September 28, 2007

Nestor Wynrush

Photographs by Nicky Davis

Mind Your Yard

Nestor Wynrush is my main drinking partner. Winn City to Bar I to The Red Cactus to Tavern to Times Changed, we put nuff dollars back into the economy. He also raps, better than you do. After some legal trouble involving his former alias, he emerged a new and incredibly confusing force to be reckoned with. Beatles covers and odes to flying above the clouds, lady. It’s a new day. The man known as Black N Roll and I sat down at different computers recently, and conversed via a social networking website about Winnipeg and food. We even managed to touch on racism, and worked his old album and handle into the conversation too. Satchel Paige’s Guy, I’m From Here will one day be more coveted than your favorite nerd rappers basement tape. Here’s how the conversation went…

Where exactly is the here that you are from guy? I’m confused.

From “Here”- Means many things. It means I’m from Canada. It means i am from Winnipeg. It means i am from Mississauga & The GTA. I got tired of growing up and being asked where I am from. I appreciate the question when it comes with no knowledge and people are just plain curious but some people mean to ask it in a mean and condescending manner. I am the child of immigrants. I am proud of my heritage. Being Canadian means that I can be proud of being Canadian and be proud of the culture of my family and still practice their customs. Too many people hate the hyphenated Canadian. I’m Trinidadian-Canadian, I am African-Canadian. They are both part of me. I will not renounce one for the other because that would be a lie. I live both or all three identities everyday. I am not pretending. This is who I am.

Why do you live in Winnipeg? Are you funny in the head or something? It’s cold here.

Winnipeg is cheap. Its a pretty multicultural city north of Portage Avenue ( Excluding The Harambee Development and some areas by the U of M). The city and the people have character. Its not city that tries to fool itself. My family first emmigrated to Winnipeg and then went to other places in the country so it feels like home. Plus its in the middle of the continent and that makes travel easy.

Its cold. I am crazy. Its so cold my mother moved and swore she’d never return. its been almost 20 years since she left and she has been back once for a weekend.

What’s up with the name change? What exactly is your name now? Terry Loxx? Black N Roll?

I had to change the rap name because the estate of the legendary baseball player, Leroy “Satchel” Paige was threatening to sue me. The lawyers chased me through email and mail for almost a year. They were asking for more money then I’ll ever see off the sale of any of my records. It seemed irrational to keep the name. I also got a letter from the family of Mr. Paige and it helped to change my mind and made a potential name change easier for me to digest. It became apparent that money was not the big deal to them they just wanted Mr. Paige’s legacy to be intact and under their control. After awhile I decided it was a wise decision to change my rap name because their would never be better timing. The official name is Nestor Wynrush. Black N Roll and Terry Loxx are just alternate but not official names.

Nestor Wynrush

You have a lot of stories about racism. What’s the story there?

I don’t mean to have so many stories about racism but racism has been littered through out my life. I remember sitting around in high school one day and thinking about how I’d like to plan and write an album. What would its content be about. I wanted to talk about my family’s experiences in a foreign country that may not have all the time been very receptive to them. I wanted to talk about my friends and their experiences, and most of all celebrate an aspect of the Fabulous Black Canadian Experience with all the fifty people that were to ever hear my record. It just so happens that racism has played a part in all of our lives. Therefore my songs reflect that. My songs also reflect: cultural identity, young love, barber shops, entrepreneurship, friendship, dream chasing, partying and other universal themes.

If your house has leaking pipes do you just choose to move or do you decide to be proactive and try to fix the problem? I view it as my family moved to a beautiful almost perfect new house (Canada) but it has pipe problems. Now we’ll all try and fix that shit.

On another topic, why are me, you and Bad Mannaz from Shadez never in the same place at the same time?

All those great drinking minds can not be in the same place at the same time. We’ll insult every rapper and discover new ways to hate Winnipeg. Winnipeg would implode on itself.

Bar Italia or Winn City?

Bar Italia for hot gals on a summer day and decent DJs and Winn City for a quiet time with the boys on any other day. Plus, Winn City is good for me and some others to get drunk and just stumble home. Both are clean but Winn City is clean and dirty. Did you know a waitress popped out a titty to us and…(edited for content, damn Black N Roll!!!)

Chicken or goat?

Don’t make me choose. For writing this question I choose to give you the Winnipeg handshake and watch you bleed to death.

And there you have it. But the answer to the age old question? It’s actually chicken AND goat.

For more Nestor Wynrush: myspace.com/wynrush + clotheshorserecords.com

Interview provided by our friends at living underwater.

14 Responses

  1. i bought that disc from right here on ugsmag back in the day, still bump it on the reg, looking forward to peeping some new material!

    what do you mean by “Wow! Finally” jayoh? guy i’m from here came out like around 5 years ago.

  2. Truly a king among men, not to mention one of canada’s top notch live performers, Yo Ness, let’s go to mexico soon!

  3. First off I’d like to say Thanks to Birdapres, LUW, & Ugsmag for posting this interview. I’d like to thank all of you for reading the interview. The Photos were all taken by my good, amazing-photographer friend Nicky Davis.

    There are a few things that I did specify in that article. For a year and a bit I was chased by these lawyers who represented and protected the images and likeness of dead celebrities. I had no idea that this group even existed but common sense should have told me they did. For example, this group is responsible for when you see a a computer generated image of Sinatra singing in an ad for company X but you know he’s dead. This group of lawyers gives permission to company X to use his others images and likeness’.

    Long story short, One day I got a Cease & Desist letter from these Lawyers via my man Kutdown. I asked over and over again what they would like from me but they could never specify (except that they wanted me to stop using his name immediately). They eventually asked for $10,000 in one of their last emails. They didn’t specify what that $10,000 would do for me. Therefore my decision to change my rap name became 10,000 times easier. I still have no idea how they heard of me or why they asked for so much money. I explained to them how much I earned from rapping (ha!) but they wanted $10,000. They’ve left me alone since the name change.

    Thanks again to everyone. F.Matt I don’t know how we are going to get back to Mexico but it must be done. We have more Federalies to bribe and more gigantic Jesus’ to see.

    The new album is being worked on and will be out sooner then later (hopefully).

  4. Some additional info for anyone new that is reading this interview for a 5 year old album. The majority of the beats were produced by The Gumshoe Strut, One song prod. by Kutdown (Enida Watts) and one song by Kinetik ( Enida Watts RMX). Cuts were done by DJ Hunnicutt & Dj Kutdown (aka Khela). Thanks to all of them. Now have fun downloading.