If there’s one thing Tre Mission wants you to know about his new album, Malmaison, it’s that it’s not a mixtape. Anyone who follows the MC/producer on Twitter or who saw him play his NXNE show on Saturday night will know this. He’s been pretty adamant about it. Yes, the album is being released for free. No, that doesn’t make it a mixtape.

While this may sound like an artist being needlessly picky, Tre does have a point. Malmaison doesn’t feel like a mixtape. It’s not cheap or disposable. It comes with a full, PDF digital booklet and high quality cover art. The sound is equally polished.

“Introdeuce,” with its long introduction and layered, synth-and-sample-heavy production is a perfect example of the sort of maturity present on Malmaison. Female vocal samples are looped and chopped until they’re just individual notes, then combined with a pulsing bass drum-and-hi-hat beat and marimba-like synths. The song is also far more lyrically mature than much of Tre’s early work, with introspection and autobiography replacing high-octane boasts and street talk.

“Flashlight Woah” shows similar depth. The chord progression is somewhere between ominous and mournful, occasionally punctuated with drum-and-bass snares. All this happens while Tre is paying tribute to his friends who are either dead or in jail. (You can listen to “Flashlight Woah” by clicking on the sample above.)

That said, there’s also a fair bit of aggressive material. Tre’s primary musical influence is grime, a British subgenre that combines hip-hop with drum and bass, dancehall, 2-step, and dubstep and is heavy on rapid-fire delivery, live battles, and almost chiptune-y bleeps. “Kickflip” is probably the most traditionally grime track on the album, with Tre delivering a blazing barrage of confrontational, double-time rhymes over dense, tense, jarring, digital beats.

Tre has come a long way since he first showed up on the local scene in 2010. While he’s always been a gifted wordsmith and beatmaker, Malmaison shows a new diversity. It showcases a fuller range of sounds and ideas, and the less aggressive, more introspective material like “Introdeuce” only serves to make badass tracks like “Kickflip” seem that much more menacing.

Folks who are planning on having a swim in the pool at Scadding Court Community Centre over the next few days may find themselves a little disappointed. Those who want to go fishing, however, will probably be ecstatic.

For the rest of the week, the Community Centre will be holding its annual Gone Fishin’ event, meaning its indoor pool will be an indoor fish pond. The pool has been drained, dechlorinated, and refilled with 2,000 rainbow trout, to be caught by local children and families.

Coming hot on the heels of NXNE, you may be all concerted-out by the time Luminato rolls around, but that’s just too bad. This is a bit of a banner year for music at the annual arts festival, with a mixture of legendary artists and acts from around the world making their Canadian debut.

Legends

Joni: A Portrait in Song – A Birthday Happening Live at Massey Hall

When: Tuesday, June 18 and Wednesday, June 19, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Massey Hall (178 Victoria Street)

Joni Mitchell will be joining an all-star cast paying tribute to her at Massey Hall on her 70th birthday. Mitchell is a musical legend who’s influenced four decades worth of artists; she’ll only be performing briefly, reading a poem, but the other artists who will be joining her make this a must-see show. Jazz hero and funk pioneer Herbie Hancock will join her on June 19, as will new-school jazz darling Esperanza Spalding. Both nights will see Mitchell joined by artists like Cold Specks, Rufus Wainwright and Glen Hansard. If you like Joni Mitchell even a little, or just have a general respect for music history, you should really make every effort to see this.

Maxi Priest

When: Saturday, June 15, 9 p.m.
Where: The Hub at David Pecaut Square (221 King Street West)

English reggae singer Maxi Priest has been cranking out the hits for the better part of 30 years, both as a solo artist and doing duets with the likes of Roberta Flack, Shabba Ranks, and Shaggy. He’s one of only two British-based reggae acts to have a Number One hit in the U.S. with 1990’s “Close to You.” (UB40 was the other.) “Close to You” was probably playing when some of you were conceived. You should drop by and thank him for that.

Kid Koala’s Space Cadet

When: Friday, June 14 and Saturday, June 15, 10:30 p.m.
Where: The Hub at David Pecaut Square (221 King Street West)

Turntablist Kid Koala came to Luminato last year as part of Deltron 3030. This year, he’s back with Space Cadet, an “immersive headphone experience” based on his second graphic novel, where the audience sits on inflatable space pods. Spin called it “a triumph of whimsy.” We’re not quite sure what that all means, but Kid Koala is just generally excellent, and this sounds like it will be an experience no matter what happens.

Laurie Anderson

When: Sunday, June 16, 9 p.m.
Where: The Hub at David Pecaut Square (221 King Street West)

Sculptor-turned-musician Laurie Anderson has been combining spoken word, performance art, and music since the late 1960s. Along the way, she’s also invented two new instruments—tape bow violin and the talking stick—and pioneered a voice-filter technique she calls audio drag, lowering her voice into a masculine register. (Her male alter ego is named Fenway Bergamot.) She is both a creative genius and wonderfully bizarre. Go see her or regret it for the rest of your life.

Long Shen Dao

When: Saturday, June 15, 8 p.m.
Where: The Hub at David Pecaut Square (221 King Street West)

A six-man reggae band from Beijing, that hotbed of Rastafarian culture, Long Shen Dao combine classic roots reggae with rock and ska influences, as well as traditional Chinese instruments. This will be their first North American show, and if their videos are anything to go by, they should be pretty entertaining. At minimum, you should go to say you’ve seen a Chinese reggae band.

Garifuna Collective

When: Sunday, June 23, 2 p.m.
Where: The Hub at David Pecaut Square (221 King Street West)

The African-influence hand-drum centred music of Belize’s Garifuna people was proclaimed a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO in 2001, and with good reason. It can border on trance-inducing and absolutely compels you to move. The Garifuna Collective represent music at its best. This will be the group’s Canadian debut. Why wouldn’t you want to be there?

Electronic music isn’t really a genre so much as a catch-all for everything from dreamy synthpop to screeching, aggressive brostep. That said, we’ve managed to put together a few key synth-and-drum machine-type acts that you should make a point of checking out at this year’s festival, ranging from indie-rocker side projects to one of the year’s most talked about remix artists.

Poirier

When: Thursday, June 13, 10 p.m.
Where: The Hoxton (69 Bathurst Street)

Way back in 2005, Montreal producer and DJ Ghislain Poirier started a club night called Bounce Le Gros, where he spun club music from around the world, mashing together everything from soca to grime to Baltimore club. The night became a phenomenon before shutting down in 2007. Since then, Poirier has begun combining all those sounds into one intoxicating, ass-shaking, brilliant mess. He’s made a soca record, a dancehall record, and a rave-influenced album, and is generally thought of as a bit of a mad sound scientist. If you’ve never seen him before, you’re missing out.

Go if: You want to get really sweaty and possibly make out with a stranger.

Your Pretend Boyfriend

When: Thursday, June 13, 11 p.m.
Where: Johnny Jackson (587 College Street)

YPB’s bio describes him as “a one man audio/video wrecking machine.” We just think he makes weird, glitchy music that we can’t stop listening to.

Go if: You need something wrecked with audio.

Blue Hawaii

When: Thursday, June 13, 1 a.m.
Where: Comfort Zone (480 Spadina Avenue)

Simultaneously pretty and driving, Blue Hawaii are pretty much everything you’d ever want in a synthpop band. The duo, which is fronted by Braids’ Raphaelle Standell-Preston, is able to get crowds eating from their hands with their mix of hypnotic loops and pop hooks.

Go if: You like things that sound like Grimes.

Abstract Random

When: Thursday, June 13, 1 a.m.
Where: May (876 Dundas Street West)

Profoundly weird self-described “electro dubhop” trio Abstract Random have been combining the politically outspoken with the straight-up absurd for a while now, and we dig it. Their live shows often involve people running around in giant papier mâché heads, and that’s enough for us.

Go if: You want things to get weird.

Ryan Hemsworth

When: Saturday, June 15, 1 a.m.
Where: BLK BOX (1087 Queen Street West)

Halifax producer Ryan Hemsworth is at the forefront of the cloud-rap trend. In the last 12 months, he’s become one of the most sought-after remix artists around, and has reworked songs by everyone from Grimes to Lil B to Lana Del Rey. His original productions blur the lines between rap instrumental and electronic experiments, and his big, expansive soundscapes, dense layers of synths, and dramatic builds work equally well when backed with a house-music thump or a skittering hi-hat.

Go if: You want to see whether his studio wizardry translates to his live shows.

Ghostface Killah and Raekwon get the crowd hyped at Yonge-Dundas Square in 2012. Photo by Loni Schick/Torontoist.

North by Northeast’s hip-hop lineup was dealt a major blow when Big Boi, who was supposed to headline the annual Sunday night Yonge-Dundas Square blowout, had to cancel six weeks of tour dates to recover from knee surgery. He’s been replaced by Ludacris. While we’ll always be fans of Luda’s early ‘00s singles and his willingness to give shit to Bill O’Reilly, this isn’t really a replacement of equal value. That said, this year’s edition of NXNE has a pretty strong hip-hop contingent. The festivities will even feature Deniro Farrar, one of the most talked about young MCs to break out in the last year. We’ll also be getting shows from one of hip hop’s founding fathers, and three of the local scene’s most intriguing talents.

Deniro Farrar

When: Wednesday, June 12, 11:25 p.m.
Where: Wrongbar (1279 Queen Street West)

When: Saturday, June 15, 12 a.m.
Where: Wrongbar (1279 Queen Street West)

When: Sunday, June 16, 4 p.m.
Where: Yonge-Dundas Square (1 Dundas Square)

Charlotte’s Deniro Farrar has compared himself to both Tupac Shakur and Charles Manson. He’s dubbed his incongruous, sometimes jarring blend of pretty, ethereal cloud-rap beats and ultra-thuggish rhymes “cult rap.” In short, he’s supremely weird, but he may be one of the more interesting acts at this year’s festival.

Go if: You dig this whole “cloud-rap” thing, but wish it had more edge.

Jelly Too Fly

When: Wednesday, June 12, 11:35 p.m.
Where: Nocturne (550 Queen Street West)

Jelly Too Fly, Toronto’s self-proclaimed Queen of the Game, has spent the last few years dropping mixtapes and honing a style that could best be described as stoned, slit-eyed malice. She’s developed a strong cult following around the city, and for good reason. While her rhymes are strong on her records, her brand of slow-moving, menacing rap really shines live.

Go if: You want to see the closest thing Toronto has to Snoop from The Wire.

D-Sisive

When: Thursday, June 13, 10 p.m.
Where: Sneaky Dee’s (431 College Street)

Local hero D-Sisive was supposed to retire from rap after the release of last year’s Jonestown 3, but so far he’s been terrible at quitting, which is a good thing for hip-hop heads. His blend of wordplay and storytelling is second to none, and his between-song stage banter is an attraction in and of itself.

Go if: You like your rap smart and insightful.

Blowfly

When: Friday, June 14, 1 a.m.
Where: The Horseshoe Tavern (370 Queen Street West)

It’s probably a bit of a stretch to include Blowfly in the hip-hop section, but he doesn’t really fit anywhere else. The masked soul singer from the ‘60s and ‘70s is often considered to be the first-ever rapper, because of his penchant for almost mind-blowingly filthy rhyming couplets.

Go if: You want to hear a really filthy version of the alphabet song.

Tre Mission

When: Saturday, June 15, 9 p.m.
Where: Wrongbar (1279 Queen Street West)

We’ve been pretty high on local MC/producer Tre Mission for about a year now, which is also roughly how long we’ve been waiting for his next mixtape, Malmaison. (The project was supposed to be done in time for last year’s NXNE, but rappers aren’t always huge on punctuality. It will be available for download tomorrow.) Mission may be one of the most intriguing characters in rap, not only locally, but period. A North American MC who made his mark in the very British grime subgenre, he’s equally comfortable talking street shit or analyzing his own self-doubt, and he does things like rhyme over instrumentals from Jamie xx and sample Imogen Heap.

Go if: You like a mix of sharp wordplay and unexpected influences.

Joey Bada$$

When: Saturday, June 15, 1 a.m.
Where: Wrongbar (1279 Queen Street West)

When: Sunday, June 16, 8 p.m.
Where: Yonge-Dundas Square (1 Dundas Square)

Brooklyn-based MC Joey Bada$$ may only be 18, but his style is strangely reminiscent of the classic east-coast MCs of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. His breakout 2012 mixtape, 1999, was filled with with sharp wordplay and sample-heavy beats. Rap nerds have spent years waiting for someone to resurrect “real” New York rap. (The Southern-influenced styles of A$AP Rocky and French Montana don’t really count, area codes be damned.) This guy looks like the man for the job.

Go if: You’re out to see the next big thing.

Fat Tony

When: Sunday, June 16, 6 p.m.
Where: Yonge-Dundas Square (1 Dundas Square)

Houston’s Fat Tony became a blog darling after he released “Hood Party” earlier this year. The song was both a high-impact party jam and a scathing sendup of gentrification. The song also did a great job of encapsulating what’s great about Fat Tony: a versatile flow that can go from fast and syncopated to slow and laconic on a dime, as well as scads of smart references. You’re going to like him.

Go if: You’ve recently bought a fixer-upper in a formerly blue-collar neighbourhood.

This is just too cute. Photo by Jason Cook, from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Woofstock, which claims to be North America’s largest dog festival, saw thousands of canine guests come to the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood this weekend to celebrate its 10th-anniversary edition. The dogs ranged from a Maltese that was scarcely larger than a guinea pig to a Great Dane-Irish Wolfhound cross that was the size of a small bear. The event was also host to over 200 vendors selling everything from high-end collars to pet portraiture, a “rescue village” filled with organizations that help dogs who are abused, and dozens of dog-related events, from costume contests to a pug race.

That said, it was also very much an event about people. Throughout the weekend, strangers stopped each other in the street, petting one another’s dogs and talking about their shared interests. Woofstock founder Marlene Cook says that when she started the festival in 2003, the goal wasn’t just to celebrate man’s best friend, but also to give dog owners chances to connect.

“People are talking to each other,” she says. “They have no agenda…They’re happy, they’re networking, they’re meeting other dog owners and making that connection.”

For Dennis Woo, that sense of community is one of the most appealing things about Woofstock. Woo’s English Bulldog, Bubba, won Sunday’s costume contest in a leatherman-inspired ensemble.

“It’s just a lot of people with a common interest, who love dogs,” said Woo. “There’s this great sense of camaraderie.”

For Bullies in Need co-coordinator Patti Moore, the goal is to use that sense of community to get support for a cause. Bullies in Need fosters and adopts pit bull-type dogs who have been abandoned or abused. She says events like Woofstock not only work as fundraisers for the volunteer-run group, but also help fight misconceptions about the often-maligned breed.

“There’s a lot of fear around them, which isn’t helped by certain parts of the media,” she says. “One of the biggest things for us is awareness…For most people, all it takes is meeting one true pit bull who’s friendly and social and loving, and that changes how they feel about the breed.”

Woofstock’s organizers say that over 40 per cent of housholds now own dogs. Cook says this is probably a result of empty nesters looking for companionship, as well as younger people delaying marriage and children. As a result, she thinks events like Woofstock will become more and more common in cities around the world. Cook says she’s already looking to start an American version of the festival.

Ulu Braun, who’s work is pictured above, is just one of the artists taking part in the inaugural NXNE art festival.

North by Northeast has been growing for some time now. What started off as a music festival now features a huge interactive conference, a film festival, and tons of comedy. This year, it’s expanded again—this time to include an art festival.

According to festival director Christopher Roberts, the idea came about after NXNE founder Michael Hollett visited Miami’s Art Basel. “He went down there this year and was just blown away by what it was bringing to both the city and the participants,” says Roberts.

Hollett didn’t have to look too far to find someone to run the art portion of the festival. His sister, Kate Hollett, is an award-winning artist who had been working as a curator and filmmaker in Europe.

Kate says that she wanted to make the art portion of NXNE fit in with the festival’s overall ethos. As a result, it will encompass everything from exhibits done in concert with the AGO to graffiti artists painting the NOW magazine offices.

“The whole approach before even going out looking for work is ‘What do we want this to look like? What are we representing?’ ” she says. “We’re part of an umbrella of the arts, and that umbrella represents an accessibility for people. We’re about everything from the biggest and the best names down to the unknowns. It’s an inclusiveness. So we wanted everything from the high end, which we have through the connection to the AGO, to out there on the street performance art were you’re walking on the street and and you’re watching them as they go…We want it to be understandable and accessible.”

Kate hopes that adding art to NXNE will not just transform the festival, but the neighbourhoods it takes place in.

“We have artists from all over the world joining us. We have an installation artist from Paris who’s coming to do an installation on the Ryerson quad, just for us. There’s Ulu Braun from Berlin, who’s doing a video collage, sort of a landscape thing with layers of different images on top of each other. That’s going to be huge, and it’s going to be on the Sears building at Yonge and Dundas.”

Both Roberts and Kate Hollett say that they’re not concerned about art taking away from the rest of the festival. Roberts says art is just another “tentpole in the NXNE circus…I don’t think anything is overshadowing anything else.”

That said, Roberts admits that with the festival being so broad, he and the other organizers are considering spreading it out a little.

“I’d like to accordion out the festival,” he says “So interactive has it’s own four days; then it folds into film, which has its own two or three days; and then fading into music, which has its own dedicated five days…It [would] allows us time to concentrate on those things, and it allows participants the ability to try and do everything.”

Kate Hollett says that in many ways, this year’s NXNE art show is a sort of trial run.

“Everyone who works here is dedicated to what we do…And it’s hard, there are always growing pains, but it’s so new that the excitement and joy way overshadow any bumps in the road,” she says. “This is year 19 for the festival, and this is perfect for us to get our feet wet. Year 20 is going to be huge.”

We weren’t really sure what we were going to think of Stark Raving, the new mixtape from Thunder Bay–born, Toronto-based MC/singer/producer Coleman Hell. The fact that his initial videos had people referring to him as “hipster rap” made us wary, and the fact that he sometimes spells his name with a witch-house triangle made us downright skeptical.

Thankfully, the whole experience turned out to be a pretty nice surprise. Stark Raving is a fun, incredibly catchy album that manages to be both poppy and a little bit challenging. It’s hard not to be intrigued by Hell. He moves from staggering arrogance to massive self-doubt and back again, and seems to be permanently heartbroken.

It’s worth noting that Hell isn’t necessarily a good rapper in the traditional sense—although he’s not bad either—but he is interesting. There aren’t a ton of rewind-worthy, mind-blowing punchlines of the sort that get rap nerds excited. Instead, there are a series of meandering digressions that probably shouldn’t work, but somehow do. If you had to compare Hell to a better known MC, it would be Heems, formerly of Das Racist, but with fewer jokes and more feelings. “Chasing Amy,” a song about a straight man with a crush on a lesbian, is a perfect example. It ends with Hell referencing both Crispin Glover and Friday in a desperate attempt to win over the object of his affection. (You can listen to “Chasing Amy” by clicking on the sample, above.)

With a couple more up-tempo exceptions, most of the production on Stark Raving could more or less fit under the somewhat nebulous cloud-rap umbrella. It’s pretty, spacey, ethereal, and minimalist.

If Hell has one stand-out skill, it’s an ability to create memorable hooks. The choruses for “Killing Time” and “Beer Cans” have been stuck in our head for days now. If Coleman Hell winds up hitting the pop charts, which feels sort of likely, it will be the choruses that put him there.

Stark Raving costs you nothing, and delivers a hell of a lot. Downloaded it now so you can say you were into Coleman Hell before he was cool.

One of the great things about local punk band Careers in Science is its sense of humour. The band does an amazing job of writing songs that are funny, but not zany or wacky. This isn’t Weird Al or Blink 182. Instead it’s wry, often self-depreciating wit set to a soundtrack of buzzsaw guitars.

“Back to Business” uses business buzzwords to talk about a failing relationship, and turns the should-be-dull line “I want to reinvest” into a shout-along gang chorus. “All Our Birthdays” is a frank discussion about the feeling that your youth is passing you by, using the phrase “really, really, really old.”

The highlight of the EP, at least lyrically, is “When We Have Money.” It’s a classic high-energy, Southern California-style pop-punk anthem about life in the service economy. The band members envision striking it rich and returning to their current places of employment to seek vengeance. (In this case, vengeance looks like closing a restaurant to take everyone bowling.) If you’ve spent any significant portion of your life holding down a crappy job, it’s pretty much guaranteed to strike a chord. (You can listen to “When We Have Money” by clicking on the sample above.)

Musically, Cowards is an impressive leap ahead. While the band is still firmly rooted in Descendents-style pop punk, there are some interesting post-punk influences that peek through here. “Back to Business” and “The Shape of Punk That’s Left” both have a sort of herky-jerky angularity that reminds us a little of Wire.

Careers in Science is made up of smart, funny guys who write smart, funny songs, but it’s also a band that’s not afraid to colour outside the lines in a genre that tends to be, somewhat ironically, bound to tradition. Cowards furthers our longstanding belief that this is one of the local acts worth watching.

Over 5,000 Toronto Zoo members, as well as members of the press, got a special sneak peak at giant pandas Er Shun and Da Mao earlier today. The pair is expected to be at the zoo, on loan from the Chinese government, for the next five years.

Zoo director of public relations Katie Gray said that the day was meant as a warmup for the pandas’ official unveiling on Saturday.

“Today is a learning opportunity,” she said. “We’re trying to manage the crowds and see how fast people move through the exhibit, but overall everyone’s having an amazing experience and the pandas are being amazing.”

The pandas, for what it’s worth, were remarkably unfazed by both the crowd—which included both children and adults squealing with delight—and the dozens of cameras being pointed at them. Four year-old male Da Mao lounged in the sun, eating bamboo, sitting in a remarkably human-like posture and staring back at the crowd, while five year-old female Er Shun avoided the heat and lay sprawled out in the indoor part of her enclosure. This seemed to be more than enough for the onlookers. That’s the great thing about pandas. They don’t have to do much to impress you. They’ll spend 16 hours a day eating, reject roughly 85 per cent of the bamboo you offer them, poop roughly 40 times, then go to sleep for eight hours, and you’ll love them for it.

The exhibit also features an information centre, where zoo-goers can read about pandas and their habitat, watch panda videos, and play panda-related touchscreen games. The space was designed by architecture firm Reich and Petch. Project coordinator Carolyn Smith said that the aim was to create something that was distinctly Chinese, but without resorting to cliched imagery.

“We wanted to create something that was fresh and informative and kid-friendly and modern,” said Smith. “There have been so many other panda exhibits that have done the old school, hokey kind of Chinese pagodas, and almost stereotyping China. China is very modern and forward thinking, and they’re making a lot of great efforts to save the pandas, and we wanted to tell that story.”

Overall, Gray said she was pleased with the day, both logistically and in terms of crowd response.

“I think the best thing I’ve heard is people referring to them as rock stars,” she said. “That’s sort of the hype around them…and they’re definitely acting the part. They’re just laid back and chilling out and having a great time.”

This year’s edition of Toronto’s Global Marijuana March had everything one might expect at such an event. The crowd, which massed at Queen’s Park North on Saturday afternoon before the parade headed north on University Avenue, was a mix of activists with some reasonable points to make and stoners looking for a good time. Dozens of Canadian flags, complete with marijuana leaves in place of maple leaves, flapped proudly. And when it was time for the parade to begin, roughly half of those gathered forgot to go.

Organizer Neev Tapiero said that committed legalization activists and folks looking to get stoned in the park were equally welcome at the event.

“There are several ways of describing this,” he said. “Protest, festival, protestival…we’re just out to celebrate cannabis culture.”

He added that the mission of the march is to spread awareness of the benefits of marijuana and the need for legal reform.

Among the activist groups represented at the march was Moms for Marijuana International. Moms Canada president Cheri Shaw is a medical marijuana user and the mother of a teenage son. She began using weed to cope with several chronic pain conditions. Prior to that, she had been prescribed Dilaudid, a synthetic opiate.

“I’ve been on narcotics since I was 11,” she said. “Before I quit two years ago, I was on 360 eight-milligram [tablets] a month.”

“I would take one, wait 10 minutes, and throw it up, then wait an hour, take another one, throw it up again. And I’d do that until my throat was raw.”

She said that medical marijuana has made her a better parent.

“It’s helped me relax and see things differently,” she said. “My memory that I lost over years of narcotic use is coming back.”

But parents who are medical marijuana users sometimes face scrutiny from the authorities.

“When I got my medical marijuana license, I had Children’s Aid come to my house,” said Shaw, “and I was lucky, because I got a very decent worker. She left a little bit more educated and I’ve never had a problem since. The problem is when you get people who don’t want to learn.”

Kareem Bruzual was the parade’s head marshal, and was responsible for organizing volunteers.

“Crowd control isn’t an issue here,” he said. “The only issue on the parade itself is to make sure everyone’s safe.”

“I’ve never seen a mad stoner. They’re all too laid back,” he added. “I’m just here to make sure the parade goes off without any hitches.”

Unfortunately, Bruzual didn’t get quite get his wish. While the crowd was fairly well behaved and did a decent job of cleaning up after itself, about half of them opted not to move once the parade started. Instead, they continued hanging and lounging under the trees, listening to music, chatting, and getting stoned. Every so often, a group would get up and amble up the sidewalk in an attempt to catch up with the larger parade. Most seemed okay with missing it.

“Oh, the parade went already?” said one man waiting in line at a hot dog vendor. “I guess no one told us. We’re all the way at the south end of the park.”

In My Opinion, the new album from producer-turned-MC Rich Kidd, is in many ways a quantum leap forward for the Toronto-based artist. Kidd has been experimenting with rhyming more and more over the last few years, mostly on his Rich Kidd Shiiiiit series of mixtapes. He also released a Juno-nominated collaboration with Vancouver-based MC SonReal under the group name The Closers. On In My Opinion, he takes things to a whole other level, attempting to carry an entire record. By and large, he does a pretty strong job of it.

As a technical rapper, Kidd isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind. That’s not to say he’s bad, but he’s not going to amaze you with intricate internal rhyme structures. That said, he has a strong talent for rap as storytelling, a great baritone rap voice, and a ton of clever one-liners.

In My Opinion is also proof positive that Rich is a much more diverse MC than people realize. Sure, there are songs about girls and making money, but there’s also a lot of deep, thought-provoking material. “The City” has the makings of an anti-gun-violence anthem, and ends with Kidd personally calling on Mayor Rob Ford to spend more money on arts programs. “I’d Be Lying” is filled with weirdly self-deprecating wisecracks, and “What the Fame” is raw, vulnerable, and emotional.

While he’s impressive as an MC, Kidd is still a producer first and foremost, and the beats on In My Opinion are second to none. “The Valley” sounds like it’s about to be big, over-the-top club rap, then swerves sharply to the left and becomes something much more layered and interesting, with hypnotic percussion and a haunting vocal sample. “What the Fame” takes an all-too-familiar Top-40 sample and manipulates it until it’s surprisingly hard to identify. (You can listen to “What the Fame” by clicking on the sample above.)

Transitioning from producer to MC isn’t easy. For every Kanye West–level superstar, there are a dozen Swizz Beats–type near misses (and even more outright failures). Rich Kidd has managed to make the transition seem remarkably easy. He’s already a charismatic, entertaining performer, and if In My Opinion is any indication, he’ll only get better from here.