Winnipeg's Most co-founder trying to process death of Jamie Prefontaine
Prefontaine, a.k.a. Brooklyn, had 'something about him that drew people in,' says Tyler Rogers
A co-founder of hip-hop band Winnipeg's Most says he's still trying to process the fact that one of his bandmates, Jamie Prefontaine, has died.
Prefontaine, also known by the stage name Brooklyn, died Tuesday at the age of 30.
"I haven't really had a chance to process it. I haven't really had a chance to sit down with my own thoughts," Tyler Rogers, who goes by the stage name Charlie Fettah, told CBC News on Thursday.
"Since it happened it's been hard to sit down and process it because so many people have been reaching out, giving their condolences and asking if they can help out, which is awesome. Like, the outpouring of support for his family has been really good.
The band later disbanded. Rogers acknowledged there were disagreements between him and Prefontaine.
"We weren't on the best of terms, but we weren't on the worst of terms. But all of that seems really irrelevant when something like this happens," he said.
"I mean, all the petty differences and all the arguments and all that, it doesn't seem, like, important," he added.
"I regret our relationship being in a place where he felt like he couldn't reach out and I felt like I couldn't reach out to even call him up and ask him how he was doing, because now that he's not here anymore you can't take that back."
Rogers described Prefontaine as "a good, good guy" who had "something about him that drew people in."
'Put our city on the map'
He also looked back at the successes that Winnipeg's Most experienced during its time in the city's music scene.
The band debuted in the summer of 2010, won a handful of Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards, including for best new artist, and were featured in Maclean's magazine. They followed that up with six more APCMAs in 2011.
"Myself, Jamie, Jon-C, we did something that was never done before, especially for Winnipeg hip-hop and aboriginal music."
Winnipeg's Most also faced criticism for glorifying violence, drugs and gang lifestyles in the First Nations community. Prefontaine lived a similar life, spending time in and out of jail.
"I think what we did is people who thought they didn't have a voice, we gave them a voice. Especially with the rawness of the records and the rawness of our lyrics and the rawness of our videos, we didn't want to do something safe," Rogers said.
"Jamie was a part of that, Jon-C was a part of that, I was a part of that. There was a conversation we had I remember and someone had kind of recommended that we tone it down, and we were like no, we're never going to tone it down because if we tone ourselves down and we start acting safe, then we're not being truthful to ourselves and to our fans."
With files from the CBC's Jillian Taylor