LB Spiffy is having a hell of a year—and, unlike most of us, it’s not because of the Rona. The 19-year-old rapper, hailing from Toronto’s Jane and Finch area (the stomping ground of scene fixtures Pressa and Friyie) is on a tear of category-defining collaborations and curating a catalog of crazy, fresh music videos. It's wild to think nods from Toronto rap titan Drake and beauty icon Kylie Jenner could all come off a feature in NBA2K promo trailer and word of mouth at his high school. Since blowing up at the young age of 16, his career has continued to progress at breakneck speed—earlier this year, he teamed up with Smiley to drop "Name Brand," a follow up to his previous 6ixBuzz collabs 6ixUpsideDown and NorthernSound, and released a slew of mind-bending videos, like the Simone Vezzano-produced ad-hoc acid trip of a visualizer for his single "Income" from earlier this year.
“I’m not even gonna lie—before, I was more open to collaborating... and I still am, but now you have to be good," LB Spiffy tells us. "I don’t care about the name anymore... as long as I see you’ve got talent and you’re bringing a new style and you’re wavy? I’m in.”
The latest co-conspirator to make the cut? Zac Facts, who is behind the video for Spiffy's new single "Kawasaki," an homage to the favourite ride of devout motorheads everywhere.
“I’m always trying to look for something different, so I love working with videographers where I can do that,” LB said of the Facts collab. “I want people to rewatch it.”
So has Spiffy ever cruised through on a Kawasaki? “I’ve been on one before but never fully ridden it,” he admits, and then explains laughingly, “You know, 'cause I was young.”
The inspiration for the song didn’t come from ripping down the freeway, but instead arrived rather unassumingly from a run-of-the-mill studio session. “One day I was in the studio and was listening to a beat that was called 'Kawasaki' and I thought it was so cool. I usually like to rap about girls and stuff—I was thinking about girls at the time—but this was just something so different that I had to try it.”
Watch the video for "Kawasaki" above.
