Drake might have brought Toronto around the world with the release of his More Life playlist, but the capital of Ontario is bubbling with plenty of talent. While many have heard of Tory Lanez or maybe are familiar with Tasha The Amazon, one group that is ready to bring something fresh to the city is EMP — made up of producer Eestbound, rapper Milly Manson and singer Pree. They blend each of their skills to create a fusion of pop and electro with Hip Hop.
“We came together unintentionally, it was really organically,” Pree, 19, shares in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “Me and Eest knew of each other and Eest and Milly knew of each other, but me and Milly had never met. But me and Eest went to the studio one time and we just made this track randomly, no intention of it doing anything seriously, but we made it together. Then Eest asked Milly to be on it, then we put it out.”
Their current manager, Toronto vet Kardinal Offishall, encouraged the group to keep making music together and make their mark on the scene.
“He was like, ‘Yo, y’all don’t even see what you have. You all should be a group,’” Eestbound, 21, explains. “So we vibe together so we were like, why not? So we tried it and made a lot more music and it worked out perfectly and we just figured that it would be a really dope thing to do, especially with not many groups coming out of Toronto.”
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As an OG in Toronto, Kardinal has guided the group while giving them space to develop their own identity.
“He leaves us to make our music creatively on our own. He doesn’t really put his input in that, but when it comes to the business side of things, he helps us with a lot of stuff,” Milly, 21, shares. “He’s our mentor basically because he’s an artist too, right? So he knows a lot of stuff that goes on in the industry and how you’re supposed to do stuff. He always drops those gems on us.”
The very second song they recorded was “Perfect Timing,” a track that the group says mirrors everything that’s going on in their lives as they establish themselves in the music industry with plenty of bravado.
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“I think everything happens for a reason because there’s a lot of people that are going through things because of being at the wrong time in the wrong place,” Eestbound, who’s also worked closely with Tre Capital, says. “I feel like with us, it was the opposite. We were in the right place at the right time. I’m not even from Canada. I’m from Holland. Me coming here and getting introduced to the urban side of music and just meeting all these people and meeting Milly and me and Milly started working together. Then I met Pree at my co-op, which is this school program. It’s basically like an internship. It was just really dope how everything kind of clicked together. It kind of fell into place, almost like it was destined to happen. So it was really dope. ‘Perfect Timing’ was actually the second record we made, not just the second record we released, but the second record we made. We felt like it was really, literally the perfect timing because it was the second record made as a group. It just fell together very well and it was only right to call it ‘Perfect Timing.’”
EMP mixed up their sound with “Pink Nights,” a spacey, laid-back track with just as much cohesion as the rest of their songs.
“‘Pink Nights’ was one of our very first records, we wanted to change things up a bit and take a break from 808s,” the group shares. “The video for ‘Pink Nights’ is a visual illustration of what we consider our parties to be like. We got very inspired by A$AP Rocky’s ‘LSD’ and the nightlife.”
With their brooding visuals and their skull logo, the dark themes that EMP exudes are perhaps reflective of their view of Toronto’s music scene as a whole.
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“There’s a lot of talent in Toronto I feel like,” Milly shares. “It’s really competitive, too. I feel like everyone in Toronto, all the rappers, they all have their own clique and they don’t really mingle with other cliques. It’s just like their gang and that’s it.”
Eestbound agrees with this statement, but says the community is not hard to navigate and that an artist’s merit is based on the quality of his or her work.
“I feel like as soon as you make dope music, people start fucking with you more. The Toronto scene is very kind of dark, to be honest,” Eestbound says. “When I say dark I kinda mean everyone’s kind of like, to themselves. There’s not really like a spotlight on anyone, so everyone’s working on their own craft.”
For Eestbound, he’s continuing his own craft after producing Travis Scott’s double-platinum hit “Antidote” with WondaGurl. He describes how the major accomplishment is just the beginning for him.
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“Honestly, the beat for ‘Antidote’ was just another beat that I made like the other day or whatever,” he says. “I never expected it to be that big. It was kind of a shock, but it was a really dope moment for me in my life because lot of people started taking me more serious, which is what everyone would like, having more recognition, having a little more respect. I feel like it definitely opened doors for me. I feel like ‘Antidote’ was kind of a taste of what it could be like and I wanna just keep on making more dope music and doing greater things than that.”
Milly’s personal a-ha moment was when the trio traveled to Los Angeles last month to meet with business executives. He says that getting their approval was confirmation to him that EMP is doing the right thing.
“When we flew out to L.A. and we were playing our music to a bunch of different big-time people in the industry or whatever, they all had such an amazed reaction,” he shares. “They were all loving our music and stuff. So when I see their reaction and people who actually mean something in the industry think that we can make it, that was like the breaking point for me, that was the realization.”
Pree realized the potential of the music when she saw a video of a Japanese dance group perform to their song, “Rebellion.”
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“They performed it on this massive stage. It was just so shocking because our music, we’re over here and it hit all the way on the other side of the world,” she says.
Oh, and “Rebellion” was premiered by Ebro on Beats 1 in September.
“That was crazy,” Pree admits.
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In less than a year, EMP has already achieved things in music that many artists only dream of.
“Everything is motivating to us because we do it for the youth,” Eestbound says. “We do it for the people.”
