There’s nothing like a quick brush with death to get you life back on track. Vancouver based rapper Johnny Dilemma has come a long was since having to undergo emergency brain surgery four years ago he has since has toured with heavy hitters like Snoop Dogg, Kardinal Offishal and Bone Thugs N Harmony and will be coming to Inferno with Cleveland based rapper Machine Gun Kelly, Dec. 7, not only to open the show, but to be his tour manager as well.
The tour
began Dec. 1 in Kelowna. It was supposed to be in Lethbridge tonight, Dec. 7, but due to Machine Gun Kelly’s bus breaking down, it has been postponed until next Friday, Dec. 13. The local acts are still scheduled to perform, Dec. 7.
“ I’m getting pumped for this tour,” the Scarborough born rapper enthused from his Vancouver home. He was last here in August supporting 2 Live Crew.
“The first time I saw Machine Gun Kelly, it blew my mind and I knew I wanted to get involved. There was so much energy. Honestly it was the most amazing act I’ve ever seen. It is more like a punk rock show, but with hip hop,” he described.
He noted his show isn’t quite like that, but he is bringing multi-instrumentalist Jeff Wales, who he met through engineer Stoker DeLuca.
“He plays guitar and bass and beatboxes,” he said.
He is dedicating his show to the memory of DJ Booda, a popular concert promoter who passed away in August.
“The show is definitely dedicated to Booda. He was a great guy. He helped a lot of people. He was a class act in the hip hop community. Ask any touring artist from coast to coast, and they will tell you a story about him. We've lost a really great guy,” he said.
Johnny Dilemma has come a long way in the past five years, when he started to take his music career seriously.
Before that, emergency brain surgery made him re-evaluate his life.
“I had a headache and went to get a CAT scan and five hours later I was undergoing emergency brain surgery,” he summarized.
“It definitely influenced my music. So I talk a lot about self-empowerment. I like a lot of different ideas,” he said.
“ A lot of it is about feeling good, feeling confident, and of course, there is a lot about having a good time in the clubs,” he said.
He recorded a new CD, ‘the Stand’ just for this tour.
“ Would you believe it only took two weeks,” he asked adding he wanted to put something new together for the new tour and jumped to it thanks to beats supplied by Justin Frew.
One of the beats incorporates Frank Sinatra’s ‘World on A String,’which becomes a new song by the same name.
“I liked the energy of the Frank Sinatra track. He is an incredibly gifted singer and it was one of the best produced beats. I’m really happy with it. It is very happy go lucky” he said.
He is also working on videos for some of the tracks form the new EP with engineer Stroker DeLuca.
He feels lucky to have opened for bigger names and bigger audiences, not to mention different age groups
“I’ve got to play for older audiences in big, big, venues for 2-4,000 people with Snoop Dogg. But for Machine Gun Kelly, I’m playing for younger audiences. They are a lot of fun,” he said.
The show begins at 9 p.m. Tickets are $40 regular, $70 VIP.
