Ottawa's Gift to Hip-Hop The Ottawa Citizen DL INCOGNITO - Life's a Collection of Experiences Reported by: Fateema Sayani (Saturday, February 19, 2005) Rating 4 1/2 When Nine Planets Hiphop began, its founders set out to produce and distribute rap tracks with smarts: A lyric had to mean something. Anyone involved in the upstart Ottawa label needed a level head and a hunger for success. So precise was their approach that the crew's work was often referred to as "hip hop with a business plan." The plan was to launch their marquee act, DL Incognito, onto the Canadian scene and push it until he earned recognition at the level of Swollen Members or k-os. They're close. DL Incognito's second album, Life's A Collection of Experiences, was released late in 2004 and is up for the Rap Recording of the Year Juno against Concise, k-os, Kardinal Offishall and Kyprios. A host spot on MuchMusic's RapCity, video play, opening spots for Lloyd Banks and the Roots and a fertile independent scene helped a cause that has been built from the underground up. The Nine Planets crew was started in the mid '90s by brothers DL Incognito and Nicky Braids (Oliver and Nick Nestor) and grew into a collective that includes producer and scratcher Techtwelve (Brenden Smith), and French rapper Mic Check (Michael Kabongo), among others. They released a sampler called Welcome to The Land of the Lost (2000) with collaborators Exampl and Kid SL to test the waters for the homegrown hip-hop market. Their next climb was getting a distribution deal with EMI by the time DL debuted A Sample and A Drum Machine in 2002. Nine Planets supported it with two videos. Spit Forever 2, featuring rap darling Tara Chase, was filmed in a Hull warehouse. Those who saw the video for Rugged Raw on MuchVibe might recognize the Ottawa train station, where it was filmed. Funding came from their pencil-pushing day jobs. A move to Toronto to rub shoulders with industry types followed, and now the new album, distributed by Outside Music, is helped along by the Juno nom -- a bit of props from the establishment that DL derides when he raps on Winds of Change, "we should go against the grain for one reason/ the rhymes got meaning for a change." While he deals with relationships in Verbalerity and Proof, his strongest lyrics are on music and the industry. On ANR, the boasts are about DL's and Nine Planets' fiercely independent stance in bravely taking on sellout "niggas" and a myopic music industry. The boasting is tempered by vulnerability: something reflected in the title. Life's A Collection of Experiences is a statement that provides closure for DL, a way of explaining varying elements in his existence. It helps him to understand his mother's recent death from breast cancer. The album succeeds in moving from melodic tracks, danceable hip hop with smart samples and into battle style. It propels itself from track to track, never stalling. A tight production and even better writing make it move. The rhymes are thick -- a few words express a lot of ideas. In the beginning, concepts were culled from classic literary texts and helped along by a rhyming dictionary. This time around DL Incognito owns his statements. Better lyrics that don't rely so heavily on dropping brand names effectively propel the movement a giant leap forward. The diversity of his approach -- and his fighting words -- are bound to turn an industry toward DL Incognito and Nine Planets, thereby paving the way for other underground hip-hop acts and strengthening a burgeoning movement. This is an important album in Canadian hip hop. © The Ottawa Citizen 2005