ON THE RISE
VICTORIA, BC — Mr. Esq grew up in a small port town on Canada’s southwest coast named Esquimalt, and that community gave him his stage name.
Now he’s working to help young people avoid the problems he had and mistakes he made while as a youngster in Esquimalt with his latest album, ‘Esquire’ coming out July 14.
“This is my first album with the label Predominate Studios, this will be my 18th album in the last three and a half years,” Mr. Esq said. “This album, 20 tracks for the label, it’s my reintroduction to the hip hop scene with this label backing me and I wanted to do something a little more creative and different.
“The topics of this, there’s a bunch. It goes from ‘Rich Problems,’ I wrote a song about my mother, ‘A Mother’s Day.’ There are songs about abusive relationships, COVID, Black Lives Matter, the indigenous people and the babies that were found, and there’s a whole spectrum about content songs. Songs about the youth and the direction they’re going. I’ve got something for everybody. Then there are some clubby, banging songs, songs for the ladies, I talk about sexual abuse, I talk about all kinds of things.”
Mr. Esq said his time in prison and a child he lost more than 20 years ago are helping feed his music today and helping him mold his message.
“I spent 10 years in prison,” he said. “I was 18 years old, I was part of an escort agency, selling drugs for certain people. I got a girl pregnant, she moved away and I went with her, then she lost all the amniotic fluid six and a half or seven months into the pregnancy and it forced her to go into labor. My son passed away at birth. That sent me down an even darker path at that point, just drinking more and being more violent, hurting people. It’s ultimately what led to my incarceration.”
After he got out of prison, he worked hard to change his life and a happy coincidence helped along the way.
“I met a girl and I had a daughter with her,” Mr. Esq said. “The doctor told me the due date and it was the exact same date my son passed away. Ten years to the day my daughter was born on the same day my son died 10 years apart. So we celebrate both their birthdays on the same day, she wears his ashes and she knows all about her big brother. The worst day of my life was changed and now it’s the best day of my life
“It’s crazy how the universe works because what kind of father would I have been at 18 years old selling drugs and being a knuckle head, as opposed to now, my daughter is my world, she means everything to me and everything I do every day is to provide her with a life that I never had and make sure she never walks the path that I lived when I was growing up.”
Mr. Esq said his latest single, ‘Rich Problems’ was the result of a fun collaboration with a friend, the rapper and artist Madchild.
“So a buddy of mine Madchild, he's a really really good artist and he’s made some huge new moves in the community of hip hop,” Mr. Esq said. “So I grew up listening to his music and we became good friends and he pulled up to my house in a G-Wagon (a Mercedes G-class SUV) and I said, oh, you’ve got Rich Problems. We Kind of laughed about it and then we ended up going to the studio and that beat came on and I started going through the beat in my head and seeing what comes and Anything you really got is a Rich Problem. That’s the first thing that came to my head and we started writing and we just made magic from there.”
Mr. Esq said “Rich Problems” is about having complaints that really aren’t that serious in the wider scheme of things.
“A lot of people have complaints about their relationships or girls or the pandemic or gas prices, shit like that, it’s like I want to have Rich Problems,” Mr. Esq said. “I’ve got too much money, I need to figure out what to do with it. That’s kind of what the song is about, when you have rich problems, you have no more problems, everything’s just taken care of. Maybe one day I’ll have those kinds of problems, but really it was just a fun song to make with my buddy Madchild, and it turned out to be pretty good. I like how it came together.”
To listen to Mr. Esq’s music, or to follow him on social media, please visit the following links:
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Pop and soul singer Sharon Watkins is preparing to share her very first album in 2023. Working alongside producer Sam Miller (known for his work with The Hoosiers and One Direction), she is following up with her newest release, The One That Got Away, which arrives on 18 November 2022. The track is a tender acoustic ballad that tells the story of leaving behind a harmful relationship, finding strength, and welcoming a fresh start. With gentle piano arrangements and Sharon’s unmistakable soulful voice, the song captures an intensely emotional journey.
Her earlier singles, Proud and Stranded, have already connected with listeners in a big way, reaching more than 250,000 views on YouTube and 150,000 streams on Spotify. With this momentum building, Music News sat down with Sharon to talk about her music and what comes next.
Hi Sharon How are you?
Doing really well thanks! So excited about all the momentum we’ve had with our first 3 singles, honestly, it has been insane to have had BBC radio interviews, rotations, global press coverage and to have won an international song contest in such a short space of time!!
Tell us about your latest release ‘The One That Got Away’?
Well, it starts out as a real wintery piano ballad, portraying that moment when you suddenly realise that someone you're with is messing you around. Then, with the help of big strings and orchestral percussion, it develops into a powerful "I'm over you" song…. It is really a defiant two-fingers up at the ex that never appreciated you until it was too late. It moves from the turmoil of still having feelings for that person, cutting lose and moving on to triumphant recovery, knowing that you made the right decision.
The music video is visually stunning and the dance is beautiful, talk to us about the filming of this video and the creative decision to use dance to express the meaning of the track.
Thank you, that means a lot! We’re really pleased with the way the video came out. Me and my brother, Sammy J Stopford, who has been my partner in crime on this whole album project, knew very early on that we wanted a contemporary dance that portrayed the turmoil in this song. I also knew I wanted the video to express the mental turmoil you go through after finishing a relationship and the underwater medium just seamed such an ideal metaphor for that. We put out a request for dancers and choreographers on Instragram not thinking we would get much interest. One of our lessons on this project is that you can’t pore the right energy into a project if you don’t love the music and so this was the main pre-requisite for dancers…. “please only contact us if the song inspires you!”…. we couldn’t believe the response!! We ended up watching so many amazing dance videos from such talented people. Our album is about adult life lessons and so we knew we wanted a believable couple, that had a great connection and were old enough to have gone through an adult relationship and breakup. We chose Florivaldo Mossi (Michael Jackson in West End Show “Thriller”) & Ashley Cavell (Star of many shows, including ABBA Fever) as they are both incredible dancers but also fit the storyline so well. I couldn’t believe it when Choreographer, Stewart Arnold (choreographer & dancer to Kate Bush) agreed to work on the project!!
The writing in the song is very personal. Was it emotional pouring these emotions into lyrics?
Honestly, it is like an exorcism. Songwriting is how I process and deal with life’s ups-and-downs and so I would be lost without that outlet. It forces me to really dig deep on my emotions towards things. You can’t write songs about superficial stuff, otherwise it just sounds cliché.
What do you hope people take away from ‘The One That Got Away’?
I feel like it’s the song you need a friend to play you when you have broken up from someone and are feeling injured and unsure. You need someone to tell you that you missed a bullet and one day that ex will look around and realise that they lost something very special. I have had people reach out already and tell me how relatable the message is and that it has helped them… this is the biggest compliment of all!!
Talk to us about your influences as an artist.
I grew up in Manchester surrounded by an incredible 90’s music scene, in a house where my dad played everything from The Beatles to Zappa. I then spent 8 years living in the states, picking up some great American influences like Carole King. I have now made Nottingham my home, which is where I recorded the album and I have honestly really been enjoying the return in popularity of singer-songwriters like Lewis Capaldi and Tom Odell …. So all-in-all a pretty varied range of influcences… making for an eclectic pop album that I hope you all like.
Going back briefly on the video, you collaborated with some great people on the video such as Stewart Arnold who worked closely with Kate Bush and Florivaldo Mossi, noted for being Michael Jackson in Thriller Live. Tell us about your experience working with them.
It's been the stuff of dreams really. I am a massive Kate Bush fan and to work with Stewart was like a dream come true. He and I had some long conversations about our vision for this video and the turmoil I wanted to portray. His ability to translate that into dance is something amazing to watch. I had the honour of watching him choregraph the dancers on the morning of the shoot and it was like watching a master at work, the artistic ideas that he brought to this project were incredible. Flori Mossi and Ashley Cavell are both experienced dancers but seeing the way they clicked together, and their interaction and interpretation of the song just blew me away.
What can we expect from you next?
Well, we have 3 more singles coming ahead of the album launch in 2023, so make sure you follow me on Spotify to keep up with those (Sharon Watkins) and we’re also going to be doing a series of “Live Lounge” performances of our tracks ahead of the album release so follow me on socials @sharonwatkinsofficial to keep an eye out for those.
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