Snow dreams it all up again
By GWEN MICHAEL -- For JAM! Music
TORONTO -- Snow certainly loves to sleep -- most people
are sitting down for dinner when he's just waking up.
"When you're sleeping, that's when the gods visit you," says the
Toronto rapper/singer. "You're only your true self when you're
dreaming. This (pointing at himself) is just a shell."
On the eve of the release of his latest album "Two Hands
Clapping" last week, Snow, a.k.a. Darrin O'Brien, dreamt of playing
and running with tornadoes.
Over the past week, he has been dragged from bed to promote the album,
which he describes as "a nice mixture of reggae and funk and
hip-hop."
He doesn't claim to be original -- he admits to taking from many different
kinds of music, but says he creates his own style with it. With eight
producers named the album, including his 7-year-old daughter, Justuss, its
no wonder his music is a mesh of different hip-hop and reggae flavours.
Snow's many references to "Informer" on his seventh album, hints
at how much he's still riding on the success of the surprise hit. The 1993
single made the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest-selling
reggae single and highest-charting reggae single in the U.S.
Snow admits he will probably never have the same success again -- saying
the inspiration for that song came from jail.
"Never again!" he proclaims, "Then I start thinking, damn
that was a big song, that was a big hit, maybe I should get back into jail
and write another one. But I'm like, I'd rather not have another hit and
stay out of jail."
His first single from the album, "Legal," about a fine-looking
young woman, is a tribute to Jamaica's dancehall traditions. "I like
the word legal," says Snow, "because in Jamaica you go to a
dance and you hear gun shots and they say 'Legal.' It means that the
police are shooting. It's like a legal shot, don't worry about it, it's
just the police liking the song so they just shoot up into the air."
But that's as much reference as you'll get to guns on "Two Hands
Clapping." While Snow's been to jail and lived the "street
life" as he calls it, he prefers to sing about 'lighter' topics.
"I don't really preach," he says, "Don't like badness in my
album."
His dreams give him a lot of inspiration for his songs. "I make up a
lot of things, like I don't have to see it. My dreams are more real than
reality. If I've dreamt about it, I've already done it, so I can write
about it."
It can also get him into trouble. He says his autobiographical "It's
My Life" is 80 per cent based on him, but admits his longtime
girlfriend and mother of his child hates the lyrics about never loving the
mother of his baby.
"She hates that part, but it's like, it has nothing to do with that.
Has nothing to do with her."
Snow plans to tour Canada in December - the same time his album will be
released internationally. After that he wants to tour the world. He has a
large following in Japan, where he's experienced massive sales in the
past.
"Japan is dying to put out this album - they're freaking out,"
he smiles, "They want to put it out right now. They love reggae over
there."