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The Secret’s Out
It’s a bitter-sweet day in the hip hop neighborhood as Best Kept Secret, one of CHRY 105.5’s longest-running shows, and a true staple of the Toronto hip hop scene, airs for the last time this evening from 6-8pm.
Best Kept Secret began 12 years ago, when a post-velvet-catsuit era DJ Dalia was introduced to high school student DJ Venus, who would skip class and sprint to the studio to thug it out on air every week, still clad in her in her pleated, plaid Catholic school uniform. The thuggery toned down as the BDJFFs came into their own as women of hip hop, but the underground flavour only intensified as the beat went on. Andrew Masuda took Venus’ place three years ago when she moved to Montreal.
Over the years, the trio has given play to the cream of the underground crop and interviewed the likes of Jeru Tha Damaja, Q-Tip, The Rascalz, Brassmunk, Frank n’ Dank, Camp Lo, NAS, KRS1, Aloe Blacc, Marco Polo, Elektralane, Stars, Junior Boys, and Tumi & The Volume, not to mention virtually every emcee ever to come out of the Toronto scene.
The show goes out with a blast tonight at a massive farewell party at the Gladstone Hotel, featuring some of the show’s most popular recurring guests from recent years.
$5 gets you in for all the boogie you can handle, courtesy of Dalia’s b-girl crewmates, Shebang!, deejays Paul E Lopes, Mike Tull, Mel Boogie and Two Thirds, and emcees Mindbender, Rosina Kazi (LAL), Masia One, Isis, Enlight, Shankhini, Kalmplex, Sunny D, Zoe, More Or Les and more more more.
Ironically, most of the guests in attendance at the downtown party will not be able to hear the show, living and partying as they do outside CHRY’s uptown listening radius. Doors are at 10pm ’cause it takes a while to travel home from York, yo.