Available on Bandcamp.

The Cashtro Hop Project is a full-length LP (recorded under the moniker Cashtro Hop) that, accompanied by a written piece that explores theories of artistic self-presentation, represents the last major project for completion of my graduate studies. Loosely-defined, it is a concept album, with tracks held together thematically by narrative sketches, placed within the songs themselves, that seek to trace my (character’s) disillusionment with Hip Hop culture, a (re-)enlightenment, and subsequent use of Hip Hop as a means of self-expression. Originally 17 tracks in length, the album is available as a 13 track re-issue.  

While Hip Hop culture has increasingly found itself positioned as object for study within academia, this was a unique Hip Hop-focused creative project based in recording and self-ethnography. Academic and critical considerations of one's own Hip Hop-based musical production was a novel venture; this project, as a fusion of theory with practice, was thus undertaken so as to occupy that gap. The paper's specific concern was with how (independent) Hip Hop recording artists work to construct their own selves and identity (as formed primarily through lyrical content); the aim here was to explore Hip Hop music and the construction of artistic self-presentation. I therefore went about the task of creating my own album in order to place myself in the unique position to examine it critically as cultural artifact, and to conduct self-analyses related to my own identity formation.

My work was profiled by the Toronto Star, Metro, and MTV Canada; below is a Bandcamp playlist, as well as an excerpt from an MTV Canada interview related to the project and clip from the album’s release party…