'Hope in Dirt City' Turns 10: Cadence Weapon Reflects on His "Steely Dan Album"

Writing about his third studio release as Cadence Weapon in 2022 memoir Bedroom Rapper, out May 31 via McClelland & Stewart, Rollie Pemberton concludes that 2012's Hope in Dirt City is "probably my least fully realized album," also suggesting, "I think some of my fans are still unaware that this album ever came out." These observations are less the award-winning MC being his own harshest critic, and more a reflection of the effort's fraught creation.

As Pemberton reflects in Bedroom Rapper, his third studio LP was initially planned as a concept album inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre's 1938 novel Nausea: a "dark, existential journey" conceived as a foil to the pumped-up, electro-rap reverie of 2008 predecessor Afterparty Babies. In the nearly four years between releases, the artist would come to draw not from the cold winters Nausea protagonist Antoine Roquentin spends in the imaginary French locale of Bouville (from boue-ville, or "Mud Town"), but from those experienced himself in his hometown of Edmonton, AB, — or "Dirt City," as friends had nicknamed it.

Of the album's title, Pemberton outlines in his memoir, "I wanted to pay tribute to my home city: a gritty, working-class place that was proud of its rough and tumble reputation." In the album's corresponding chapter, he chronicles the frenetic lifestyle and creative process of the period that undoubtedly required mettle in line with that city's character: couch surfing and travel between Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal, ample musical and thematic changes, financial disorganization, a missing manager and increasingly unsupportive label, and little time and energy to give the situation as he continued carving out his place in the country's cultural landscape as a recording artist and poet laureate, at a point when domestic and international audiences began to take greater notice of Canadian rap.

Inspired by the production styles of Organized Noize and UGK, and the band dynamic of session staples Compass Point All Stars (whose fusion of reggae and new wave gave direction to work by Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, Ian Dury and more), Hope in Dirt City is a kaleidoscopic, analogue-digital hybrid of Pemberton's varied musical interests and acumen, inviting listeners to walk the vibrant blocks of personal taste a decade before mapping them out in much greater detail with Bedroom Rapper.

Amid the production clatter of "Get on Down," he slides into a dancehall-indebted flow in its second verse, and finds reflection in the reggae groove of "Small Deaths." "Cheval" is a clever lyrical clop around a sample from Curtis Mayfield's Super Fly soundtrack, while "Crash Course for the Ravers" sees its Bowie influence collide with Pemberton's funky new wave exploration, his lightning bolt face paint in Oilers orange and blue. "Conditioning" and "Jukebox" capture the artist at his most dynamic as he pushes his vocal range to its peak, while "No More Names (Aditi)" and "There We Go" float through monologues of altered states. Both "Hype Man" and "(You Can't Stop) The Machine" playfully prod at his creative industry, whose machinations he would soon contend with and work to free himself from, ahead of rebuilding them years later for Parallel World.

Now considered by Pemberton to be the close of the first stage of his career, for all its perceived shortcomings, Hope in Dirt City effectively primed Cadence Weapon to become a more collaborative artist, embrace his idiosyncrasies, further eschew mainstream trends and begin a new chapter of his career.

With Hope in Dirty City celebrating its 10th anniversary on May 29, 2022 — and to celebrate the release of Bedroom Rapper — Exclaim! caught up with Pemberton to discuss the making of this pivotal project.

Your artistic vision for Hope in Dirt City saw you put together a live band, and you worked with them to arrange and record material with the intent to sample it later on  — a different creative process than that of prior records. Do you recall any challenges stepping into the role of bandleader?

I didn't know any music theory back then, so I had some difficulty communicating ideas to the band. On the original demos I made for the album, I would do things that didn't make traditional musical sense, so I'd have to explain what my intention was from time to time. The process was unique for everyone involved. Going from making everything alone to working with a full band was a challenge. I had to learn how to become more flexible and take other people's opinions into consideration. 

In Bedroom Rapper, you recall living "an itinerant lifestyle" while at work on the album in Toronto and the stress that came with it. Do you feel the material bore out the tension of living that way?

Yes, there's a sense of sadness and exhaustion when I go back and listen to this album, particularly in the quality of the vocal performances. I was couch surfing the whole time, not getting a lot of sleep, traveling a lot between Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto. It was a hectic time, and I think that's reflected in the music.

You recorded Hope in Dirt City at Toronto's now-closed Chemical Sound, and write in your memoir of the "air of authenticity" and greater creative freedom (the tubular bells!) that came with that experience. What was it like transitioning from home recording and smaller rooms to an environment you felt to be more legitimate?

Everything we created during these sessions felt more concrete and authentic than anything I'd made previously. We recorded everything to tape, I'd never done that before. We worked with a producer named Michael Musmanno who knew how to record bands properly, his expertise helped a lot. Some of the songs were recorded live off the floor together as a band. I felt like I was making a Steely Dan album or something. It was a new musical frontier for me to have all these instruments and musicians to work with in a professional studio after making all of my music up to that point on a computer in my mom's attic.

At Canadian Music Week 2010, you performed some of this new material with your band, and note in Bedroom Rapper how your "punkish edge" was "teased out even further" by these songs. Is that something you attribute to the band dynamic on stage that evening, compared to past performances where it was just yourself and a DJ?

It actually brought me back to my roots as a performer because I first started out as a vocalist in my uncle Brett Miles's funk band Magilla Funk Conduit. I feel comfortable on stage with a band, I've been doing it since I was 14 years old, so it felt like a return to that. With more stuff happening on stage, I felt emboldened to get my James Brown on and freak out.

In Bedroom Rapper, you recall how your own stem-sampling process proved to be more challenging than anticipated. Tell me about the production method and equipment you were using at the time, and the difficulties you came to face. 

I was inspired by how Outkast and UGK would start off with samples and then get a studio band to replay them on some of their records. I wanted it to be ambiguous as to what was organic and what was electronic for the listener. Doing so much of the editing by myself turned out to be very time-consuming. 

I'd start off by making beats on Fruity Loops on my laptop then we'd jam together as a band. After that, we'd record what we jammed in the studio, and then I would take those sessions and make beats out of them in Pro Tools. There was a lot of trial and error involved. It took me years to get it right. A lot of songs ended up on the cutting room floor because I couldn't quite figure out how to get them to sound right. There's a whole other album worth of material from the Hope sessions.


Writing in your memoir of how the sound of Hope in Dirt City differed from mainstream hip-hop, you point to "singing and crooning more than rapping" and characterize your spoken word moments as "monotonous." Was this a conscious decision in terms of vocal delivery?

The singing and crooning was intentional. Sounding monotonous was not [laughs]. A lot of the album was me trying to do an '80s new wave thing. I was definitely in a more poetic, spoken word state of mind at the time and my vocals reflect that, as well my general mood at the time of recording. It's more downtrodden, existential and introspective. There isn't the same stylistic variety with my delivery that you hear on the albums that followed this one. 

Is there anything you feel you did better on Hope in Dirt City than any other time in your catalogue? Conversely, are there any qualities of Hope in Dirt City that you wish you had carried forward to subsequent albums?

I think I wrote a couple of my best, most personal songs on Hope in Dirt City. I definitely want to try to make an album with a live band again soon. With everything I learned from those sessions and all of the experience I've had over the years, I'd be curious to find out what I would come up using similar methods this time around. 

In Bedroom Rapper, you write that listening back to Hope in Dirt City is difficult for how it returns you to the "uncertainty, confusion, and emotional tumult" in your life while creating it. Are you an artist who makes a point to revisit older work, and do you believe those feelings about this particular album could change? 

I definitely listen to my older music from time to time. I see it as a journal entry showing where I was at that point in my life. How I see an album does change, and I'll find new things to appreciate. Or as I get older, my perception of a record might shift over time.

How did Hope In Dirt City shape the future of Cadence Weapon?

Hope in Dirt City was the end of the first chapter of my career. It was the last album I released with Upper Class. The process of making it guided me to where I am today. That record was the last album I primarily self-produced, and it led me to collaborate more, to open up more of the process to other people. I definitely wouldn't be the artist I am today if I had never made Hope in Dirt City.