Halifax’s Wordburglar (or as his mom likes to call him, ‘Sean’) has released a video for his song ‘Channel Halifax’. Unbeknownst to the local tourism department, he’s just outdone them for the best travel guide to the city.
Wordburglar is working back and forth between Toronto these days, but he grew up in Halifax. He’s intimately familiar with much of the city in the way that only children who have memorized their whole world from atop a five-speed bike ever attain. “I had a paper route that took me through every block in the neighbourhood,” says WB. “My route was Barrington to Kent Street, and I used to fill in for other paper carriers so I got to know all of downtown really well. From Cogswell to Green street. But after seven years as a paperboy you get to know all the routes, because they were always asking me to fill in for the paperboys who were slacking. I spent all that time delivering paper listening to rap tapes! That’s where I really got my rap education, a couple hours a day while running in and out of apartment buildings.”
His familiarity with the city is perfectly evident in ‘Channel Halifax’, as it provides an homage to the city, and a guide that perfectly encapsulates many of its local treasures. Not only does the video highlight the city’s gems, it is flawlessly consistent even though it was filmed over several days throughout the whole year to better encompass Halifax through the four seasons. “I’m really happy with how it turned out, Caley [MacLennan] (our director) was incredible to work with and we had an awesome team,” says WB. “Caley and I were pretty much on the same page about the video from the jump off, so making it was easy. Compared to some of my other videos which have been a lot more elaborate I wanted this one to be chill and stripped down, letting the city be the hero.”
Aside from visit several locations around time the video also seems plenty of cameos from Halifax’s hip-hop community: Jorun Bombay, Beatmason, Ghettosocks, Uncle Fes, Peter Project. There’s even appearances from Theodore the Tugboat, and director/actor/Trailer Park Nerd Cory Bowles. “It wasn’t planned, we just bumped into him while we were shooting. He’s the best,” says WB.
The song is off Wordburglar’s album ‘Rapplicable Skills’ from 2015, which he’s been promoting while touring extensively. The song is being re-released as a single on a limited edition 7 inch vinyl by Black Buffalo Records this October, paired with a ‘Cream Of Wheat’ B-Side produced by Jorun Bombay. Though the track is ten years old now, WB says the songs pair well as a theme. “I’ve always loved that song and it’s really nice complement to Channel Halifax. Both have a bit of a nostalgic feel and are about growing up, so it made sense.”
“I want to release a few more videos from Rapplicable Skills in the next year. No time limit – there’s still millions of people who don’t have the album.”
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