Mic drop: N.S. collective bringing hip hop battle series to Halifax

Camden Bonvie, also known as C Stone-Léon, performs onstage. (Source: Jayden Duplessis)

Aspiring and upcoming MCs and beatmakers looking to lose themselves in the moment onstage will be at the Toothy Moose in Halifax on Friday night.

The popular downtown spot will be the launching pad for the No Holds Barred series, an event that pits hip hop artists and producers against each other in a single-elimination bracket tournament.

Up for grabs will be bragging rights and a total of $1,000 in prizes.

The battle series is the brainchild of Family Ent., a new collective formed by Camden Bonvie (also known as C Stone-Léon), Ezra Mendel (also known as Snez) and Jayden Duplessis.

“The name came from a time when Ezra and I were watching a bad movie,” Bonvie said. “It’d be funny if we had a company named Family Entertainment that wasn’t doing family-friendly stuff.”

Bonvie and Mendel are both rappers in the Halifax scene and Duplessis is a former rapper known as JayTheKidd who now manages Bonvie and singer Brett Matthews. Mendel, who took a music business program at the Nova Scotia Community College, said he wants to reinvigorate live music in the Maritimes.

“Battle series have been done before but we haven’t seen it make its way here that’s a reoccurring thing,” he said. “There’s an incredible amount of talent in Nova Scotia, but not a lot of infrastructure in terms of live events.

“We’d love to be the cornerstone of hip hop events in Halifax. We’re generally about lifting the Halifax community up.”

“We definitely have a lot of great talent, but I think having something like this adds more structure to the community and scene rather than individual live shows,” Duplessis said. “How do we get those people out?”

At the No Holds Barred event, eight artists and eight producers will go head-to-head with the producers squaring off with two beats and the artists performing one song per round.

The two final winners will receive cash and gift cards.

“It’s a great way for artists around here to put themselves on a stage and get some feedback from people in the industry,” Mendel said. “It’s the best of both worlds for artists and producers.”

Bonvie said they hope to make the No Holds Barred series a quarterly event, building up a strong base in Halifax.

“For now we’d love to keep our focus on Halifax to get the scene healthy and thriving again,” he said. “Once we’ve accomplished that, then we’ll definitely look to moving to different communities in the Maritimes.

“It’s going to be good vibes all around.”

The No Holds Barred event will start at 10 p.m. on Friday at the Toothy Moose. Tickets will be $10 at the door.

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page