It has now been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, and we all continue to be impacted as we struggle to adjust and process the effect on our daily lives. Here in Toronto, ON (Canada), this is especially the case for our small local businesses and frontline workers. Multiple lockdowns have caused many of our beloved businesses to close, or adapt a new strategy to try and stay afloat until life goes back to our new normal.

As a passionate crate digger and beatmaker, records occupy an important space in my life and I'm sure all my fellow music lovers out there would agree that we need record stores to survive this pandemic. This is where the idea for this project was conceptualized. It will be my modest contribution to not only help a local business that is close to my heart, but also our community heroes who continue risking their lives everyday to help others in need.

The Backstory
Before calling Toronto home in 2018, Cosmos was the first shop I went crate digging in when I first travelled to the city 6 years ago. I remember being blown away by their selection of records, especially at their Queen St West location, where you can find some pretty incredible (and rare) Jazz, Soul and Brazilian vinyls. It's also a shop that is very well connected to the beat making community in Toronto.

Once the idea came to mind, I reached out to Aki, the owner of Cosmos Records and told him that I wanted to buy $100 worth of records to play a game of rhythm roulette (if you haven't heard about the Mass Appeal web series before, I highly recommend you check it out). He gave me 4 LPs of his choice for me to sample and turn into this EP. All of the tracks of this project contain at least one element from one of these records. I hope you enjoy listening to this EP as much as I enjoyed making it!

Where your money will go:
Half of the profit from the EP will go back to Cosmos Records as a thank you for being such an amazing curator of exceptional music, and the other half will be donated to a charity to help support front line health care workers.

Please note that Cosmos records DID NOT ask me to work on this project, or to help in any way. This was purely a personal initiative on my end. Big up to Thelonious and DJ Zajazza for contributing to this project, and my wife for her continuous support in my musical journey.