True Vintage
How thrifting has influenced my artistic process
When I started Searcher Vintage back in 2023, I didn’t realize at the time how the experience might end up impacting my music. The short version for the uninitiated was that I would rip through thrift stores whenever I was on tour or had free time at home and dig through raghouses a.k.a. textile recycling warehouses in search of clothes. I would curate whatever I found under my own banner, subsequently fill my car with deconstructed clothing racks and heavy duty plastic crates filled with garments, then I’d set up my mobile clothing store at the coffee shops and businesses of my friends.
This was not a significant moneymaking endeavour, it was a hobby, a passion project. My personal search for my dream wardrobe led me to find items that might be perfect for others and, as you might know by now, I love to share. Plus I was able to prevent quality pieces from being sent to landfills or shipped off to other countries. I thought that digging for clothes would purely be a pastime for me, not appreciating how deeply it would influence my artistic process and my way of seeing the world.
In the summer of 2024, I shifted back to primarily sourcing clothes for myself as I got deeper and deeper into the minutiae of it all. I’ve had a passion for clothing for as long as I can remember. I worked in the shipping department of Holt Renfrew in downtown Edmonton, spent some time as an employee of the vintage store Divine Decadence on Whyte Ave and rapped about “wearing pink unironically” on “The New Face of Fashion” back in 2008.
Every vintage garment has a story, a history unto itself, and I add my signature to the ledger as soon as a piece comes into my possession. And when I’ve lived with something for awhile, the garment becomes a memory that I can wear. Brantford, Nepean, Yorba Linda, Coquitlam: it’s a preoccupation that has encouraged me to explore and learn more about the world around me as I comb the interstitial towns that make up the big ragged quilt that is North America.
Like with pretty much anything I do, I got pretty obsessive about it. I learned the history behind everything I found, which has started to make its way into my lyrics. I can now tell the difference between a Harrington jacket and an Eisenhower jacket. I taught myself how to remove stains from pretty much anything. I even got the Woolmark tattooed onto my arm:
With my increased foraging for clothes in recent years, I started noticing a parallel between my appreciation for the quality materials found in true vintage and my crusade to maintain and preserve the high standards of musicianship that I grew up on. They were two different kinds of bygone craftsmanship. Just like the vintage Ralph Lauren knit sweater that I recently found, those old A Tribe Called Quest and Outkast records were built to last.
All this hunting unexpectedly brought me back to the music of my childhood: classic hip-hop. Those bangers often had rappers ceaselessly referencing clothing brands (even I namedropped Carhartt on “Sharks” twenty years ago). I can picture Raekwon rocking in the Polo Snow Beach jacket, singlehandedly recontextualizing a brand simply by being himself wearing it.
This kind of sentiment has made its way into my songwriting. I’ll get more in-depth about how my vintage journey has intersected with my music over the coming weeks but take this to be a reminder that you never quite know how inspiration will manifest itself. “Step Out” with DijahSB and Junia-T is out on November 5th and you can pre-save it here. And here’s a Pinterest board to get you into the vibe.
Upcoming Shows
October 17 - Toronto - Reload It! at Sounds Good (DJ set)
October 18 - Hamilton - Andthenyou (DJ set)
October 24 - Montréal - Datcha (DJ set)
November 20 - Toronto - The Garrison (live)
November 21 - Montréal - Bar Le Ritz (live)
November 22 - Ottawa - National Arts Centre (live)
I’m curating a night of the Basement Revue on December 11 at the Paradise Theatre in Toronto. It’s a variety show organized by Jason Collett where musicians and writers perform that happens every year. The lineup will be a surprise, putting it together as we speak and I’m super excited. You can get your tickets for that here.
You can find me updating my playlists or hanging on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. You can listen to my music on Apple Music, Bandcamp and Spotify. You can get Cadence Weapon merchandise here. Read my monthly column in Hazlitt, pick up your copy of Bedroom Rapper here and please rate it on Goodreads.
it cant possibly have been 20 years since Breaking Kayfabe dropped, because that would make me old