BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edtion - June 2016

BOOK OF BRIDGE
MC SOPRANO
smooth urban beats in new release by Courtney Faulkner
CASTRATI:
nights I just drive off somewhere
and I park and I write in
“Some
the car,” says Lethbridge rapper
and producer Mc Soprano, who admits
to spending most weekends writing and
recording music rather than going out.
“I did record in a car once, when I
started music I didn’t have a studio...I
hung the microphone on the mirror of
the car and I just had the laptop right
there,” says Soprano, “I wonder what
people would think if they were driving
by seeing someone in the car just yelling
into the microphone.”
These days Mc Soprano, who has been
writing and recording music since 2008,
has a home studio, and is preparing to
release his EP album “Late Nights” on
June 17, with songs produced by Diplo
and Trelll. “The album is based on Lethbridge,
the struggles of being in a small
city...sometimes you’re bored, there’s not
much to do, so I wrote about late nights,
hanging out with friends,” says Soprano.
“I write about having a good time,”
says Soprano. “Everybody likes to have a
good time.”
“I think there’s a stereotype when you
tell someone you rap, cause it’s hardcore
rap, or gangster rap, but when I rap I
think it’s more like poetry,” says Soprano.
“I write about girls, past love, emotions.”
“There’s a track talking about the
struggles of an emerging artist, when you
first start working in music, making connections
and trying to break through,”
says Soprano. “It’s more of an emotional
track I’ve been working on for a while.”
Mc Soprano has been recognized for
his talent, winning contests and gaining
radio plays. “Last year I released a single
‘The Life’ and it made it to a bunch radio
stations,” says Soprano. “It was good, the
feeling was really great to actually hear
your song on the radio.”
While he’s been made offers to move
to a larger center, with an already thriving
urban scene, Mc Soprano has chosen to
build his empire in Lethbridge. “Just as
I’m a music artist and I’m trying to get
out there, there’s other people trying to
get out there too,” says Soprano. “If I just
up and left, there might not be anybody
to pave the way for other artists, or even
just work with them.”
“There’s a group called Roughies, they
do hip-hop and rap,” says Soprano. “I
hang out with them and work with them.
I think it’s just a matter of time before
a couple of us are able to get our songs
out there and people start recognizing
Lethbridge and knowing that there is
some talent here.”
“All it takes is just one of us to make it
out there and take everybody along,” says
Soprano. “And my friends here they really
support my music a lot. I would say my
friends really help me go on.”
“My ultimate dream is to have a few
artist who get exposure and put Lethbridge
on the map for music.”
To hear Mc Soprano’s latest album, which
he is releasing for free on June 17, go to
mcsoprano.com and soundcloud.com/
mcsoprano.
photo: Tammi Constantine
AN ELECTRO DRAG OPERA
lights, lipstick and sinful salvation
words and photo by Courtney Creator
Offending people is a good sign for the performers behind Castrati.
Eros is coming. Hitch a ride. Enter the Cult of Cosmic
Purgatory for a religious ceremony unlike any other
— yet, a surprisingly familiar one. Castrati: An Electro
Drag Opera, held its service for four nights during the
Electric Eye Music Festival, where congregation members,
danced, prayed, sang and ate the breadfood (despite
warnings of impending doom).
“Casting the whole audience as a congregation who has
come for this last epic service of this crazy cult, it brings everybody
in this thing together,” says Aaron Collier, the graceful
Princess Edward in the opera, and also the designer of the
lighting, set and music. “It’s one of those shows that you have
to be there for.”
“It’s been interesting to just watch audiences embrace the
show,” says Jay Whitehead, who unleashes as Didi d’Edada in
an electrifying red wig paired with matching bold lips.
“The first inspiration for the show came out of the characters
we created,” says Whitehead. “At the time we were
thinking of those issues of censorship and religion and sexuality
and how those things collide.”
“We all come from various religious backgrounds,” says
Collier. “It was a collaboration where we dreamed, and based
a lot of the story around religious ceremony.”
“It came out of a time where we were receiving lots of
backlash for being a sex and body positive space in Lethbridge,”
says Richie Wilcox, director of the opera. “This show
was our response to that criticism.”
Castrati was performed at Club Didi, a small DIY performance
space and private club in Lethbridge that hosts drag
shows, a season of plays by Theatre Outré, music tributes, underwear
dances and more. “It is an all-inclusive queer friendly
place where a whole amazing community comes together,”
says Wilcox.
The show has taken on various incarnations, and is in its
third rendition, evolving each time it’s revisited.
“Our first thing was just this wonderful collage of these
moments of music, of strange rituals and movement pieces,”
says Collier.
“We definitely offended some people, and that was a really
good sign for us. We were hoping that we were saying some
things that were contrary.”
In preparation for their performance at International
Dublin Gay Theatre Festival last May, the four spent a week
together refining the performance. “We had a very short,
intense rehearsal process, which we always do to ourselves
because we’re so busy creating other things,” says Katherine
Zaborsky, who dons a mustache and black suit to embody
Castrati, the son of Didi, “but in some ways that’s the best way
to do it.”
The result was an opera that’s much less dark with less
literal translations of ceremony.
“As we’ve gone forward and made this new narrative, it’s
funny cause people don’t take it as such a direct comment on
their religion, they just see it as this religion,” says Collier. “But
a lot of people still recognize it right away.”
“It translates and transcends, whatever religious upbringing
you have,” says Whitehead. “We all have similar rituals, the
shame, the taboo, all that stuff is the same in every religion.”
Processing their own religious upbringings through the
humorous opera has helped the actors understand and reconcile
their own relationships with sexuality, gender, shame
and religion.
“For me it breaks even more of a hole open into all of that,
knowing that all of these religious traditions that we adhere
to so vehemently, were simply human based, someone sitting
down and writing a text, really just some writing like we do,”
says Zaborsky. “Hopefully we can explode a little bit of that
blind faith and obedience that we have to experience everyday
in this modern culture.”
Castrati heads east to in Halifax this July for the Queer Acts
Festival, as a kick off to Pride Fest.
44 | JUNE 2016 • BEATROUTE ROCKPILE