The prospect of a hip hop MC backed by a live band is always greeted with skepticism. If the band doesn’t spew generic, flavour-of-the-month beats and soulless melodies, it seems, then the MC’s lyrics turn out to be completely free of diversity or insight. But with their new live album, Lifecheck, Toronto’s Pocket Dwellers have dodged that double-edged sword with style.

Over brunch at the Sidetrack Café, where the band played a two-hour set the night before, saxophonist Dennis Passley explains the roots of the band’s diverse sound, which include jazz, hip-hop, electronica, rock and funk. “It’s really just the personalities of the band,” says the Brampton, Ontario native. “I’m a schooled jazz musician, and a lot of the other guys just come from different walks of life. So it wasn’t really a contrived thing—we just got together and jammed, and we liked what came out of it.”

With such a variety of musical backgrounds, the seven-member band isn’t trying to find its niche in the music world. Instead, they’re inventing their own. “We’re not really a conventional band and we don’t write conventional music,” Passley says. “I don’t doubt that people like what we do, but whether or not it appeals to a mass amount of people has yet to be seen. We just know that, for what we do, people really love it.” Seven years ago, the band’s studio was a raccoon-infested Toronto warehouse where they practiced and created a rough four-track recording that Passley still listens to today. Though the warehouse was too big and empty to really hear his bandmates, he says the vibe between them was too strong to ignore. Two years later, in 1998, they began working on an EP that wound up being distributed through Page Music. The disc was popular enough for the Dwellers to land a distribution deal with the ill-fated Song Corp label for their first full-length album, 2000’s Digitally Organic.

After having to rely for years on word of mouth to move units, the promotional push for Lifecheck that’s resulted from the Dwellers’ current affiliation with indie Toronto label Urbnet Records has been a blessing, Passley says. As a matter of fact, the album may never have existed without the label’s assistance—while the band was focusing on recording a new studio album and preparing for upcoming tour dates, Urbnet founder Darryl Rodway proposed they do something live instead.

“We’ve always been affiliated with Darryl because he’s doing our website,” Passley says. “We probably wouldn’t have even put that out if [he hadn’t approached us], because we weren’t even thinking that way at the time. But we saw the need for it, because almost everywhere we go people say they’d love to hear what we sound like live on disc.”

And once they’re finished their current 15-city tour, the Dwellers will head back to the studio to finish up their next project—an album of all-new material tentatively entitled Reprogram, which Passley says should be completed this fall. With every city claiming its own hip-hop scene, each one sounding suspiciously like the next, the Pocket Dwellers are a refreshing change of pace, proof that live instruments have a place in hip-hop beyond Grammy performances and Unplugged albums.

“We’re finding that people want more,” Passley says. “Even guys like Jay-Z and Nelly are working with live bands now, and you need that appeal to come off. When you rhyme over a DAT, you’re basically reproducing what you do on the album. That stuff’s cool and I embrace that era as well, but for hip-hop to grow, you really need to diversify.” V