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Feature Cobra's mixes are more than OK - Free Press staff The London Free Press OK COBRA - OK Cobra (URBNET Records) Reported by: NA (OCT. 8) 
When OK Cobra hits the floor at the Alex P. Keaton, Fritz tha Cat knows where he will be. "Every time I'm on stage, it's heaven," says London hip-hopper Ryan Somers. As Fritz tha Cat, he is half of OK Cobra, the alternative/indie rap duo. OK Cobra's other half is RecordFace (Tim Horlor), who handles production, or as the duo puts it, "beats and stuff." OK Cobra plays the Keaton, where Somers works as a bartender and night manager, Oct. 8 to support its fine self-titled debut on the indie Urbnet label. When he's not at the Talbot Street bar, Somers is often writing, painting or recording. He has worked with Canadian hip-hop stars Moka Only and Buck 65 among others and has a book coming out. His art work graces the cover of OK Cobra's CD and other material about the duo. Like a few other classic hip-hop tales, OK Cobra's starts in a schoolyard. Long before they were vocalist Fritz tha Cat and beat-master RecordFace, the two members of OK Cobra were buddies at St. George's public school. "Tim was a total rocker and had a mullet . . . and played guitar," Somers says on an OK Cobra site. "He was into Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth and I don't know what else. I was a long-haired hippie/rap dude who was into NWA and Public Enemy and Cat Stevens and Paul Simon." That was more than 15 years ago, before Somers went to Central secondary school and Horlor to Banting. Their ways parted. Somers stayed in London and became a young force on the hip-hop scene as an MC, DJ and graffiti artist. Horlor went to Quebec, where he runs a production studio in Montreal and works with the National Film Board. "I'm just a kid from London Ontario, Canada trying to survive in Montreal, PQ. I make music and sound for myself, my band and other people's movies," Horlor says in a blog. Like Somers, he has family in London. Sunday's gig is, in part, because Horlor will be home for Thanksgiving. About three years ago, the St. George's kids started to work together as OK Cobra. Now, with Somers' vocals, instant poetry and observations about need to rap and the meanings of life and love working with Horlor's beats, OK Cobra is more than OK. "This is exactly the music I want to rhyme off," Somers says of Horlor's sound mastery. Somers is still a little surprised by the way OK Cobra has worked out for the good. "To be 30 and putting out my first record is kind of weird," Fritz says. "There was a time in my 20s, I thought I wasn't going to make it." His turbulent and troubled 20s, when he might have been too close to the hip-hop lifestyle, are behind him. Somers has a book, In Search Of . . . Divine Styler, coming out. It celebrates the three-year life of Divine Styler magazine, published by Somers and named after hip-hop legend Divine Styler. The magazine grew from 100 copies of the original photocopied magazine to 10,000-copy print runs distributed across North America. It documented rappers who later became mainstream success stories. Divine Styler published its last issue in 1999, afflicted by its own Divine mission (i.e. Ouija board interviews with dead rappers) and an inability to find reliable funding. "It will be out in a few weeks," he says of In Search of . . . Divine Styler. "In '96, I started an underground hip-hop 'zine here in london and published it for three years. (It's) been compiled into book form, sort of 'best of the 'zine' type of thing . . . (with) lots of interviews with rappers and some humorous articles." IF YOU GO What: Club show by OK Cobra, a London-Montreal alternative/indie rap duo. Halifax's Jon Epworth and the Improvements and Montreal's Statuepark are also on the bill. When: Oct. 8, 9 p.m. Where: Alex P. Keaton, 580 Talbot St. (at Albert) Details: 19-and-up; pay what you can; call 519-435-0259 | ||||||
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