Shad is rapping about Taoist philosophy, hope and humanity
Shad isn't your typical rap star. No bling, no bubbly, no Bentley. Not even a cuss word. How could he cuss? His mother and father both have guest spots on his latest album. That would be rude.
The album is called Tao," as in the ancient Chinese philosophy, the path to natural harmony in which simplicity, patience and compassion are the three great virtues. Get back to the basics, live in harmony and go with the flow. These are underlying themes on the record's 12 tracks.
Shad will perform some of the new songs Saturday, April 30, when he comes to Bridgeworks, Hamilton's new live performance venue at 200 Caroline St. N.
Shad also admits that his new album draws upon the writings of the great British novelist and theologian C.S. Lewis (the guy who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia"), especially a 1946 book called, The Abolition of Man." Lewis, a devout Anglican, believed in a natural moral order of right and wrong, that he also called Tao." That moral order, he believed, is constantly under threat from ourselves.
Human nature will be the last part of nature to surrender to man," Lewis is quoted in the album track Tao, Part 2."
And there's this other, more recent book, Shad has been reading by the Harvard philosopher, Shoshana Zuboff. It's called The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." In it, Zuboff contends that the big tech companies are taking over our lives through data harvesting. Hard to argue with that.
Her text to me is required reading," Shad says about Zuboff's book. We have to understand our situation, and that text describes it all."
So, yes, you might call Shad a deep-thinking rapper, a hip-hop student of philosophy, with a wry sense of humour.
It all comes together on the single Black Averageness." It's a satirical take on the term black excellence," a celebration of those who strive to be the very best, making their community proud.
Excellence is great, Shad says, but so is being average, being yourself, fully partaking in life and enjoying what's around you.
In the video for Black Averageness," Shad can be seen puttering around his nondescript red-brick house, digging in an overgrown garden and awkwardly playing with a basketball, never quite sinking that basket. It's OK to be just OK.
I think that song describes what it is do be human, in definitely a funny way," Shad says in an interview from his home in west Toronto. Our averageness is what connects us. We can see ourselves in each other. We're all good at somethings and bad at others. We have the capacity for evil, as well as the capacity for incredible kindness and generosity."
Shad, however, is anything but average. Born Shadrach Kabango in Kenya to Rwandan parents, Shad was raised in London, Ont., studied business at Wilfrid Laurier University and received a master's degree in liberal arts from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
He has released six studio albums since 2005, four of them shortlisted for the Polaris Prize for Canadian record of the year. His third LP TSOL" won him a Juno Award, beating superstar Drake for rap album of the year in 2011.
He succeeded Jian Ghomeshi, serving as host of CBC Radio's Q" in 2015 and 2016. He also hosted the HBO Canada documentary series Hip Hop Evolution," which won a Peabody Award in 2016 and an International Emmy in 2017.
In Tao," Shad views human nature as being under constant threat from temptations and technologies. We're in danger of losing our connectivity, our sense of community, of stepping off the path and becoming unwitting data farms for big tech. We face the abolition of us," Shad raps in the song Garcon."
No community is more important than family and, in acknowledgement, Shad conscripted the help of his parents to add to the lyrics of the track God."
They're both retired and moved back to Rwanda about 10 or 15 years ago, so I just asked them to record on their phone what being a human being meant to them," Shad says.
In spoken word, Shad's mother cites truthfulness," patience" and commitment," qualities not far off the Taoist path.
I think my mom was really happy with how it turned out," Shad, 39, says about the track. But, I think I was even happier because all these things seemed to fit together in ways I couldn't have expected."
The theme of humanity under threat spins throughout the album, dark themes, told with wit and grace, and backed, oddly enough, with uplifting beats and hooks.
The closing track, Tao, Part 3," is particularly apocalyptic, a recitation of the many horrible things happening in the world. But, it ends on an upbeat note with the words, spoken in a childlike voice remember, reassemble, re-enter and touch."
If there is any silver lining to me, it is the fact that we do have agency," Shad says. We live in a democracy, but in order to make these decisions we have to understand our situation and how we got here. We have to make some philosophical decisions about what we like about being human beings and strive to protect that.
I actually am a hopeful person and I do believe that we do have agency, we do have choice. We can decide. Decide' is a word that kept coming back to me as I was making this album. There are some decisions we have to make."