“Rapper Kyprios has seen 'Sadder Days'”

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 08:10 AM PST

Every week, we offer free downloads of music by indie artists. This week, check out a song by Kyprios and nine other artists at www.canada.com/theplaylist.

He's a North Vancouver kid named David Coles, but as a high-schooler dreaming of a life in hip hop, he knew he needed a catchier handle than that. Coming into religion class one day at St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary, the teacher had written the word "kyprios'' on the board and young David asked what it meant. The teacher answered, "Lord of the Manor." Good enough, thought young David.

As a last name, he's also taken on "Bayday," which has nothing to do with the fact there is free delivery on all mattress sets at the Bay right now and you do not pay for 24 months. As the youngest in a large blended family, a sibling had trouble pronouncing Baby David and shortened it to Bayday. It stuck, and for a long time.

For Kyprios Bayday, the fast-rising and articulate hip-hopper who has shared stages with such luminaries as Wyclef Jean, Busta Rhymes and Naughty By Nature, 2011 is looking pretty good. For one thing, he's getting married this year.

For another, he recently won himself $100,500 and a massively intensive course in navigating the treacherous byways of today's music business. In an inspired stroke for young B.C. musicians, the wildly eclectic Vancouver radio station The Peak 100.5 joined with Music BC industry Association in 2009 to mount the Peak Performance Project, a search for the best solo artists and bands around.

Against the odds, Kyprios, the only hip-hop artist in a cast of nearly 500 entrants, took top prize last November in the second Peak Performance Project. Just before that, as one of the 20 finalists, he was also invited along to the RockRidge Canyon resort in Princeton for a boot-camp drilling in the many vagaries of making a living in music.

"I learned more in six months than I did in the 10 years previous,'' says Kyprios. "And I don't think that I'm the only artist to say that. I'm a guy now who's been in the game for a long time, and at a young age had a lot of help, had management, had publicists, had an accountant. I would just put my head down and say, 'I'm the artist, you guys handle the business.' To look at all the things you need to do to be a successful artist was a mountain, an avalanche I would just run away from.

"The Peak Performance Project really broke down each section and brought in a specialist, someone who talked about licensing, social networking, your publishing, breaking down techniques to make your live show better, legal aspects. Everything was broken down to make it way easier to digest."

Through the contest process, Kyprios kept in touch with the various industry consultants, and with good reason. From the time a decade ago when he drove down to New York City -- the undisputed Oz of hip hop -- and he learned he needed to up his game, both in his work and adopting that New York energy level, his career had been on an upward arc until he got signed to Sony Records.

Through various corporate machinations and one label absorbing another -- these things happen with depressing regularity in the moonscape that is today's music business -- he got left by the wayside. Now armed with a lot of knowledge and a very nice wad of cash, Kyprios is ready to steer his own boat.

This week's featured free download is Kyprios' "Sadder Days."

"I call it the feel-bad hit of the summer,'' he says. "It's kinda got a summery vibe to it. Sometimes when I'm in a good mood, I write depressing things and sometimes when I'm really depressed, I write positive things. With this one, I definitely was going through very difficult times, I was struggling a lot. I really like it when we get to the Chaka Khan reference at the end when I say, 'Tell me something good, tell me that you love me.' I love that song, I love what it means."

Also on the Jan. 4 Playlist:

Barron S, "The Push"

Christina Alconcel, "Crystal Ball"

Dave Adnams, "Everything You Are"

Fera, "Tornado"

Gina Williams, "You Are Not Alone"

James Kasper, "Old Fashioned Way"

Karen Fowlie, "Letters to Evelyn"

Lindsay May, "Stick Around"

Tarl Feser, "Mamma"

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Wednesday 12 January 2011

“Rapper Kyprios has seen 'Sadder Days'”

“Rapper Kyprios has seen 'Sadder Days'”

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