This is a little thing where we listen to the two lads i think are the best this country has right now… for those that aren’t up here in downtown Canada - they probably never heard of them. So share it with your friends in all parts, it deserves it… in the meantime lets just call it a tie and hope that they keep with the good stuff.

SHAD

and 

K’naan

shot in and around Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood…

– But then for the more commercially minded there is always also DRAKE.

Halifax’s own Classified, takes a page from City Spk in his new video, Anybody Listening? which makes use of the song title as urban typography plastered all in different spots on the streets of Toronto.

Chris Dauber is a well know Toronto impresario and entrepreneur who made his wealth on the well known gay dating site Manline. Recently, he has diversified into the arts scene and is happy to launch his web site thephotographerphotographer.com. Simply put, it is dedicated to photos of people taking photos. He is currently seeking quality submissions. Here are a few sample shots of Mr. Dauber, himself taking some shots off his Ferrari in Alaska, taken by photographer Eamon MacMahon, a Cityspk photographer friend.

This just in from our roving cityspk adept Karl-André St. Victor. He just sent me these tantalizing snaps of sun drenched signs from the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Truly, i cannot say enough about hand painted signs, it is a lost art up here. Back in the days, guys like the father of Casius Clay (Mohammed Ali) plyed it as their trade all over America. Here is remembering the glory days, albeit in a more rustic version. So, here is saying a big sak passé to Karl from Cityspk.

In an only somewhat related news item, local tensions have peaked between youth in Montreal’s mainly Haitian community of Monteal North and MUC police. In suburban Little Haiti, riots flared up after a suspicious police shooting — akin to the Parisian banlieue’s in 2005. Much could be said about the anomy of these type of far flung urban consellations and the overall périphérique/centre split.

I am working as a bike courier to pay some bills and am taking
some cityspk shots of my city as i ride through my day. I have the classic
album by gza, liquid swords going on strong in my headphones and on my fixed gear.

The confluence of melody and city, a series of moments frozen in time,
the streets come alive to sing in sync with the wu-tang. My premise
takes shape in the form of a straddling my bike, my hung over head
taking flight into the moment. The music shakes me out of my slumber.
I get all sentimental and picture my lonesome swoopinh through the
urban high pressure cooker like a solitary bird in a Zen haiku.
Peddling into what would be a typical humid morning of deliveries.

I am working as a bike courier to pay some bills and am taking some
cityspk shots of my city as i ride through my day. I have the classic
album by gza, liquid swords going on strong in my headphones.

The confluence of melody and city, a series of moments frozen in time,
the streets come alive to sing in sync with the wu-tang. My premise
takes shape in the form of a straddling my bike, my hung over head
taking flight into the moment. The music shakes me out of my slumber.
I get all sentimental and picture my lonesome swoopinh through the
urban high pressure cooker like a solitary bird in a Zen haiku.
Peddling into what would be a typical humid morning of deliveries.

As the music builds awakens me senses to the sweet simplicities of
life: moss covered cobblestone, 13 piles of garbage in a two mile
abandoned stretch of sidewalk (could this be bad luck?), a condom
submerged in an oil slicked puddle, an ARRET sign transformed with red
spray paint to read A R T, at a downtown intersection the stillness
echoes in the void. I pull out my camera to capture all of these
things. Montreal.

The boundaries blur between city, music and self. The street signs
begin to speak. The city starts to kick its vernacular in time to the
music, through any words in the visual landscape — discarded bingo
cards, graffiti, neon signs, tattoos, vanity license plates. They
start assembling sentences, a message.

The streets begin to animate with the bustle of people. I weave nimbly
between sidewalk and street, narrowly missing the parades of suits and
cabs.

These words can be seen as the poetry magnets and this web site a
fridge. So it is my day of deliveries is interspersed with clicks. And
so it goes, that i keep shooting till the end is upon me. I am bloody
drenched.

My final delivery is to a high rise. The towering tombstone punches a
hole in the sky.
I do a trick to get off my bike, locking it up lickity split. The
mavens on the elevator eye me with contempt. I delivers to the
secretary. She doesn’t want to notice my presence, so i toss her the
envelope. I pretend that we are doing a secret fbi transaction. But
really it is paper clips from the office supply place. Don’t think i
don’t check.

The city slowly fades to blackness, the streets empty as I makes my
way home through the industrial concrete sun. But the moments i have
captured, the words and the letters remain. The city speak’s.
As the music builds awakens me senses to the sweet simplicities of
life: moss covered cobblestone, 13 piles of garbage in a two mile
abandoned stretch of sidewalk (could this be bad luck?), a condom
submerged in an oil slicked puddle, an ARRET sign transformed with red
spray paint to read A R T, at a downtown intersection the stillness
echoes in the void. I pull out my camera to capture all of these
things. Montreal.

The boundaries blur between city, music and self. The street signs
begin to speak. The city starts to kick its vernacular in time to the
music, through any words in the visual landscape — discarded bingo
cards, graffiti, neon signs, tattoos, vanity license plates. They
start assembling sentences, a message.

The streets begin to animate with the bustle of people. I weave nimbly
between sidewalk and street, narrowly missing the parades of suits and
cabs.

These words can be seen as the poetry magnets and this web site a
fridge. So it is my day of deliveries is interspersed with clicks. And
so it goes, that i keep shooting till the end is upon me. I am bloody
drenched.

My final delivery is to a high rise. The towering tombstone punches a
hole in the sky.
I do a trick to get off my bike, locking it up lickity split. The
mavens on the elevator eye me with contempt. I delivers to the
secretary. She doesn’t want to notice my presence, so i toss her the
envelope. I pretend that we are doing a secret fbi transaction. But
really it is paper clips from the office supply place. Don’t think i
don’t check.

The city slowly fades to blackness, the streets empty as I makes my
way home through the industrial concrete sun. But the moments i have
captured, the words and the letters remain. The city speak’s.