Mattmac: An Oji-Cree producer, rapper, singer and musical mastermind

Through writing and producing his own music, Mattmac shares his story and journey with mental health vulnerably, demonstrating his drive to succeed. 

By: Jillian Gonzales

Mattmac is an Oji-Cree artists from Garden Hill First Nation who is making strides in the musical industry. (IRIS/Canada's Walk of Fame)

Matthew Monias, artistically known as Mattmac, is an Oji-Cree musical artist based in Manitoba who is on the rise to fame. The musician, who writes, records and produces his own music, has been blind since birth and uses music as a vessel for healing. This is especially evident in his most recent album, Blurred Visions, released in July, Mattmac shows his vulnerability through his lyrics while pairing them with a hip-hop, pop-trap sound.

Most recently, he was named the grand prize winner of the 2022 Canada’s Walk of Fame for RBC Emerging Musician Program, a contest highlighting young musicians in an attempt to support them as they build sustainable musical careers. . His music is sonically innovative, and his authentic lyrics, mental health journey and rise in the music industry make him a musician who should be on everyone’s radar.

Mattmac was born and raised in Garden Hill First Nation, a reserve in northeast Manitoba almost 500 km north of Winnipeg. The blind artist also experienced depression as a child — and music was the escape he turned to for comfort. His music brings this subject matter to a melodic life, where he focuses on the isolation and mental health battles that have been prevalent throughout his entire life. Songs like Isolation” and “Bring in the Light” relate to these subjects differently, showing his growing perspective on life and the battles he deals with. Mattmac lays out his feelings around these matters almost as if it is a diary, it is personal and raw, while still poetic.

In an article from the Indigenous news network APTN News, Monias speaks about access barriers he’s encountered.  As a Blind creative, his production technology must be accessible to his needs. The privilege to go to a computer repair shop in minutes does not extend to everyone, and Monias has explained that he relies on delivering services to get the equipment necessary to his artistic practice.

In the same interview, he says if his computer or equipment were to break down, he would have to fly in the equipment to repair it. This is part of Matthew’s journey: to utilize and innovate.

Recently, Mattmac has been getting more of the recognition he deserves. His debut album, 20/20, released on Nov. 20, 2020, saw his song “Paradise” make the top 10 on Indigenous Music Countdown. He has been acclaimed by notable outlets and studios such as CBC, CTV and Virgin Radio. In 2021, Mattmac was awarded the Broadcast Dialogue Emerging Artist Radio Award and Rap/Electronic Album of the Year at the Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards.

Mattmac’s self-produced Blurred Visions is a beautiful 11-track album that uses pop-trap beats to share his experiences of feeling isolated and unseen amid his experiences with mental health. Pop-trap, an emerging music sub-genre, can best be described in how it intertwines lively pop music and rhythmic trap beats and pair pop vocals with rap and hip-hop. He manipulates contemporarily popular beats by giving them a twist unique to him and his sound. The popular use of the kick drum is present, but lyrical instruments have a heavy influence, creating a new sound. Influence from drill music is apparent in Mattmac’s music and can be compared to Lil Durk and Pop Smoke’s musical sounds. Still, it differs because of his impressive range and melodic flow. 

Songs like “Isolation,” “Rez” and “What We Could Be,” pair the hypnotic trap beat and drums with softer-sounding instruments like piano and strings. Mattmac’s second studio album showcases his songwriting and producing abilities by allowing him to tell real-life stories through words and music. While the rollercoaster of feelings he has experienced during his music career are addressed, the mention of his Oji-Cree heritage and the reverence and pride he holds for his lineage is a consistent theme throughout the album, especially in songs like “Bring in the Light” and “Rez.”

In “Skofoaride,” he highlights how his success is not just for him but to share with his family, showing his drive and determination to succeed goes beyond himself, extending to the collectives and communities that have shaped him. He sings “I’m making a living / don’t know why you’re hating /, I’m getting my family to eat.” 

Lyrics like “Eye on the prize, I’m just living for the moment” in “Isolation” and “I had to hustle to the sun up” in “Come Up” motivate listeners to fight through adversity alongside Mattmac. He is a wonderful storyteller, and his lyrics and accompaniment emphasize the overarching theme of inspiration and drive.

Upon first listening to Blurred Visions, sonically, the craftsmanship is fascinating. The upbeat nature some may expect from this hip-hop genre is not always there. Instead, he takes trap beats and makes them gentler on the ear. There is a subtle softness to these beats — the classic kick drums popular in trap music are muted, but the fast tempo overtakes to create a more lively, atmospheric sound, which is most evident in “Status,” “Luck That I Met You” and “What We Could Be.” Their change in pace, along with their harmonious sounds and transitions, captivate the listener. Mattmac’s music production, paired with the lyrics of the songs, coalesce brilliantly to produce a heartfelt album.

“Isolation” opens Blurred Visions with a piano instrumental and Mattmac’s producer tag, “it’s that Mattmac with the sauce.” It starts slow but picks up with a repetitive kick drum. Not only do the lyrics about Mattmac’s physical isolation stand out, but so do his journey as an artist and the psychological loneliness he deals with. Overall, this song is meant to introduce listeners to who he is as an artist and inform them of his resilience. There is a bittersweet mood within this song. It communicates Mattmac’s emotional and physical solitude but also serves as a song of hope.

As a song with so many layers that has the potential to resonate deeply with a wide range of listeners, it is a truly beautiful piece of music.

The third track on Blurred Visions is “Run It” and features Winnipeg artist Caid Jones. This song is the most streamed on the album, and deservedly so. It is faster and has a heavier trap presence, especially since Caid Jones brings a heavy rap flow. The energy Jones brings resembles Travis Scott’s by how it increases in tempo, how the drum rolls, and how the beat synthesizes. Its heavy bass drops make the song stand out, giving it the hype one might expect from a pop-trap album.

“Run It” is about making it past the doubt others have had over Mattmac and his career. With lyrics like “can’t even believe they were counting me out” and “I finally made it, I’m seeing some better days,” he shows that he has not experienced just internal, personal growth but growth that is visible to others. It is a commentary on the strength it takes to believe in yourself and work against the grain–especially when the grain is riddled with colonial and ableist systems that hinder us. The trap influence on this song reinforces the album’s hopeful aesthetic, presenting a nonlinear array of feelings.

“Rez” closes the album and is melodically powerful conclusion to a lyrically robust beginning and middle. Mattmac harmonizes his vocals to tell his life story on the reserve. This song reaches a higher range than the others, has a more hypnotic sound and includes a sung chorus not found in the other songs. There are hums and vocables to open and close the song, which resembles a chant; a rattler cry. Lyrically, the song recounts the experiences of Monias as an Indigenous person and the feelings of abandonment he has encountered. The repeating lyric “that’s the life we are living in the Rez,” being sung and carried out in long notes, makes the message much more powerful. This song is powerful by melding singing and rapping together to tell this story. It does not use a mundane, quiet beat but instead is louder and higher than the others to create a sense of urgency for listeners to connect with it. 

To close the album, “Rez” musically and lyrically leaves listeners thinking about Indigenous Peoples and the systems which work to marginalize and ostracize them. In an interview with MBC On-Demand, MattMac states, “I felt so limited to what I had because I didn’t have any resources.” He goes on to say, “Garageband was one of the first [softwares] I used.”  Mattmac explains how learning to create music with his limited resources has been difficult, but it's been a struggle he has had to overcome. 

Monias is someone who, through his music, has created breeding grounds for conversations about how these experiences of community, Indigeneity and strength, Mattmac is a musical mastermind who uses art as a tool for storytelling.

His music goes beyond what is presented to you. It is deep and meaningful — it is an ongoing commentary on time, effort and patience, the three things he believes are what will move one’s dreams forward.

In a recent CBC interview, he says, "without neither of them, it's going to be a bit difficult, and it's going to make it seem like you're not moving. But if you maintain all three, you'll get where you want to be … Keep at it and achieve that dream."

Artist Profile: Hudson Alexander

Toronto producer Hudson Alexander never slows down

By Manus Hopkins

Hudson Alexander is a Toronto-based music producer and artist (CanCulture/Manus Hopkins)

Originally from Winnipeg, 26-year-old musician and producer Hudson Alexander is making a name for himself in Toronto’s music scene. Surrounded by music since he was young, Alexander naturally picked up guitar as a teen. He’s come a long way from his original musical roots playing in high school bands.

“I would just record songs on my own,” said Alexander, “I’d do random guitar parts and then use MIDI and drum samples or whatever I could find. When I joined a band I kept making music like that until eventually that became more fun to me than being in bands.”

When Alexander was drafting up songs himself before showing them to his bandmates, he found a penchant for producing his own music and stopped bringing all his material to them. After high school, he got more serious about recording and started to explore what he could bring to the music scene. Since then, he has become more independent by pursuing his own passions.

Eventually, Alexander outgrew Winnipeg as a musician and decided that Toronto would be a better place for finding opportunities in the industry.

“It was a pretty snap decision...I didn’t really have a lot of time to think about it,” he said. “But I was just getting bored of Winnipeg. I was trying to do more DJing and playing more dance music and stuff like that, but there was no scene for that there.”

When it comes to his work process, Alexander said it’s usually pretty loose before ideas really come together.

“When I’m starting a beat, I’ll sit down and mess around with different notes and sounds and stuff to find something that I like,” said Alexander. “I get ideas out as quick as I can, and then if I’m really feeling something I’ll spend more time to expand on it, structure it, and arrange it.”

Alexander has worked with a variety of rappers and singers, making beats, tracks and handling production duties. He cites fellow artists HUSH., teddybear and his old Winnipeg friend smrtdeath as the “OG dudes” he first started working with.

Last October, Alexander and HUSH. released a seven-song album together, a project Alexander says he is particularly proud of. They spent nearly a year working on the record.

“We started working together when we were both pretty new to what we were doing,” said Alexander.

“It was right as I was making the transition from making electronic and solo music to doing more beats and working with artists, and it was when [HUSH.] was taking more of a front seat to music. He was becoming more of a rapper and more of a vocalist.”

The album is called You’re Just Miserable and can be heard on Spotify, Soundcloud and all other streaming platforms.

“It was really beneficial for both of us,” he said, “We’re both super happy with how the project turned out. In some songs you can hear the progression, going ‘these are the older songs’ and ‘these are the newer songs.’ It’s crazy.”

Alexander is currently working on his next project, an album in collaboration with rapper Boy Pape (formerly known as Brick), with whom Alexander has collaborated before. It will be released on April 5, and is also a short album, similar to the one Alexander made with HUSH.

“It doesn’t feel like an EP because we worked really hard on it and tried to make it an actual cohesive, well-sequenced, diverse project,” says Alexander. “I’m really excited about that. I’m currently in the manic stages, trying to mix it and listening to it a million times. I’m kind of going crazy about it right now, but I’m super excited.”

Alexander is producing the whole album, which was recorded in his bedroom.

“That’s how I do all my music,” he says. “I’m a super control freak about stuff like that. I like to record, mix, master and everything myself.”

The song “Madness” has already been released as a single.

Boy Pape x Hudson Alexander - Things I Kept Quiet out April 5. Presave on Spotify: https://bit.ly/2TQvduv @itsboypape Art by @bequietplease Produced, mixed, & mastered by Hudson Alexander 

“This year I’m trying to put out more of those little projects,” says Alexander. “Last year I was mostly focused on being able to drop a cool song every couple of weeks or so, and get a lot of content out.”

Alexander says releasing longer projects instead of singles is rewarding, and a better way to attract lasting attention.

“If you’re just doing one song every week or so, you’re putting out music, but it gets forgotten as time goes and you stack up more songs. These little projects feel more important, so I’m trying to do more of those.”

Check out Hudson Alexander on Spotify, Apple Music, and Soundcloud.

The Evolution of Canadian Music Videos

A decade-by-decade look through Canada’s music history

By Manus Hopkins

There is a handful of standout artists in music that have come to be known as uniquely Canadian exports. Canada has produced pop mega-stars like Celine Dion and Shania Twain, along with rock champions like Rush and The Tragically Hip, but it doesn’t stop there. There are hardly any areas of music history that haven’t been touched by Canadian talent.

It’s not uncommon to see Canadian music lodged in with American history. But a look at the evolution of exclusively Canadian music videos, dating back to the 1970s, can show that Canada has its own class of legends.

Though music videos started to appear in the 70s, they weren’t as important for artists to have as they are now. Back then, a band’s best hope of appearing on-screen was to be featured on a variety TV show like The Ed Sullivan Show. The landscape shifted throughout the decade as the seeds were planted for music videos to become a promotional must-have.

Though few prominent Canadian artists began making videos until the early 80s, the late 70s did see some bands hopping on the emerging music video train. The biggest wave of success for Toronto’s heavy prog rockers, Triumph, was their 1979 single “Lay It on the Line,” which had a live performance-based video to accompany it.

Music videos in general during the 1970s centered largely around clips of bands performing. They weren’t big productions yet, and most didn’t follow narratives. There were some exceptions from big-time artists. With lower production and marketing budgets, footage from live shows and shots from different angles could be edited together to make the final product more cinematic, but still simple enough.

With the birth of MTV (United States) in 1981, and Much Music (Canada) in 1984, the demand for and importance of bands’ videos was skyrocketing. Music video production was still in its infancy, however. Primitive clips like the studio footage in Rush’s videos for “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight” from their 1981 album Moving Pictures were still commonplace. However, some Canadian bands--like Loverboy--were already making the type of videos the 80s would come to be known for. As MTV became more popular and the competition to be featured increased, the ante was upped for music videos.

Music videos became more than performance or studio clips in the mid 80s. Narratives, however loose, were intertwined with shots of bands miming with their instruments, though live performance shots were still often used. It became customary for singles to be released with music videos. Having videos played on MTV proved to be a successful way to promote upcoming records.

If you look at Bryan Adams’ “Summer of 69” video, the 80s MTV clip essence is captured perfectly. Clips shown on MTV often blended scenes of bands playing with action shots that added a thrill factor to the upbeat, good-time songs typically selected as singles. The format was versatile and reached across genre boundaries. Songs from new wave balladeers Glass Tiger’s “Someday,” to thrash metal titans Annihilator’s“Alice in Hell,” used this video style. It would eventually make a resurgence in the 21st century, though it never fully went away.

By the end of the 80s, the wild rock n’ roll rollercoaster that had been the soundtrack to the decade was coming to an end. Mainstream and popular music in the early 1990s took a turn for the more serious. This was reflected in the music videos of the time, as the use of dimmer, gloomy lighting took over the bright, shiny look of the 80s.

The early 90s had its moments of music and videos that seemed to be left over from the 80s such as Tom Cochrane’s “Life is a Highway” in 1991. But the music world of the 90s was far different from its predecessor.

While new artists were emerging, some older Canadian artists fit comfortably into the new scene as well. Folk rocker Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” video, released as a single from his 1992 album of the same name embodies the 90s vibe. The video still shows shots of Young’s band performing between the semi-narrative sequences, but the 80s-style action shots are replaced with the melancholy scenes of couples dancing.

The Tragically Hip rose to prominence in those years, capitalizing on the 90s video techniques. Their videos for tracks such as “Courage” and “Ahead by a Century” use dim lighting and somber imagery to accompany the songs’ messages. Singles no longer had to be feel-good rock anthems and uplifting ballads to become hit songs. Even Celine Dion, Canada’s top selling artist of all time, had hits with downtempo, sad songs throughout the 90s, her music videos often displaying a kind of drab cinematography.

Towards the end of the 90s, the climate started to shift again, and the 2000s brought another new era for music and videos. With pop artists like Shania Twain climbing to chart-topping success in the late 90s and maintaining it into the next decade, fun was put back into Canadian music videos. While some 90s-style alternative rock bands like Nickelback stayed successful and continued making 90s-looking videos, Canadian pop-punk also took a rise in the 00s. The new charge was led by bands like Sum 41, Simple Plan and Billy Talent. 80s-style narrative sequences were once again ubiquitous, as seen in Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated,” probably one of the best-known Canadian music videos ever.

Near the end of the 2000s and into the next decade, Canada continued to produce more pop megastars. Singers like Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen became overnight sensations, their videos often splicing lip-syncing shots with romance-based narratives, such as their videos for “Baby” and “Call Me Maybe” respectively.

The current decade has also seen breakthroughs in Canadian hip hop, with The Weeknd and Drake soaring to superstardom. The big names of today have high video production budgets as well. The Weeknd’s video for “Can’t Feel My Face” has a simple enough structure, but its state-of-the-art lighting, camera work and visual effects distinguish it. It’s set in a nightclub, with coloured lighting intensifying each shot, as the cameras make use of the occasional glares, and shoot scenes from pretty much every possible angle. The resolution is also much clearer than seen in decades past. The special effects artists of The Weeknd’s calibre have access to takes their videos a step up. In “Can’t Feel My Face,” the singer spends the last minute of the video dancing while engulfed in flames, something that’s made possible by modern video technology.

YouTube has become a prominent platform for music videos in the past decade as well. A video’s success is now measured by how many YouTube views it has amassed. Justin Bieber, Drake and The Weeknd each have music videos with over one billion views. As technology advances and professional-quality equipment becomes more accessible, we could be entering a new age of music videos in the coming years, the groundwork laid by the chart-toppers of today.  

Future stays in his own lane on The WIZRD

The WIZRD is good - but not great like the other Future projects that served as the blueprint for Toronto’s rap sound

By Xavier Eeswaran

Atlanta-born rapper Future’s impact on this generation's rap music cannot be understated. When it comes to rap’s hottest sub-genre, trap music, Future is the leader of an era. Since his debut album Pluto dropped in 2012, the genre’s top charts have been filled with Future songs and trap influenced by Future’s iconic autotuned melodies and mumble raps that have shaped hip-hop’s landscape.

Nearly two years removed from his last full-length release, Future returns with The WIZRD, an album titled after the nickname his late associate, OG Double D gave him before his passing in 2013. From the album’s title to the, “I been poppin since my demo bitch,” hook that Future repeats on “Rocket Ship,” Future is very reflective of his past on The WIZRD. It is almost as if he has done what he set out to do when first started rapping. This might explain why Future crowned new rap sensations Lil Baby and Gunna the kings of trap music earlier this month.

The album starts with the soulful upbeat “Never Stop” where Future reflects on the good, the bad and the ugly that has shaped him. From there, Future sticks to what he is good at; fast paced, catchy, strip club anthems. This includes “Jumpin on a Jet,” “Rocket Ship,” “Crushed Up” and “Faceshot.” While these songs are good, they’re nothing we haven’t heard from Future before, just like this album.

The album features highlights such as the insane beat switches on “F&N” and “Baptiize” that are sure to amp up any fan of trap music. As well as some amazing features on “First Off” with Travis Scott and “Unicorn Purp” with Young Thug and Gunna that are sure to find way into your playlists.

Despite these highlights, there are cons. The album is too long (20 songs), the songs as a collective sound too similar to each other and there should have been more features. Toronto superstars Drake and The Weeknd who have collaborated with Future in prior projects (Drake and Future dropped their collab retail mixtape What A Time To Be Alive in 2016, The Weeknd and Future topped charts with their songs “All I Know” and “Low life”), could have been used very well on this album but were nowhere to be found. This is unfortunate, given Future’s influence on Toronto’s rap scene.

Future’s influence on Toronto’s rap sound is undeniable: he makes autotune and trap go together like salsa and chips, essentially setting the stage for Toronto rappers such as Lb and Casper, known for gritty lyrics coated in autotune. Drake and Future’s classic production techniques of simplistic drum patterns and filtered synths for vocal room are a huge part of TNG Casper’s sound, spotted on his biggest hit, “Freeze” featuring Top5. According to Casper’s official website, his early influences came from his father’s taste and own music as a member of Too Bad to Be True, and then as he got older, Future, The Weeknd, and Drake crept in.

Lb, the baby-faced hit maker, is known throughout Toronto’s local hip hop sphere for his catchy hooks and autotune, like on his track “My Phone” which currently has over a million views on Youtube.

While Casper and Lb are known almost exclusively in Toronto and the greater Toronto area, Future’s influence also reaches mainstream Toronto stars as well. 88Glam, a hip hop duo signed to The Weeknd’s  XO label, composed of Toronto artists 88 Camino and Derek Wise (formerly of Kensington Market collective Get Home Safe with fellow Toronto rapper Jazz Cartier) have the city and hip hop fans in awe of their quick flows and strong bars, delivered in the language Future made cool for clubs — autotune. Fellow XO artist, Nav, of Rexdale, has also adopted autotune into his arsenal, the key to his success in making him one of the well known names in rap.

While Future’s influence is more evident than ever on Toronto and hip hop in general, it’s due to his previous work and not necessarily The WIZRD. Overall, The WIZRD is good, but not great. Future sticks to what he’s good at with the catchy trap bangers, but he doesn’t experiment outside of his comfort zone like he did with his last full-length album Hndrxx.

If Future’s run from 2015 to 2017 where he dropped hit mixtapes (Monster, Beast Mode, 56 nights, Purple Reign), chart topping albums (DS2, Evol, Future, Hndrxx) and some huge collaboration albums with Drake and fellow Atlanta native Young Thug was his championship run, then The WIZRD is Future looking back at a great career while showing that he still has the it factor to compete.