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Slava P. talks to Daisy Alioto about music discovery and the "algorithm" in Canadian federal prison.
Daisy Alioto: How do you discover music in prison?
Slava P: There's a channel on our TV sets called Stingray Music. All they do is play hip-hop music, and it's not just worldwide so you get your Kendrick Lamars or whatever. A lot of it is actually Canada-focused because artists can submit their music to Stingray to play, but the thing is it is censored, so you won't hear a lot of the parts of the songs that are the most catchy.
DA: Is Stingray sort of what constitutes the algorithm while you're inside?
SP: Stingray is your popular music, that's a channel anybody can put on their TVs in their cell. There's also people who have connections to the outside world. Maybe they have a phone. If they have a phone, they can find out what kind of music is popular. Anytime a big album or something like that comes out, everybody spreads it around, like the Drake album or the Kanye album or the Meek Mill album, whatever.
It's really more interesting around underground Toronto rapper stuff, which racks up these huge hits on YouTube and Spotify but isn’t on the radio. That’s the stuff people really want to hear about. The only time you'll really hear stuff like that on Stingray is when an artist is big. A guy like NorthSideBenji or Smiley will be on Stingray, or a group like CMDWN. Other than that, these guys find out about it on Instagram by following these accounts.
Then they'll either download the music or they'll stream it on Spotify. They will hook up their phone to a CD player. Inside the CD player, there's a tape deck for recording Spotify playlists because the stereos that we get sent in can't have USB ports in them. They're knee-capping us with the technology a little bit. You also can’t get a burnt CD sent in.
So going to jail is almost like going back to the '90s, but guys who get their phones through will figure out a way to get it done and then do a little tape swap around the prison. Guys who are there for a minute will build out their collection of tapes.
But there's a lot of weird, stupid rules. You can't get a basketball jersey sent in. You can get a tank top sent in. You can get a hockey jersey sent in, but you can't get a basketball jersey sent in.
DA: That is weird.
SP: It is weird, but it's also kind of coded racism in the same way that the burnt CDs are because nobody's burning a CD of fucking Neil Young songs. You know what I mean? You're saying a very specific thing when you're banning basketball jerseys and burnt CDs.
DA: You said in your email to me that you would play these tapes in the gym, unless the biggest guy in the gym doesn't want to listen to it. I assume that was a little bit tongue in cheek, but how would somebody express that? Are they just like, "Turn this shit off?"
SP: Yeah. There's a radio that plays at the gym, and it's just like Top 40 pop music because it's Northern Ontario. Anytime Lil Nas X came on the radio, the big Jamaican guy would run over and turn that shit off with effort.
You have an idea of who's in the jail and who runs it. If there's two competing gangs in the same jail, they will get along for the most part if they’re in minimum security because they have one foot out the door already, although the music is kind of where they do draw the line. You can't play certain mans music in certain jails because the jails are all segregated according to hoods in Toronto. If you land in, let's say, Collin’s Bay, you can't play any music from a Driftwood rapper. Whereas if you go to a Driftwood prison, then you can't play any mans music from a different neighborhood.
DA: Were you aware of those distinctions going in just from being in the music scene or did you have to sort of learn those divisions?
SP: I was aware of the broad strokes of it, but so many things happen that cause factions to go to war with each other that it changes every couple of months. So it was actually funny because when I got to like federal prisons, everybody was super suspicious of me because I look like a cop. Everybody's thinking, "Oh, this guy's undercover." That show, 60 Days In, was really big at the time, so everybody's saying like, "Oh, this guy a cop. He's on 60 Days In."
So I'm standing in the gym, and this guy comes up to me. He goes, "Slava, what are you doing here?" I look up, and it's Casper. Casper's a very popular Toronto rapper. He got arrested before my shit even happened, so he never even saw it play out. He's like, "Yo, what are you doing here? I want to do a thing with VICE." I'm like, "Oh, you didn't hear." Then I filled him in on what happened.
That actually kind of saved my life because people were like, "Okay. Well, if he's a cop, Casper wouldn't go up to him and dap him up." So my time got a lot easier after that.
DA: Were you worried about missing out on music for two years beyond what was playing on Stingray or on the gym radio?
SP: I was worried about missing out on all culture for like two years. That was actually my biggest fear because the bare necessities will be met, but it's more so... I know that there's going to be a library. I know there's going to be books, but that pop culture element is the one thing that... Where are you really going to find that?
So you can get a subscription to a magazine when you're in there, and I got a New Yorker subscription. I forced myself to watch TMZ, and Bill Maher, and shit like that because those are shows that directly talk about like, "Oh, here's what happened on Twitter this week or tonight," right? So I made a super concerted effort not to miss out on stuff. We had HBO and SHOWTIME, which is where all of the big shows the last two years came out anyway.
I actually ended up watching more TV when I was in because there's nothing else to do, and it's all appointment viewing. There's nothing on demand. So everybody daps each other up like, "Yo, it's nine o'clock on a Sunday. HBO time. I got to go watch Winning Time." People love watching Power. BMF was a big show too.
DA: How did you feel about “new” culture when you got out?
SP: It's weird. Even NFT stuff is so weird because it went from, okay, the Kitties, and then next thing I know, the NBA is doing this Top Shot thing. It took a lot of work to keep up with that because it felt like, overnight, everybody just spoke the same language. It felt like the rules had been discussed somewhere else, and you weren't privy. It's very hard to catch up with the conversation that was currently being had. That was a big one for sure.
DA: Yeah. That's a tough sensation, but you also mentioned this sort of flattening of culture that I feel like we've observed in Dirt as well. I don't know. I'm really interested in your take on that because I think for people who maybe were immersed in culture, the flattening wasn't as obvious because you're sort of like this boiling frog, but you did have this inflection point of having been sort of removed for two years. So what was it like when you started observing this flattening or how did that thought sort of cohere for you?
SP: This is something I've thought a lot about, but it feels like whenever there's a responsible adult in charge, the rest of the internet is allowed to act stupid. That's when you're allowed to be ironic, and you're allowed to make stupid jokes, and all this other stuff. Whenever there's a bad, stupid person in charge, everybody has to feel the need to be a doctor or an expert in something or other.
We kind of saw that because under Trump, the internet was just terrible. It was terrible on all sides. So I came in under Trump. I came out post-Trump, post-COVID, and it feels like people are having the same conversations they were having before, but now people understand what buttons to press more than they ever did before.
In terms of flattening of culture, I really thought there would be some kind of niche, weird channels that I missed out on, and as a result that I'd have to go download this Quibi or whatever. I thought Quibi was a thing, and I'm like, "Fuck. I'm going to get out, and Quibi's going to be everywhere. I'm going to need to go back and watch season one of something on my phone to understand what people are talking about now," but that doesn't really happen. Game of Thrones was the last come together at the dinner table and watch this together.
DA: Yeah, monoculture.
SP: So it doesn't feel like that, but, yeah, it feels like there's 10 things that everybody watches and has an opinion on online. The same kind of goes for music now too.
Back in the old internet days your personality was defined by the websites that you go on. Now its like everybody goes on the same seven websites, and has more or less the same experience on each site. There's no reward to finding niche things because anybody can tap into that niche when we're all on the same platforms. Online subcultures are dead.
DA: Has your taste changed because of your experience in prison?
SP: Yeah. I listen to way more Toronto rap now. I listened to a lot of Toronto rap before, but it was the highfalutin online-concious music of people who are technically from Toronto, but are really from the internet. Now I know the politics behind this guy and that. I know the story behind the artists in a new way, and that kind of makes it a richer experience for me.
DA: Since I have you, I was going to ask how did you feel about the way that your case was represented online and in The Ringer?
SP: I actually really like The Ringer article. Listen, it's kind of weird to be talking about some stuff that happened such a long time ago, but for it to be framed more in this comedic, bumbling idiot way... I'll take bumbling idiot over nefarious villain any day. That's kind of what I did feel was the truth of what happened. A bunch of stupid people did some stupid things that they regret.
I got to tell my side of the story with the book. So I feel like, boom, it's out there. I've completely expunged it. Monkey off my chest. And now it's all about just kind of moving forward.