The return of OkayCity

Music Industry Arts graduates Will Maka and Ray Black who make up the hip-hop duo OkayCity came back to London last Thursday for a performance at Fanshawe College; the place where they first met and began collaborating.

Although they took Fanshawe and London by storm, getting their singles on 106.9 fm, and doing shows at the Out Back Shack, they ended up having to collaborate long-distance once they left college and found jobs on different continents.

In fact, their show on campus last week was their first live show together in several months, and is the start of a new chapter. After this show they plan on both moving to Vancouver to get more serious about their art, and “bring their hustle out to the west coast” where they say artists are extremely talented but more laid-back, and lack the drive that eastern hip-hop artists like themselves demonstrate. Although they are quick to point out that there is a lot of fake and soulless hip-hop artists out there with no heart like G-Unit and Lil' Wayne, who just regurgitate poor lyrical content and lack originality, OkayCity maintains that real hip-hop is coming back in a big way, and that it's getting a lot easier for good hip-hop to get out there with digital technology and the internet.

They also predict that real hip-hop will return to its roots while “top 40-style pop rap is just going to develop into it's own genre of music and become known as something completely separate from hip-hop.”

OkayCity is still an independent unsigned hip-hop group, and has no real plans for signing or starting a label of their own in the near future.

“What we're doing right now is working” said Black, referring to the fact that you don't need a label to get your music out there or book shows.

Maka also maintains that they aren't in it for the money, but for the love of hip-hop, and that “as long as I'm doing what makes me happy, I don't care if I'm making money.” You can check them out at myspace.com/okaycityhiphop