it, it's probably my brother, Cola H. He did Leaving the World Behind and that was the second to last thing I put out. And he's done stuff on It’s Not How It Sounds. He did one from 2013 on my first project ever. And then a couple more here and there. But mainly everything's been me.
RINGLEADER: I think being able to control the entirety of your own creation must provide a different sort of autonomy over your work.
CLAIRMONT: Definitely! Cola taught me how to produce when I was really young. And then my dad also sings, plays piano, and used to play guitar. Everybody kind of does music. Cola taught me how to use FL Studio at first. And then taught me how to use Reason. So FL Studio was good to start, but then he started doing a lot more keyboard. And the keyboard, like midi keyboard support at the time for FL Studio wasn't the greatest, so we needed a different program. And Reason became that program. I picked that up and have been producing on it ever since. Mixing too.
I'm currently mixing and mastering my next album. I thought it was done and then it wasn't done. So, I'm literally restarting all the mixes again for about the third time. The first version of this album was done in 2019, so it's changed a lot through the years. There are songs that are no longer in there, though the oldest song that's on there is from 2019 with some refurbished and retouched aspects to it. So it's been a process. And it's frustrating me at some points.
RINGLEADER: I bet. But if you want to actually get to where you want to be with any given kind of project, sometimes you’ve got to go through that and you’ve got to give it the time that it requires. Or you have to step away from it for a bit and come back to it. It's a challenge for sure.
CLAIRMONT: It’s definitely a challenge because as much as I don't do this for money, when you don't drop an album for a very long time, there's a little more pressure behind it.
Game Shop // After weaving through the heart of Kensington Market, we found our way back to a place much more closely tethered to Clairmont’s cultural understanding of Toronto: A&C games on Spadina, just one block up from the now infamous New Ho King. For an artist whose production has always felt so tethered to some kind of indefinable digital nostalgia, the vintage game shop struck a number of chords.
CLAIRMONT: If I'm ever in the area and I have time, this is the only store I care to come into. I used to go to church like block over. My family's been there, my grandma was there for a long time – she passed away a few years ago, but my cousins and family are still there. So after church on Sundays, I would walk over here and just check out a bunch of shit.
I haven't been in here in a little, like the first time for the year. I'm always interested in the game shops in other cities and stuff. Do you have something like this where you’re at?
RINGLEADER: There's a really cool one near us in Denver. It's called Mutiny Cafe. It's a coffee shop, book shop, and old game shop. It's got a little bit of everything. It's super dark. And it's just rows and rows of books and then different sections for games. It's a used book shop, used game shop, and they have a ton of old school machines in there too. So, you can go in there and play Pac Man and just hang out.
CLAIRMONT: That's fire. With my brother, I grew up playing a lot of Nintendo 64. A lot.
RINGLEADER: The games on that system are so good.
CLAIRMONT: Different! Have you guys heard of the Neo Geo?
RINGLEADER: Uh-uh.
CLAIRMONT: You know Metal Slug? So Metal Slug was made by a company called SNK, and SNK also made a game console called the Neo Geo. So they were in charge of making all the arcade machines. They were making all the big ones. And they wanted to bring that to a home console. And at the time of releasing it, that was like 1990, it was insanely expensive. A couple grand today, but the reason it was so expensive is because they were bringing the hardware power of the arcade machines into the home console.
But we had the emulator on my computer back in the day, so I played a lot of Neo Geo as well. Like King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, like all that stuff.
What console do you currently still have?
RINGLEADER: I still have the Gamecube. I still have the N64. I still have both of those. They're fun. But yeah, the Gamecube is strange. Paper Mario and these weird other spinoffs like Super Mario Sunshine. Just kinda odd games. On the 64, the games felt a little more thought out and a little less experimental. I feel like I lost friends over Mario Party back in the day. Tekken was how you hashed out all the beefs.
CLAIRMONT: Yeah, I still have an N64 and a Dreamcast and all of the games on both those systems are influential.
Spadina // We went on for a while, digging through shelf after shelf of games for console after vintage console. The nostalgic energy of it bringing us both back to another time, and both off the busy streetscape of Spadina with a vertical maze of cranes stretched out over Toronto’s skyline to the South.
