The Remix Project

The Remix Project is an attempt to level the playing field for youth, coming from underprivileged, marginalized and disadvantaged communities, wanting to get into cultural industries or further their formal education.

According to its website, the project provides “top notch alternative, creative, educational programs, facilitators and facilities” with a mission “to help refine the raw talents of young people from across the GTA in order to help them find success as participants define it and on their own terms.”

That all sounds pretty awesome.

And what else is pretty awesome? A collaboration for the Remix Project by City Natives — the east coast group that took home Indigenous Music Awards this year — and Filipino musical collective Datu.

“Even though it's often talked about as a youthful culture from North America, it's actually one of the oldest things in the world: storytelling through rhyme,” said the Remix Project’s CEO Gavin Sheppard in an interview with the CBC.

“What we wanted to do is take the traditional cypher [one person after another in freestyle rapping], which in hip hop is a couple MCs and some turntables, and flip it a little bit,” Sheppard continued.

“One of Datu's members suggested that we make a cypher that replaced the turntables with Filipino gongs: First Nations meeting First Nations. Indigenous, but also authentic to street culture in North America. We just wanted to create this mashup, bringing everything together.”

Read more of Sheppard’s interview and the video of City Natives and Datu here.