IN A LANE OF HIS OWN

The first thing I notice when Clairmont The Second pops up on my laptop screen is the lighting. The full spectrum of the rainbow is on display behind him, moving across his room along an LED strip. Combined with the retro video game posters hanging from his wall, he seems to be calling in from another time entirely, from an arcade somewhere in the 1980s. Looking at his surroundings, I’m reminded of the cover art for his latest record, 2020’s It’s Not How It Sounds. Released last July, it harkens back to an 80’s vinyl cover, replete with the 80’s-inspired font and colour scheme.

“Man, that just comes from things I’ve enjoyed the most,” Clairmont tells me when asked about the inspiration behind the visuals. “As I was getting older, I started enjoying things less and less and less. I was just trying to figure out why that is, and why things don’t feel the same as they used to. I don’t just want to base things purely off of nostalgia. I went back; I wanted to obviously feel something looking at these things.” In going back to the music and films of his youth, Clairmont began to think about the physicality behind the mediums themselves. “Everything that I enjoy, or at least enjoy more of, is from back in the day when things were a little bit harder to do,” he says. “Just because you were kind of limited, and you were forced to think more outside the box to be more creative. Now, everything’s super easy — we have all this stuff that’s just at our fingertips, and everybody can kind of do it.” For Clairmont, the imperfect nature of analog technology is a strength as opposed to a weakness — in messing around with the mediums, he’s able to access a new dimension of his art, one which provides it with a certain “thickness”. This thickness is evident throughout much of It’s Not How It Sounds — songs such as “Clockout” and “Dun” are rich with texture, immersing the listener in a sonic landscape that manages to speak to a bygone era while still sounding fresh and entirely new. “I’m not trying to sell nostalgia,” Clairmont says. “That’s what every company is doing right now. I’m just taking inspiration. I don’t want to be a martyr for getting stuck in the past, but it’s just like, how do I apply that same feeling from then to now? It’s the feeling.”

Clairmont began his career in 2013, with the release of the mixtape Becoming a GentlemIIn. He grew up in an extremely musical family — his father and sisters sing, and his brother, Colanthony Humphrey, is currently drummer for punk-rock band The OBGMS. Having a musical family has definitely been an asset for him, since it ensures that he has a steady and reliable set of collaborators to work with. “There’s not many people out there I’d rather work with than family and friends,” he says. “It’s super important, and it’s easier that way — it was kind of just a natural thing that makes sense.”

Growing up in a Christian household, gospel music also figures prominently in his work, melding with and informing the aspects of R&B, jazz, and hip-hop within his songs. “Who I am and how I am and who I want to be is based in the roots of that,” he says. “Religion and whatnot — it’s shaped who I am, and the music has shaped who I am...I’ve never seen performers better than gospel artists. These guys are jumping up and down the whole stage for an hour, with their vocals not wavering or anything. I made sure to practice like they do, to try to replicate what they’ve been able to do on stage. And that’s a major influence, as well as the lyrics and music itself.”

Given his musical upbringing, a career within the field felt like a natural route for him to take. He knew from an early age that he wanted to be a musician, opting not to pursue a post-secondary education to focus on his career, to the dismay of his mother. “I remember when I didn’t want to go to post-secondary school, because I knew what I wanted to do,” he recalls. “Like, I can’t go to school for this. You can’t really teach taste, you can’t teach flavour.” His father allowed him to pursue his dream, telling him that he had a year to make something happen. The mixtapes and albums followed suit, and he never looked back. 2020 was supposed to be a big year for Clairmont — he had an ambitious roll-out planned for It’s Not How It Sounds, which was unfortunately derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “I had a set plan, and that was obviously put to a complete halt,” he explains. “The month that COVID hit, we had a show scheduled that month, and it was cancelled. I had to reevaluate a lot. But luckily, throughout all the madness that went on, I was able to kind of reflect, sit down, and work on things within myself. If COVID hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have otherwise taken the time to do a lot of the things that I’ve learned to do.” Whereas other artists delayed album releases and scrapped projects altogether in the wake of the pandemic, Clairmont continued to work on It’s Not How It Sounds, which was originally meant to be an EP, working on the majority of the songs in early 2020 and ultimately releasing it in July. At 9 tracks and 25 minutes, the record is refreshingly short and to the point, particularly because Clairmont didn’t feel like he had to meet a certain quota of tracks before putting it out. “I noticed a lot of artists are dropping really long albums because it helps their streaming numbers,” he says. “For me, that’s torture. It’s like, how do I make a full experience in 9-12 songs? How do I give people that?”

In terms of the creative process, nothing significantly changed for him, since the majority of his projects are produced “in-house” to begin with. Whereas other artists have crafted entire projects focused on the pandemic, he resists the temptation to touch upon topical subjects which other people are discussing, opting instead to focus on telling his own personal stories through his music. “The only thing that’s really affecting me is the fact that I can’t do shows, because that’s the main thing I love,” he laments. “As for everything else, it’s pretty similar. You know, make the music, put it out, take photos — I could do all that.” All things considered, he appears to have adjusted pretty well. When asked whether he feels a pressure to produce content at this time, when the entire world is looking to artists for comfort, he shrugs it off. “I just ignore it,” he says. “I’m hearing CEOs talk about, you know, ‘artists need to make this amount of music and do this,’ and it’s like, bro, don’t tell me how much music to make, because you don’t care — you’re not going to listen to my music.”

Artists across the world have been exploring creative and unique ways to connect with fans at this time, through formats such as live-streamed concerts. Clairmont isn’t a fan of the virtual concert per se — he feels they fail to capture the same feeling as a live performance — but has nonetheless produced two in the last year, with more to follow. Another, more unconventional way that he’s connected with fans has been through his channel Clairmont’s Consoles, wherein he plays video games and either uploads videos to Youtube or streams them on Twitch. Since middle school, the artist has been an avid fan of video games. Watching Youtubers such as Chris Smoove, he was inspired to begin creating video game videos as well. “This is something completely separate from my music,” he says. “I wanted it to just be about video games. It wasn’t something that I just picked up in the pandemic — it was something I was doing before it had hit. I think what contributed to that as well was diving back into games that I used to love as a child.” Clairmont is evidently a huge fan of video games, discussing the importance of various gaming consoles such as the Neo Geo. Video games tend to be dismissed as an art form, but he’s a staunch advocate for them being classified as such: “drawing images, 3D structuring, rendering, all that stuff takes skill,” he argues. “And then you have to find the music that goes with the video game, you’ve got to have really good sound design — all of it is connected. You’ve got games that are basically movies, with very deep stories. It’s definitely an art form.”

Audiovisuality appears to be something that Clairmont takes into consideration for most of his projects. We talk about his latest single, Intres-Ting, which was also created amidst quarantine conditions in November. The cover art, shot by Clairmont’s partner Asia Brown (also known as Bee), features Clairmont wearing a plague doctor mask against a black backdrop. The accompanying video is eerie and cinematic, pulling and blending visual references from a diverse array of artists, from avant-garde filmmaker David Lynch to blaxploitation films such as Black Dynamite. “Instead of making this a performative music video, I wanted to make a video that goes with the song, but at the same time is more of a narrative piece,” he explains. “I wanted to shoot the video as if I was scoring a film, or scoring a movie scene.” The song itself samples one of Clairmont’s own records, and lyrically focuses on him reflecting on his life — reminiscing on his hometown and his past — while “talking smack”, as he puts it. I use this moment as an opportunity to bring up Toronto, especially since the city has recently been the subject of much attention within the rap/hip-hop realm, asking what the ideal Toronto sound looks like in 2020. “That’s a hard question,” Clairmont says. “Because I stopped paying attention to Toronto as a whole — I had to, because I just always felt like I was the odd one out, like I didn’t fit in with the city. I definitely have artists here that I love that I’m a big fan of, but I don’t want to focus on here so much. I’ll definitely try to do my part, do what I can to talk about where I’m from, but I think that for me personally, I’ve carved out my own lane.”

A big source of frustration for the artist has been the lack of attention that he has received from the industry — in March, a few weeks after we’ve spoken, he took to Twitter to announce his discontent with being snubbed by the Juno Awards, concluding a tweet with: “good luck without me canada. you’re out of touch. don’t claim me when it’s convenient.” Given how original, progressive, and fresh his music sounds, the lack of recognition from the industry is appalling to me — in an age where TikTok has a firm grasp upon the industry, there appears to be a lack of opportunities for local artists to grow and thrive. This sentiment is echoed in our conversation. “I’ve said this before, but it feels more apparent than ever,” he states. “I just feel like I’ve done all I could do here...I really want Toronto to back me, but I can’t control this population.” Much of this discontent has been fueled by social media, from which Clairmont has made the decision to step back in recent months. “Eventually, it’s just exhausting,” he says. “Sometimes, you even start comparing yourself to yourself, asking ‘why does this have so many likes and this doesn’t,’ you know what I mean? It’s a dangerous mindset to be in, so I think taking those breaks is necessary.”

As our interview comes to a close, Clairmont The Second looks to the future and sighs, both hopeful for what’s to come yet weary from his near constant output sustained across the last few years. He has an album in the works, although he doesn’t want to release it before both him and the public themselves are ready for it. “I’m too young to be feeling like I’m getting old,” he states. Arguably one of the city’s most promising artists, it’s about time we give him his flowers. ■

Photos by Aysha Brown