D-Sisive may have recently released his latest effort, Jonestown 2: Jimmy Go Bye Bye, but as the Toronto-based MC admitted in a recent Exclaim! interview, he was having trouble writing new material after his 2010 album, Vaudeville, got lukewarm reviews.
D-Sisive (real name Derek Christoff) says that part of the problem may have been that Vaudeville was just too cheerful for an audience that had got used to the gloomy, intense rhymes of his previous albums, 2008's The Book and 2009's Let the Children Die.
"Everyone grew so accustomed to that side of me," D-Sisive explains. "Then I was like, 'Okay cool, I'm happy now,' but nobody wanted to hear it, which made me sad again."
According to D-Sisive, the response to Vaudeville was bad enough that he started second-guessing himself.
"I was starting to feel like that everything I was writing was fucking shit," he says. "There's a few songs on Jonestown 2 that were rewritten three or four times... There was a point, maybe a month and a half before the record came out, where the beats were chosen, the artwork was done, the songs were titled, and maybe two of the songs were written."
After spending months fighting writer's block, Christoff found inspiration in an unusual place: the movie theatre.
"I went to go see 127 Hours, and I heard ["Festival" by Sigur Rós] and I was like, I need to rap over this song," he says. "I went home and downloaded it from iTunes and started writing. I usually write pretty fast, but that ["If I Live to See Tomorrow"] took me almost three weeks to write. Then I just leaked it on YouTube, people freaked out and I was like 'Let's go.'"
In support of Jonestown 2, D-Sisive has just recently announced a spring tour around Ontario, along with a show in Montreal. You can see all the dates below, as well as download/stream Jonestown 2.
Tour dates:
3/25 Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern (JunoFest) *
3/26 Toronto, ON - HardRock Café –UMAC Showcase ^
4/1 Toronto, ON - CBC Studios (CBC Hip Hop Summit)
4/4 Montreal, QC - Le Divan Orange
4/14 Guelph, ON - The Bookshelf E-Bar (KAZOO!Fest)
4/21 Sudbury, ON - Cranky Joe's Roadhouse
4/22 Ottawa, ON - Barrymore's Music Hall %
4/23 Kingston, ON - The Mansion %
4/26 Windsor, ON - Phog Lounge %
4/27 London, ON - Call The Office %
4/28 Hamilton, ON - Casbah Lounge %
4/29 St Catharines, ON - L3 Night Club %
* with Said The Whale and Justin Rutledge
^ with Ghettosocks and Karl Wolf
% with My Son The Hurricane
D-Sisive (real name Derek Christoff) says that part of the problem may have been that Vaudeville was just too cheerful for an audience that had got used to the gloomy, intense rhymes of his previous albums, 2008's The Book and 2009's Let the Children Die.
"Everyone grew so accustomed to that side of me," D-Sisive explains. "Then I was like, 'Okay cool, I'm happy now,' but nobody wanted to hear it, which made me sad again."
According to D-Sisive, the response to Vaudeville was bad enough that he started second-guessing himself.
"I was starting to feel like that everything I was writing was fucking shit," he says. "There's a few songs on Jonestown 2 that were rewritten three or four times... There was a point, maybe a month and a half before the record came out, where the beats were chosen, the artwork was done, the songs were titled, and maybe two of the songs were written."
After spending months fighting writer's block, Christoff found inspiration in an unusual place: the movie theatre.
"I went to go see 127 Hours, and I heard ["Festival" by Sigur Rós] and I was like, I need to rap over this song," he says. "I went home and downloaded it from iTunes and started writing. I usually write pretty fast, but that ["If I Live to See Tomorrow"] took me almost three weeks to write. Then I just leaked it on YouTube, people freaked out and I was like 'Let's go.'"
In support of Jonestown 2, D-Sisive has just recently announced a spring tour around Ontario, along with a show in Montreal. You can see all the dates below, as well as download/stream Jonestown 2.
Tour dates:
3/25 Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern (JunoFest) *
3/26 Toronto, ON - HardRock Café –UMAC Showcase ^
4/1 Toronto, ON - CBC Studios (CBC Hip Hop Summit)
4/4 Montreal, QC - Le Divan Orange
4/14 Guelph, ON - The Bookshelf E-Bar (KAZOO!Fest)
4/21 Sudbury, ON - Cranky Joe's Roadhouse
4/22 Ottawa, ON - Barrymore's Music Hall %
4/23 Kingston, ON - The Mansion %
4/26 Windsor, ON - Phog Lounge %
4/27 London, ON - Call The Office %
4/28 Hamilton, ON - Casbah Lounge %
4/29 St Catharines, ON - L3 Night Club %
* with Said The Whale and Justin Rutledge
^ with Ghettosocks and Karl Wolf
% with My Son The Hurricane