CJRU’s B-Siide will be hosting a live event featuring performances and a listening party for their inaugural mixtape: B-Siide Mixtape Vol. 1. The event is on July 21 at Laylow Brewery (1144 College St). Doors open at 7pm and artists NRMN and Amanda Mae will be performing live.
“We’ve always wanted to put together a project that highlighted all of the artists that we’ve made genuine connections with,” said Mike Kivell, host of the B-Siide radio show and co-host of the podcast.
Charlie Harrison is the B-Siide podcast’s co-host, alongside Kivell. The pair have known each other since they were 13 and describe themselves as “fans of hip-hop who have a passion for sharing and cultivating local talent.” With over eight years of radio experience between them, the two produced the entirety of the mixtape.
Building connections between the artists was a focal point for the pair and as such, the mixtape features eight different artists from across the GTA, USA and UK.
“It was really important for us to get Canadian artists on every track. We wanted to create tracks that wouldn’t have happened naturally,” said Harrison. On top of this, portraying hip-hop’s diversity was crucial.
“We wanted to get the full scope of hip-hop from old school vibes to new school vibes and some R&B in the mix as well,” said Kivell.
According to Kivell, the mixtape is a year in the making and comes off the back of the industry connections formed through the B-Siide radio show and podcast.
This move to in-person events marks a key step forward for B-Siide. The B-Siide radio show began just over three years ago and Kivell has hosted it ever since. Then, a year ago, a B-Siide podcast was first pitched by Harrison to Kivell with the premise of providing a superior way to discover new music.
Through leveraging Kivell’s pre-established platform with the B-Siide radio show, the pair were able to reach a whole new group of artists who were previously unreachable. These connections led to the creation of the mixtape as well as the live event.
Moving forward, the pair hope to release a mixtape each year with accompanying live events. In terms of what you can expect from B-Siide in the future, aspirations of creating a record label for GTA artists and becoming a staple of Toronto hip-hop are top of the list.
The B-Siide Mixtape Vol. 1 will be available on all streaming services and vinyl copies are forthcoming. Here is the full list of artists on the mixtape: Die-Rek, Sareem-Poems, Amanda Mae, Rel McCoy, Vonne Wayne, Broadway Benson, NRMN and Cleva Thoughts.