Pre-Drake Toronto songs that show love for the 6
Compose a song about Toronto & you could win $10,000 & a CBC-produced music video!
"Travel 'round the world but I still come home to my city by the lake where my soul was born. Yeah, Toronto! My heart's in your city."
It's a good bet that line from City By The Lake by KC Roberts & The Live Revolution resonates with the vast majority of us who live here.
The catchy ode to Toronto by the seven-man funk army appeared on its 2013 CD, Parkdale Funk 2: Sides, and it's one of many anthems local musicians have written over the last few years.
You can add your name to that list if you enter CBC Toronto's Song in the 6ix contest. Write a love letter to the city and you could win $10,000, plus a CBC-produced music video. The contest closes on Friday.
"I grew up in this city, learned to make music and perform in this city, and I had some of the most magical and ridiculous nights of my life in this city," KC Roberts told CBC News. "I spent many years diving into different neighbourhoods and scenes throughout Toronto, and I knew there was something special about this town. Toronto always had enough gravity to make me want to stay, because the world seemed to come here."
Here are a few other tributes to Toronto that fill us with pride.
"I was raised on Arlington Avenue, where the mix of cultures is magical."
On Life In The Screwface Capital, rapper and activist Theology 3 tells us what he loves about Toronto over a sample of Coldplay's mega-hit Clocks. Theo christened the city the Screwface Capital in 2000 to convey the indifference local hip-hop fans showed to homegrown acts. In fact, Drake made a reference to the term in his song 5 AM In Toronto,
"Screwface Capital is about everything from our unresolved fight with systemic racism to regional borders to my pride in being from here," Theo told CBC. "I wanted to convey our originality, our slang, our resolve, and our ever-evolving identity as a city."
"Toronto, T dot or TO, Screwface capital like Theo. The Big Smoke, Hogtown, Megacity is where I'm from, frankly couldn't pick a better city."
Back in 2008, rapper Abdominal wrote T-Ode, a track that name checked nearly every neighbourhood in the city.
He said he travels a lot but is always glad "to touch down at Pearson at the end of a tour.
"The song's about things people love about Toronto — clean, multicultural, safe, lots of culture," he said. "And I'm a huge food guy, so Toronto's pretty hard to beat in that department."
Caroline Brooks of the Good Lovelies, the popular local folk-country trio, got tired of how Toronto is viewed by the rest of the country so she responded to the criticism with a love song.
"Backyard is my response to all the Toronto naysayers, it's a cheeky love song that acknowledges the city's faults but recognizes beauty in the imperfections," Brooks said. "And isn't that the most honest kind of love song?"
She says the city's ravine system helps keep her sane, and likes how it "connects me and my family to nature in the midst of a big, beautiful, bustling metropolis."