Late last year, when Twitter began to shift from a clubhouse with fun jokes to a knife festival, I was searching for a place to talk about my love for rap music with other people. My old friend group who fit this bill had been co-opted by an ex, and it turns out listening to new 2 Chainz songs and deconstructing hip-hop memes just isn’t as much fun on your own.
Luckily, Jordan Sowunmi, someone I knew only from Twitter and through his previous work at Vice, had a solution for me: He invited me to join his Facebook group, Boosie Fade, which was based off of a monthly rap party of the same name that he’d been throwing in Toronto.
The party, which he started with another friend, James Rathbone, had been going steady since 2014, but the Facebook group was a new element. Usually, I avoid Facebook groups like the plague, but desperate for conversation with other people who cared about the impending Kanye album, I joined. The impact it had on my life was immediate and palpable. Strangers from all over were posting tweets, Instagrams, songs, mixtapes, and memes that I could check in on at my leisure. Thoughtful conversations sprang to life across multiple comments — or multiple posts — and never devolved into the kind of nipping that often accompanies hip-hop arguments. There was an overwhelming sense of positivity in the group that I rarely encounter in online conversations about rap.
Watching the physical party take place from afar every couple of months left me with an undeniable FOMO, but beyond that, I was surprised at how quickly the group became part of my daily life, both as someone who works in the music industry and as an earnest, eager rap fan.
In December, I was able to finally attend a Boosie Fade party for myself, which elevated the impact of the entire concept to another level. In five years of living in and working in the online world of hip-hop, I’ve never encountered anything like the positive momentum, inclusiveness, and diversity that Boosie Fade represents. Here’s the backstory to one of the most unique spaces on the rap internet.
‘If We Think It’s So Easy, Why Don’t We Do It?’
“We want Boosie Fade to be a space where everyone belongs,” Sowunmi says, of the impetus behind the community. “A big part of the Facebook group — and our parties — is that there are people who have been listening to hip-hop their entire lives, and there are people who have been listening to hip-hop for three to five years, or even one to two years. It’s not a place where people are going to try to stunt on you with their knowledge or your perceived lack thereof. You can come in at the level you’re at and then people respond in kind.”
In the very beginning, Boosie Fade originated from a DJ night gone wrong. A couple years ago, Sowunmi and Rathbone went to see a legendary hip-hop producer perform a live DJ set in Toronto, expecting to have the time of their lives. Instead, they left disappointed by a set that fell flat, was full of weird rarities and lacked the popular, contemporary songs the crowd was dying to hear. The songs were virtually undanceable, something that stuck out in particular, and seemed to undermine the whole point of the show.
“We kept asking ourselves ‘Why doesn’t he just play some very popular songs from right now, or from two or three years ago?'” Sowunmi remembered. “It just didn’t seem that hard, when people are excited to go out, to make people have fun. Just play the songs that they want to hear, it’s as simple as that. I think out of that conversation we decided that if we think it’s so easy, why don’t we to do it?”
Their party emerged out of this fairly simple desire: To listen to popular rap music out in a club with friends. Or, to hear those bubbling under, long-lost cult hits that never made their way to the radio but racked up thousands of plays on Youtube. There was a sense, too, of making space for rap songs like those to be heard communally in the same way that fans listen at home, alone, and to introduce a place where people could dance, enjoy themselves, and discover the deeper reaches of a song in a way that they typically can’t in a club.
“We wanted the music to create the atmosphere,” Rathbone said. “DJs often do that annoying thing where they’ll play an EDM remix of a rap song or just play the hook.” says Rathbone. “We wanted to play the original versions of songs, not all chopped up in dumb ways.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5-j-zmb8rc
For a taste of the kind of rap songs that grace Boosie Fade’s boards, consider 2 Chainz’s “Good Drank” featuring Quavo and Gucci Mane, as the platonic ideal of a track that would be blasted at the event. Kid Cudi’s “Frequency,” Dreezy’s “We Gon’ Ride” (featuring Gucci Mane), Kamaiyah’s “N****s,” A Boogie With Da Hoodie’s “Timeless,” Jazz Cartier’s “Dead Or Alive,” Murda Beatz and Pressa’s “Novacane,” and Mo G & Smoke Dawg’s “Still” are other examples.
Of course, bigger, new rap hits like Big Sean’s “Bounce Back,” Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” Travis Scott’s “Antidote,” Future’s “Used To This,” and of course, the reigning rap joy turn up anthem Migos’ “Bad and Boujee,” are all likely candidates as well. But the parties themselves quickly grew to be just one element of the Boosie Fade movement.
Putting The 6 On The Map
Beginning in 2014, Sowunmi and Rathbone began throwing the Boosie Fade party once a month, hosting the event primarily at a bar in Toronto called Red Light. They named it in honor of Lil Boosie’s inimitable stylings, of course, but like any good name, there’s level to the phrase.
“The name is a bit of a play on words,” Rathbone explained. “Literally, a Boosie Fade is a version of a fade, a type of haircut made famous by the rapper Boosie Badazz, someone who Jordan and I were both fans of. Boosie was exactly the type of rapper we wanted to honor at our event — someone who is culturally important, but not necessarily sonically represented in Toronto’s nightlife. In this context ‘Fade’ means both getting faded or getting intoxicated, as well as crossfading between two songs on a DJ mixer.”
Toronto has long been a city with a chip on its shoulder. It’s an international city that boasts a casual diversity and a cultural relevance that flew under the radar for far too long. Plenty of stars bubbled up just under superstar status, only to miss out on worldwide recognition at the last minute. Though the city is a hotbed for music, art, business, and travel, it was never seen as quite on par with a New York or a Paris, or other cities with international scale and influence in the cities.
“There’s an excitement in the air in Toronto lately, especially related to the rap scene, and I think Boosie Fade is a part of that,” Rathbone says. “I think that Drake has been huge for Toronto’s identity. I’ve been DJing for almost nine years now, and it was tough to find an audience for rap downtown that wasn’t super old school. He helped make Toronto a cooler place in general.”
In addition to Drake, Sowunmi mentions The Weeknd, Tory Lanez, and Jazz Cartier as artists whose rise has helped increase Toronto’s standing in the rap game and, at the same time, grown the party scene. “I think there are a lot of people who are willing to come out to an event like this that maybe a few years ago, maybe the event didn’t exist, or they wouldn’t necessarily have felt comfortable going to that event,” he said. “The success of all these local artists created this feeling that we can win in the hip-hop game at large.”
Boosie Fade emerged right around the time Drake had begun to officially put the 6 on the map in a new way. Sowunmi, who split his time between Houston and Toronto growing up, felt that alluding to the south helped indicate what kind of music the party sought to represent. Something that is still apparent thanks to the mainstream success of southern artists like Future, Young Thug, and Rae Sremmurd. But Sowunmi notes that even as the parties have “morphed and mutated into something that’s way more all-encompassing,” the name continues to feel indicative of their current concept.
“It’s still something that is very representative of what we want to bring to a party and the kind of music that we want to play,” says Sowunmi “There’s no negative energy in the crowd, which is not always the case for parties in Toronto. There’s some parties where, you know, there’s a lot of people hanging against the walls and kind of watching the scene. There’s some parties that people go there to be seen, but our parties you’re just there to hear the music and have fun. It’s a very safe space.”
From Dancefloor To Digital Movement
As the party grew in size and popularity, the founders noticed that the Facebook wall for each event carried an energy of its own that lived online. When Sowumni took a job with Wieden + Kennedy, that meant an international move to Amsterdam, converting Boose Fade into an online forum seemed like a natural evolution for capturing the vibe of what they’d created and spreading it beyond Toronto.
“The party definitely surpassed the original goals, which, for Jordan and I was just to go out and have some fun and hear some music,” Rathbone says. “I remember a night in August that first summer when it was really hot out, and the place, Red Light, was full of people dancing. So many people said at the time, it just felt like a movie. Everything clicked in this very intense atmospheric way.”
Finding that kind of magical experience online might seem like a challenge, but given how the event pages each had their own kind of tangible excitement, harnessing that energy for one big group seemed like a no-brainer. “People who loved the event would post new songs that they were hype on,” Rathbone said. “This caught on so much that the event pages were almost as much of a thing as the events themselves. It was Jordan’s idea to take that energy and put some structure for it, in the form of the group.”
Once Boosie Fade had an online home, via their Facebook group, the movement began to solidify in a way that even the most successful DJ night or party could not have predicted. It grew from a party atmosphere into a true community, one that was focused on celebrating hip-hop culture without any of the usual shaming, infighting, or one-upping. It became a powerful, peaceful space. And it continues to grow.
“Our event wall was basically the space that I haven’t found and have never seen on the internet,” Sowunmi says. “It was a place where people were posting songs and memes and GIFs, and it was such a very positive environment. On the internet — especially relating to hip-hop — it’s very rare to find civil conversation, or even mostly positive, conversation. A lot of times you find people set up their taste as in opposition to something, but what we were trying to foster is that whatever you like is right. It’s not about what you dislike. I was trying to think of a way to keep that energy and conversation from the event wall going, and that’s what spawned the Facebook group.”
Sowunmi wants the group to have a very specific function within the rap world — it was designed to be an antidote to the negativity and toxicity that had begun to take root in the hip-hop world at large.
“There is so much negativity in the rap world, there’s so much it’s already fighting against,” Sowunmi says. “There’s the beef and online there’s an entire economy that’s based on rap beefs. No shots at him, but there’s the DJ Vlads and the DJ Academics of the world. They basically subsist off the beef and fostering that.”
Sowunmi wants Boosie Fade to be about celebrating the art and the artists (who, he points out, often overcome tremendously difficult circumstances to tell their stories). “I’m interested in how the music touches people in different ways,” he says. “For some people I think it gives a real sense of community, knowing that there are a bunch of people that like this music in a very earnest way in the way that they do.”
Though neither of the Boosie Fade founders currently lives in Toronto, both are so devoted that they return to the city every couple of months to continue throwing the party. Rathbone, who moved to New York last fall, travels up for the parties, and Sowunmi flies back in order to host the event.
“There’s just an energy here that we want to keep building on,” Sowunmi says. “Moving to Amsterdam, at no point did I ever consider stopping. It was just too unique of a thing. I knew from having gone to parties in Toronto, and having written about hip-hop scene in Toronto, how unique the crowd that we have is, and how special the vibe of our party is. There was no way — no matter where in the world I was — that I was going to give up on that.”
Ignoring Hip-Hop Tribalism In Favor Of Inclusion
When I went to Toronto last December to experience the party for myself, I immediately felt welcome, even as an international guest. I was surprised at just how diverse the group was, and how free everyone seemed to be to dance and enjoy the music without worrying about what other people were doing.
Great parties breed the freedom to forget who you are outside of their walls. You can lose yourself in the safety of a song that you love. Boosie Fade offered me that kind of escape and the chance to dance without reservation. There, I was able to gel with other people from all backgrounds who love rap without a trace of irony, who don’t consider it frivolous or secondary, and who have no pretense beyond a passion for the culture. That was unique and special, but there was an added element because of the thriving community I had already encountered online, which allowed me to feel like I was included even when I wasn’t in Toronto.
Alice Blackwell, a member of Boosie Fade whose R&B zine and Facebook group Sowunmi and Rathbone cite as an inspiration of sorts, agreed that the diversity and freedom of the online community is a driving force of Boosie Fade’s success.
“Liz Fulton and I founded How Does It Feel in March 2014,” Blackwell says. “HDIF is an ever-evolving, shape-shifting forum with the purpose of creating an inclusive space in which R&B fans can talk, share, express, party, dance, etc. I think what Jordan and James have tried to do with Boosie Fade is similar — to create spaces both online and with their parties where an ever-diverse group of people, all connected through their love of rap music, feel welcome, and can thrive.”
As the internet becomes a more critical part of the discourse surrounding hip-hop, R&B, and the culture that these movements have spawned, centering around inclusion and positivity is something not a lot of people have taken the time to do. But Boosie Fade’s insistence on creating a space where listeners of all levels and backgrounds feel welcome has elevated the event above the typical DJ night into something important in a world full of content-churning blogspots.
“Hip-hop parties, clubs, websites, forums and comments sections are typically dominated by a single demographic and/or tone,” Sal Patel, another longtime Boosie Fade member and Toronto resident says. “There’s fan forums that are dominated by teenaged white boys, who front like they’re not from stable suburban homes. And on the other end of the spectrum, there’s places like World Star Hip Hop, where people use their anonymity to ‘other’ and bully. People find their tribes in most online hip-hop forums (and hip-hop parties), and try to build likeness rather than celebrate diversity and a spectrum of opinion. Boosie Fade’s membership, more than any other hip-hop fan community I’ve seen, is diverse, eclectic and accepting.”
Patel further argues that it was Toronto’s status as an outsider city before Drake’s influence that helps maintain the open-minded perspective and diversity that is one of the group’s hallmarks.
“Before Drake, Toronto rap fans, spent their lives on the outside of hip-hop culture,” he says. ” As a city, this history has made us more objective and analytical. We’ve been observers to a scene which we weren’t part of, or warmly welcomed into, for years.”
Patel adds that the joy that comes from witnessing the Toronto hip-hop community’s ascent has mixed with that unique objectivity. “Everyone at a Boosie Fade event is still an appreciator of the art that the event is celebrating, but equally appreciative of having a space in which to celebrate,” he said. “The curated news and conversation in the group with like-minded and woke members is a rarity, as is trying to incite a dialogue about the art and culture. In terms of curation, Boosie Fade has a real editorial voice, one that equally balances and champions emerging voices with established legends, gender diversity, intersections to social justice issues, mental health awareness, politics and more.”
Letting The Fade Grow Out
At the start of this new year, Sowunmi and Rathbone are focusing on ways to bring Boosie Fade to even more people. They’re creating an email newsletter to help combat the ephemera that can come along with a Facebook post, and are continuing to throw parties that bring people who love rap music together as often as possible. The Facebook group continues to grow and remains a core element of keeping the Boosie Fade community connected.
“After the last party I had a bunch of people come up to me and talk to me about what the group means to them and how that affects their day-to-day,” Sowunmi says. “There are people who have told me they’re literally only on Facebook so they can be in the Boosie Fade group. Honestly, it’s really touching. For me, the group means a lot to me because I’m able to discuss hip-hop in the way that I experience it. It’s my favorite thing to look forward to, it’s my favorite thing in the world. I love the community, it sustains me.”
He’s not the only one, either. What started as a Toronto-based party has the possibility of impacting rap fans all over the world through the internet, and at just about 400 members, Boosie Fade is one small space that’s changing the rap internet for good.
With artists like Chance The Rapper, who are more concerned about spreading joy and positivity than besting other rappers with bars, perhaps the next serious movement within hip-hop is to turn away from negativity and in-fighting, things, and try to build a real community. Boosie Fade may not be a solution, but it’s a start, and within this steadily growing framework there is potential for a real movement to take root.
The Boosie Fade Facebook group is open to anyone. You can join here and subscribe to the new email newsletter here. The next Boosie Fade party will be January 27 at Parts & Labour.
