ArtistInfo

Haltown Projex

Band, CA
Electronic and Hip-Hop/Rap

Even though now defunct, Haltown Projex stood in the city of Halifax, N.S. (Canada) as the most important & consistantly working group of MC's and DJ's between 1992-1998. The original members consisted of Jorun, Haslam (now known as buck 65) Bonshah, Product KVA (Plains of facination/ Tallisman) & Shingai. The group was formed by Jorun, Tallisman & Haslam (now known as Buck 65) as a retaliation / correction against the 'double r&b' sound that Halifax city was being pidgeonholed as under the success of MCJ & Cool G who had been signed to Capitol records in 1989. Soon after the forming of Haltown originally by Jorun, Tallisman (Badi) & Haslam they were joined by Bonshah, (the rest of ) Product KVA and Shingai. Since no other groups could afford the cost of going to a recording studio, Jorun & Tallisman (of Product kva) took it upon themselves to both offer their home studios to create hip hop for no cost at all just so a scene of perferred 'raw & gritty' sounds could provide musical balance to halifax & be created to be exposed to the city with the help of DJ Critical (Haslam's DJ name) and his radio show on CKDU 97.5 FM. These Haltown Demo's gained notority and soon live performances were in demand. Haltown Projex couldn't find many clubs that would let them perform so Cafe Ole & the khyber (next door to each other) became halifax hip hop central much like The Fever & Latin quarter was in NYC and from there, Haltown Projex grew into more of a structure in the same vein as the Zulu Nation as more and more groups united with Haltown to make it a powerful movement in Halifax spearheaded by Jorun as the main producer, promoter and stage DJ. By 1993, The Haltown Projex core group + affilliates consisted of Jorun, Haslam, Bonshah, Mod'rn World Thang, Hip Club Groove, Sixtoo, Ruffneck (Nathan C/Nate Cruise) , Papa Grand, Bassment Unit (w/ Jay-O-Smooth), Shingai, Witchdoc and others. Full Album compilations produced under the musical direction of Jorun were released and featured then unknown MC's who would soon gain tremendous exposure. Product KVA moved to Toronto to form Plains of Facination and Nelstar (w/ Nelly Furtado) soon after... leaving Jorun's studio to be the main headquarters for recording hip hop music. Haltown Projex was the FIRST in halifax's entire history to release a rap compilation of halifax hip hop artists. Before them, it simply didn't exsist. This landmark happened in June 1993. The name 'Haltown' became so popular that soon people from all walks of life in Nova Scotia coined the term as a nickname for Halifax in general, even though that was not it's original intention or meaning. By 1995, Haltown Projex was at it's full power and completely filled the gap where no big acts from the U.S. or Canada were doing shows here anymore, and Muchmusic in Toronto completely Ignored east coast Canada and wrote off Halifax as 'non-exsistant' in the hip hop map. Haltown Projex became local hip hop superstars and the demand for larger signed + established acts to perform in Halifax was non exsistant. Haltown became it's own isolated world and the talent here was larger than life and became arguably better than most major label acts seen on rap city. Halifax had finally the independant hip hop scene it never previously had and it was huge and alive... and could stand on it's own two feet without outside help. Haltown was Canada's best kept secret.. but that would soon change. By 1996, Toronto record Label Hand Solo records offered to fund the next Haltown album under the title "Bassments of Badmen" but most of the members of Haltown were on their way to split in search of musical identity, creative differences and some acts getting signed onto bigger labels which caused beef between the signed and the unsigned. In retrospect it was what made Haltown Projex fall apart and a live stage battle erupted on May 12th 1995 at Cafe Ole & became one of the most successful and widely distributed street tapes in Halifax...Completely recorded live, It was Halifax's version of The Cold Crush v/s The fantastic 5 battle.. but as this caused halifax's hip hop scene to become even more known and respected, it was also the battle that marked the beginning to what would soon become the end of that era as each mc and DJ became known outside of Haltown and gained seperate successes. (Hip Club Groove signing to Sloans label then joining Len, and Sixtoo and Haslam/stinkin rich/buck 65 signing to Anticon) During this battle, many up & coming MC's made their first appearance onstage to halifax's hip hop world during the opening freestyle sessions and the world of Haltown first got to see Classified, Little T a.k.a. "Tachichi" and Kunga 219 (of "The Goods" among others.. Although the meaning of the name got lost over the years and was often mistaken for a nickname for Halifax city, The name "Haltown" originally was created by 3 people : Jorun, Tallisman and Haslam. Before them, the word never exsisted. Haltown was a movement led by Jorun and friends to change the sound of Halifax hip hop in the 90's and all members involved became legendary in their own right and changed the sound of hip hop in Halifax in the 90's decade.

Members

Mod'rn World Thang CA

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