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INFORMER SNOW ARTIST DRIVER
The son of a taxi driver and a homemaker who divorced when he was three weeks old, the rapper says that he grew up with few opportunities or ambitions. As for his criminal record, it is what it is.”ĭuring a break from New York rehearsals for his upcoming tour, Snow was in Toronto last week visiting family and friends-including his girlfriend of six years, Tamei Edberg, a 24-year-old model.
INFORMER SNOW ARTIST SKIN
Said Salem: “We felt he should be judged on his talent, not his skin color. And his New York managers, Steve Salem and David Eng, who represent such top rap stars as Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, chose to play down Snow’s race and his criminal past-although they will provide copies of an RCMP list of the rapper's convictions to skeptical journalists. Without a video or any mention of the artist’s race, his American label, EastWest Records, test-marketed an initial track, “Lonely Monday Morning,” with critics and radio disc jockeys. Snow’s entry into the music world has been carefully orchestrated. And he is clearly at ease with a variety of pop styles, including rap and rhythm and blues, as well as dancehall. The young artist co-wrote all 12 tracks on his album. Snow’s success appears to have more to do with talent than novelty. And now, with a second single, the soulful ballad “Girl, I've Been Hurt,” and a Canadian tour starting in June, Snow is out to prove that he is no one-hit wonder. sales of 100,000 and one million, respectively-largely on the strength of “Informer.” The ruggedly handsome rapper, who has a particularly strong female following, is scheduled for an April 29 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. And the song is getting airplay even in Jamaica, where listeners apparently find the Irish-Canadian's rap style convincing.Īt the same time, Snow’s debut album, 12 Inches of Snow, has hit platinum, with Canadian and U.S. A raw dispatch from the street, it details his arrest with lyrics that include “Detective man said Daddy Snow I stabbed someone down the lane, a licky boom boom down.” Already, “Informer” is rising with a bullet on European and Asian charts. In fact, “Informer,” a catchy but largely incomprehensible number, due to Snow’s patois and rapid-fire delivery (the video includes subtitles), seems destined to become the surprise international hit of the year. The song that he wrote in prison, “Informer,” shot straight to the top of the charts in both Canada and the United States, where it has spent seven weeks in the number 1 position-a Canadian achievement matched only by Bryan Adams. But he has also managed to win phenomenal success as a rookie recording artist. As recently as last year, he served eight months of a one-year sentence in Ontario’s minimum-security Maplehurst Correctional Centre for assault causing bodily harm. Since then, however, he has continued to have a rocky relationship with the law. “I knew that if I could rock that crowd, I could rock any crowd.”Īfter eight months in jail awaiting trial, Snow was cleared of all charges and released. “That gave me courage,” said the 23-year-old sensation who now calls himself Snow. And he performed it in the rapping style of reggae known as dancehall-to the delight, he recalls, of his fellow inmates. There, at the Metro Toronto East Detention Centre, he wrote a song about being blamed for someone else's crime. Then, in 1989, when he was 19, a brawl involving butcher knives sent him to jail on charges of attempted murder. Aside from his skill as a street fighter, O’Brien's only talent was mimicking the thick Jamaican dialect that he heard on reggae records and in his predominantly West Indian neighborhood. His police record includes several convictions-for mischief, causing a disturbance and assault. An indifferent student from a working-class family, he spent much of his time drinking, fighting and getting caught on the wrong side of the law. As a teenager growing up in the housing projects of north Toronto, Darrin O’Brien did not seem to have much of a future.