As I arrived at The Drake Hotel after picking up my NXNE media wristband I immediately noticed Himanshu Suri aka Heems standing out front talking with a small group of people. As the conversation was winding down he asked for everyone’s names and shook their hands politely. Not exactly the type of behavior you would expect from a rapper, but then again Heems has built an entire career on not acting like a rapper.
The opening DJ was a traditional scratcher that had a beat selection of someone like RJD2 but mixed it up with some more current fresh beats while playing with pitch controls. Unfortunately I missed his name but he would be the perfect house party DJ.
When Heems took the stage he jumped up from the front, instead of walking up the stairs along the side. He then took an MP3 player out of his pocket and plugged it in, except nothing came out when he pressed play. The Drake Underground’s techie came bounding up on stage and fiddled with some cords before music quietly came out of the speakers. Heems leaned into the microphone to proclaim “I’m a fucking professional. Stay positive. Stay fucking with me.” The music then was cranked up to a 12 and the bass rattled the tiny basement venue. The music was turned up so high that it was hard to hear the beats outside of the drum and bass and caused the vocals to be over shadowed. That is of course when the lyrics weren’t being mumbled or screamed.
Heems knows how to play to a crowd with plenty of boastful and self-deprecating humor. He told that crowd that he was just like us, except that he’s fucking great a rapping. A line he has used in several songs dating back to his days in the underground rap group Das Racist. His set featured mostly songs off his debut full length solo album Eat Pray Thug like Al Q8a which concludes with a “USA” chant that the crowd didn’t engage with him in. He laughed it off knowing as Canadians the ironic chant to go with a song about racism isn’t something we will probably sing for him. Also we don’t really chant our own countries name (for several reasons, but Can-a-da, doesn’t really flow off the tongue).
He encouraged the crowd to buy a tee shirt after his show otherwise his intern wouldn’t be able to eat (“Don’t worry he has other ways of making bread”). There was a guitar bag at the back of the stage that Heems took out, at first I wondered if it was a part of his set but after he incorrectly hung it around his neck he proceeded to mock shred the unplugged guitar for half his set. After disparaging unnamed former members of his old group Heems played a few select songs including You Oughta Know which features a killer Billy Joel sample in Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song).
The whole show seemed to teeter on the edge of falling apart and genuine connections. Heems talked about his past drug use and how it messed up his nose as he wobbled around on stage looking intoxicated, when in reality he seemed to be only drinking Red Bulls all night a drink he ordered while standing next to me at the bar. We got a brief chance to talk and he mentioned wanting to check out the Aga Khan museum in Toronto which features a lot of Asian art a subject he is quite passionate about. He also told me the show might suck to which I disagreed with him on. Heems doesn’t want to be a rap star, and he doesn’t want to be the person you are lining up to agree with but when you hear him perform songs like Flag Shopping which details the great lengths that Middle Eastern immigrants went through to seem American after 9/11 it is hard not to see his intelligence.
Heems didn’t want us to clap for him, but to clap for ourselves, which says something, something I probably don’t understand but who cares. I like his music and I liked his show, although I’m sure some people feel quite the opposite.
