Asun Eastwood & Vago - Sewer Science [2020]

Welcome to one of my many Write-Ups, where I dive into a contextual history of a project from an artist, while also breaking down the different parts worth mentioning. Come over to my Write-Ups page for a list of all of the work I’ve done so far.

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Toronto, both the capital of Ontario and the biggest city in Canada, is a city that, if you go off the headlines, seems to be a pretty simple city to understand. Here in America, the most anyone has heard of this city is, of course, Drake; while this is mostly due to the enormous impact the man has had not only here in America, but worldwide, the man singlehandedly takes an enormous amount of credit for being a musical icon that represents an entire city. What many people don’t realize is that Toronto is a city not much unlike cities here in the United States like NYC, Philadelphia, or even Washinton D.C.. The city is a diverse and deeply cultural center for many, many populations that live there. Musically, there is no one movement to pin down as “the sound” of Toronto (and you can’t just give it to OVO based on clout alone), and the diversity of sound you can find there would truly shock you. Something that you might know, but maybe don’t know the full extent of, is the deep influence that comes from Caribbean and Central American nations, especially in the sphere of music. We’ve all heard (and maybe even meme-ed) about the use of Patios in Drake’s music, but for many people on the ground in Toronto this is a reality, and the immigrant population there is vital in distinguishing the music made in this great city from other major hubs of hip-hop around the world.

It is this influence that Asun Eastwood wears on his sleeve every day of his life. Born in Belize himself, he emigrated at a young age to Toronto, but revisited his home-country many times in his youth. His Father, a native Spanish speaker, and Mother, who spoke English despite living in Belize, drove a young Asun into more of a Spanglish lifestyle, never mastering more Spanish than he needed to get by (or more than he needed to impress the ladies). But living in Toronto, especially on it’s east-side, meant that the Caribbean influence was inescapable, and as Asun Eastwood grew up the Patois that would be so commonplace in mainstream music many years later seeped into his vernacular as well. But it was more than just the language that grew with him as he grew; from his Father he learned the benefits of working hard (often through less-than-legal means), and from his culture he learned that family is the priority in any endeavor. Now, in 2020, the man has juggled the influences from his culture, and that of hip-hop culture, to create a rap character that is uniquely driven, unflinching in his ways, and confident that his styles and his hustle will bring him the recognition that, in my opinion, he deserves.

You can see Toronto is right along the coast of Lake Ontario; crossing would lead you right to Buffalo and Rochester. Everything in the red circle is about three hour journey to get to from one another. See NYC way down there in the bottom right?

Toronto is a lot closer to the United States than a lot of people understand. Right off of the border of New York, Buffalo is less than a 2-hour drive, and Rochester around 3. New York City is within reach at around 8 hours, and for a lot of people living in Toronto the Big Apple serves as the biggest provider of American culture. Asun Eastwood is no different, having spent a lot of time as a youth going back and forth, absorbing elements of the culture of the time and bringing them back to his homies back in Toronto. There he was exposed to the music, buying tapes and consuming New York music (especially Wu-Tang) to bring back home, while also learning about things like the Nation of Islam and supreme mathematics. While he may not be affiliated with the NOI, a lot of their attitudes exist in his music today and influence his lyricism and work ethic. With his roots firmly in the darkness of underground hip-hop, Asun Eastwood has created a career where his lyrics and his persona are everything, and with his most recent tape, Sewer Science, he’s linked up with a producer that understands exactly where Asun is coming from with his vision of an old school revival mixed with the no-nonsense approach of a Spanish-influence emcee.

Asun Eastwood has an absolutely magnificent beard. This is like some Black Thought / KXNG Crooked level beard right here

Asun Eastwood is the star of this movie, and his presence on the mic cannot be overstated. It’s loud, crackling, but deep down very jovial and warm despite the usual lyrics of dealing drugs and gang-fights in the streets. There’s an earnestness behind his voice, a sense that the man only speaks on real events, but it rarely comes across of threatening as much as it does as an effort to tell the stories of his grind. A clear sense of joy for what he’s doing comes across in his work, where during the little talking breakdowns and adlibs he’s usually more laid-back and carefree that gives off a sense of appreciation for the moment and for what he’s building in the culture. The man never gets too invested in punchlines and too terribly clever wordplay (he even mocks people who accuse him of not making his wordplay more entertaining on Vicuna Leather, saying “I’m not for the fictitious”), and the flow of his lyrics don’t matter as much as the individual syllables hitting with emphasis, enunciating words and phrases with his accented delivery. Like I mentioned, the man doesn’t speak Spanish, but the way his voice is wired sounds like he’s always ready to break into some CRIMEAPPLE or Primo Profit shit, creating this cool cultural effect without actually having to speak the language. Many of the times it’s the instrumentals that give you the idea that there’s a little bit of a Latin flair, like on the track Abuelos Marimba, and you just kind of connect the dots yourself without actually being told his heritage.

The collaborative tape between Daniel Son, Futurewave, and Asun himself, Physics of Filth, is still one of the biggest projects in Toronto’s underground right now. Three of the most popular artists in the scene making a project will definitely turn heads

Asun has said that he prefers to work alone when it come to doing projects, and if he ever collaborated it would have to be with people who are on the same wavelength, beyond the typical “send money, get feature” kind of system a lot of cats abide by, so you can imagine that the people he’s enlisted on Sewer Science are people that are close to him. Of course you’ll find his fellow Ontarians on here with Raz Fresco, Che Uno, and Daniel Son on this project, and all three operate in a different manner that showcases the huge variety found in his city. Raz Fresco is the more animated and gutter of the grouping, and his verse on Dust Brothers sets him as psychopathic gangsta that is sure to count every ounce of every brick. Che Uno, who has deep connections with the album’s producer Vago, is that dirty Spanish culture put on wax, putting into words the vague culture that Asun reps on the mic; they really are a great duo together. But Daniel Son, who is a person that Asun has said himself is one of the best rappers in Toronto, is the best display of chemistry with another rapper on the project. The two have done work together in the past, notably the collaborative project with Futurewave they did in 2018, Physics of Filth. They challenge each other to do better, which clearly works seeing that both of their verses on Street Lights are two of the best on the record, especially Eastwood’s who hits a crazy fuckin rhyme scheme with “When the street lights come on then we eat right but each night the heat might repeat strike turn weak end to strong / I see about a liter pouring out my wounded arm/ took a lick of blood and knew a beef turn cold from lukewarm / if the drama don’t get handled right it probably be some candlelight / rather vigilante than a vigil led by moms”. Daniel Son taps into that reflective drug-lord persona for his verse, with some really vivid images in his wordplay that I’ve come to expect from him. Boston’s Primo Profit also makes an appearance on this track, playing well into the cinema of literally being a drug-kingpin, sounding like El Chapo is writing a verse for him or some shit; his voice is incredibly interesting with its roughness, and his mix of English and Spanish gives the verse an authentic feel. Rochester is another city that he’s developed deep bonds with, evident in that both Mooch and M.A.V. of Da Cloth make appearances on the record. Mooch will always be a safe bet for a fantastic verse; he may pace himself and take his time, but he makes sure that every word is imbued with this raw and nasally energy that you can’t help but tap into while he’s rapping, and his appearance on Art of Moor proves that the man is pretty much a perfect feature artist. M.A.V. comes through with a kind of Supreme Cerebral vibe on Eye Witness, and while he’s not reinventing the underground hip-hop wheel, he still comes through with great evocative images of committing crimes and walking away like a badass. It should also be noted that two of Asun’s groupmates from his new Big East by way of Big Ghost association make their way onto here: Mooch and Recognize Ali. We addressed Mooch, but Recognize Ali on Dust Brothers shows one of the best feature/beat placements on the record, with the wispy and airy instrumental complimenting perfectly his hard-spoken threats and violence. However, on that same track Dust Brothers, I think the best feature on this whole album presents itself in Black Nazx (I guess formerly know as Black Nazi?), who hits a flow that no one on the entire album is able to replicate or beat. This guy rides the pocket like a fucking madman, and is a dude that I wish I knew more about to give him more of a shoutout.

There’s a lot of production wisdom pent up in Vago, and one of the things he’s most proud of is his work in putting on and producing for Latino rappers

Vago, from Vancouver, is a long-standing student of the game, a producer with so much experience and practice that I’m very surprised I hadn’t heard of him before Sewer Science. The man has been around since the early 80’s, but didn’t start emceeing and producing in earnest until the 90’s. Digging through the crates was always his passion, and he weathered through cassette-dubbing, early computer programs for sampling/looping, and now sits comfortably with his small setup where he takes an uncomplicated approach to making beats. The man is a connoisseur of almost any genre when it comes to sampling, so he has no one style, but will tailor his beats to whatever artist he is working with at the time. I’ve listened to some west-coast beats from this guy, beats with more of a Latin flair, and now here on Sewer Science we have a cinematic, pointed, and old-school New York approach to making his instrumentals, with a couple cool curveballs thrown in there.

I not gonna lie and say I know what’s going on in this image, but it represents Asun’s movement, TOMA, which he reps on the streets and in adlibs in his tracks

There is a recurring atmosphere of slow, lumbering instrumentals with simple drumlines (usually snares), lots of horns, guitar phrases, and use of strings to give Sewer Science a more dramatic edge. Tracks like Worldly Ways, Sabbath Days, and Collagen Pockets all seem to have been made in the same mindset: cinematic, smoky, hazy boom-bap, that slows things down to emphasize the emcees in question. Sometimes with these tracks you can get some special treats, like the seemingly Victorian string samples on Eye Witness that give it this high-class regality in contrast to the guttery loops from past tracks. Street Lights is the best example of this kind of instrumental, which dives headfirst into the “movie” headspace with it’s 80’s inspired synth notes, dark and drawn out guitar notes, and little Latin guitar phrases to give the track a distinct “drug dealer ala Escobar” feel to it. Some of them contain a fair amount of grime and grit to them as well, with the looped and layered horns of Art of Moor pairing well with Sewer Science, which has the fastest BPM of all of the grosser tracks, complete with disgusting drums, a strong horn loop, and buried string samples that are deliciously evil. But the tracks that really throw you for a loop are the ones that are different from the darkness that is so commonplace, like Dust Brothers, which is still a slower track in the listing, but replaces the grimy horn loops for one with more daylight to it, like walking down the streets of Toronto on a grey afternoon rather than at 3AM. The next track, Vicuna Leather, is completely different from the first half of the record: it’s more upbeat and positive, sounding like a string loop DJ Muggs would be apt to use, with the drums being largely replaced by a driving bassline that contains both groove and soul to it. Abuelos Marimba is a huge bite of a culture more personal to Asun Eastwood, with the harshly played horn sections giving the track more of a Latin suaveness to it, again being largely driven by a bass groove rather than the traditional boom-bap drums on the rest of the record. But I think the most adventurous instrumental is the closing track, Soul Glo, which is a completely drumless, utilizing a ghostly ever-present choir in the boldest vocal sample on the album, all backed by heavenly and closure-inducing guitar playing. All in all, the thing that I noticed the most about Vago’s production across the record, besides his great beat selection for Asun Eastwood personally as an emcee, is his development in the beats themselves; it would be easy enough to just create a loop, but every track on Sewer Science progresses and has a few other bar loops besides the main one, and most of them switch it up for the hook to give them something even more memorable about the instrumental. It’s small touches like this that set people like Vago apart from his contemporaries and shows that decades of experience in the field gives you an appreciation for how an instrumental flows apart from the emcees that ride over it.

Toronto is a city that you need to have your eye on going forward. It’s heavily inspired by the scenes and inner-workings of contemporary New York, but people like Asun Eastwood can give traditional boom-bap their own spin with the unique set of influences that present themselves in his music. The diverse nature of his hometown is reflected in the culturally distinct background of Asun as a person, and as an emcee his technical skills paired with his amazingly one-of-a-kind vocal quality (ok maybe not “one-of-a-kind”, being a Wu-Tang fan I can hear Cappadonna as a close analogue) create an emcee that has the potential to be the face of underground Toronto going forward. But more than just Eastwood himself, the people who he’s surrounded himself with like Big Ghost, Recognize Ali, Futurewave, and, of course, Daniel Son, are on a constantly upward trajectory, and albums like Sewer Science will be looked back on as building blocks to a solid Toronto scene that will be seen as comparable to a city like Philadelphia, or Rochester. Vago, utilizing decades of production wisdom, also succeeded in furthering this culture, and pairing with Asun has resulted in the first great album out of Canada this year so far. These two dudes have got their craft down to a science; a science of rap, a science of production, and, of course, a science of the sewer.

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