Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Roger Mooking: Toronto Mike'd #517

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

Mike chats with Roger Mooking about years as MC Mystic with The Maximum Definitive and Bass is Base, his solo work, and his career as a celebrity chef on television.

Welcome to episode 517 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Alma Pasta, StickerU.com, Cappadia LLP CPAs and Pumpkins After Dark. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and my guest this week is celebrity chef. I don't even know how to... Restaurateur?

Is that close enough? That's a hard word for me. I struggle, man. Television host, author, and award-winning recording artist Roger Mookin. Welcome, Roger. Fresh little intro there, man. I like that. television host author and award-winning recording artist roger mookin you got a fresh little intro there man i like that ill vibe man who did that ill vibe uh he's a local rapper producer and uh this is an original composition he threw together when i started this

thing back in 2012 wow that's nice though that and that actually means something to me because you're a musician. Like, you know your craft. I hope so. If you say this is good, man, I'm going to take that to the bank. All right. I promised a longtime listener, and we missed her at the last Toronto Mic listener experience, but I promised JJ I would play this song off the top here. Oh. Don't worry.

It's not you. It's not you. You're coming up though. So JJ is Trini to the bone, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. That's David Rudder, right? You got it.

Yeah. You know, I heard this song for the first time when I think Trinidad and Tobago were in the World Cup, I think. Yeah. You're born there. I was born in Trinidad, yeah. So how old are you when you make your way to Canada? My family, I was five years old when my family picked up and left me.

That's pretty young. Do you remember anything about living there? Yeah, I remember lots about there. I remember going down by the beach and collecting crab and making curry crab and dumpling. I remember my aunts and uncles, my family, the house that I grew up in, going down by the beach and collecting crab and making curry crab and dumpling i remember uh my aunts and uncles my family i know the house that i grew up in all that yeah man i remember a lot you know i i got a five-year-old son and i'm always wondering like uh i'm giving him such a

great life man i'm so amazing as a dad like you know what i mean am i you know what i mean am i wasting my time what's left to do it's like no but your job is done if he doesn't remember any of it what was the point you know what i mean like i you know it time? What's left to do? Your job is done. If he doesn't remember any of it, what was the point? You know what I mean? It's like, come on, you put all that. I think the neurological connections are a very important stage. You're fusing a lot of things, man. So your work is not lost. You're right.

I like to think so anyways. I have four daughters. Four daughters? I wasted a lot of time. Okay, so what ages? Can you give me the ages? 12, 11, 8, 8 5 and 6 okay because i got four kids too but i did two and two so but four daughters that's difficult to do like you

can't even like uh four four total is because it's a lot nowadays it's a lot man well four kids is a lot it is may i ask is it's all the same uh same right? You're with the same... Yes, sir. I got to check in because I cheated a little bit. Not in the literal sense, but two kids, marriage number one, and then a little break, and then two more kids, marriage number two. So four kids sounds like a lot. And then you're like, oh, that's two per woman. It's not as... It's not as...

But you did it. Yeah, good for you. Four daughters. No, she did it really well. Yeah, she did all the hard work. But you did it. Yeah, good for you. Four daughters. No, she did it really well. Yeah, she did all the hard work. That's for sure. Now, I got a quick, right off the top,

I got a quick Trinidadian question for you because Tyler Campbell, who helps me book guests for the show, he's a great guy. He wants to know, what's your favorite Trinidadian restaurant in the city? And what's your favorite Trinidadian dish? Trinidadian restaurant in the city? And what's your favorite Trinidadian dish? Trinidadian restaurant in the city. Right off the bat.

I love Ali's Roti Shop in Parkdale. But around Queens, Lakeshore West, around here, there's a place called Ducky's. You ever go to Ducky's? No. Where exactly? Lakeshore and... It's LinkedIn. Okay, you know what?

It's close. It's close. I walk by it all the time. Yeah, it's really close. It looks like it's a little bit grimy, but in there they make some really good roti, man. Really good. Doubles, real good doubles.

That's why you need to hear from authority, right? Because you walk by it, you think nothing of it, but you find out that's why uh that's you need to hear from authority right because you walk by it you think nothing of it but you find out that's where the good stuff is it literally is a hole in the wall like literally dog it's good though now when you move to uh canada yeah you're not moving to toronto man you're uh it's edmonton right edmonton my family took a train across the country and we spent, I don't know, a month or something Going across the country Stopped in every major city And at the end of it, my dad said

Edmonton is the place we're gonna go That is the spot What made him decide that? My wife is from Edmonton Oh, really? I'm sorry to hear that Yeah I'm just joking No, listen

I went there for her brother's wedding I went there And I don't want to say anything negative about Edmonton because it sounds like some arrogant Toronto guy picking on Edmonton. Edmonton's fine. But why did your dad pick Edmonton? At that time, you know,

he was mesmerized by no property taxes, a booming oil economy, and wide open sky. I think that that was it. And clearly we made that decision before the winter hit. That's right. If you had gone by in the winter, you never would have ended up there.

I heard they might get snow this week. Really? Maybe. Yeah, that happens regularly. They'll get little sprinkles like that early a lot. Well, think about it. We might hit 30 degrees today, but they might be wearing their parkas or something.

Oh, it's supposed to go up like that? here's i don't know it's it's pretty hot this week but um i'm gonna play a song from mc mystic oh boy okay firstly let's tell the people you're mc mystic yeah people know that yeah they know me as that from back in the day how'd you come up with mc mystic i used to rap in this crew in Edmonton called TMD, actually. It's interesting you have this TMDS thing there, right? So the maximum definitive. And we used to run in that crew, and all the raps I used to write, one of the dancers in the crew was like, yo, man, you're Mystic, man.

You're just mystical. So he actually named me Mystic. Do you know what TMDS stands for? Do you want to guess? No, no. Toronto Mic Digital Services. Oh, what? This is a little corporate swag,

a little corporate thing going on down the side. Got to slip in the subliminal ads here. Okay, this is Jungle Man. Jungle Man, yeah. My partner made this beat, and I said to him, yo, the beat feels like I'm going down the river in the jungle. It just felt like that.

So we built this song called Jungle Man around it. Let's get a little taste of it here. What are we talking 93 this is going back I guess even earlier than that 91 maybe 92

so this is Edmonton based hip hop band I guess the maximum definitive and this single got a Juno nomination right yeah Juno So this is Edmonton-based hip-hop band, I guess, the Maximum Definitive. And this single got a Juno nomination, right? Yeah, Juno nomination.

We did a video for it. We won Canadian Music Video Awards. Came to watch music and did Rap City. We're the first group ever to perform live to air on Rap City. Is that right? Yeah, ever, yeah. Soul in the City, Master T back then. All that stuff, man. It was amazing. Master T was just here.

Oh, really? August, I guess. Oh, man. He's the nicest dude, man. Yeah. You know, his brother is still, I think he's still a cameraman. I saw him the other day. Yeah, I saw him the other day.

I saw Basil the other day up at Maryland Dennis. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maryland Dennis. I was up there shooting Maryland Dennis. He was coming from Shooting other stuff

During TIFF And he just You know I've known him For so many years man Just run into him Over the years For sure But see everything's

Connected in Canada You know so now You mentioned Marilyn Dennis And I'm thinking Next week Mishy Mee's coming in To kick out the jams Okay

Speaking of Great Canadian hip hop artist But Mishy Mee's DJ Cause I just saw her open at beer fest when uh public enemy radio because i was interviewing chuck d oh yeah he's touring the public enemy radio right now because flavor flavor gonna get mad if he's such a he can't use public and he won't actually smart like you can't call it public enemy without play right but he's close he's got it close enough so you know he does the songs

yeah yeah it's funny when i uh so anyways i was interviewing chuck d and then opening that night was mishimi and mishimi's dj is a guy named jamar mcneil who uh is maryland dennis's co-host on 104.5 yeah so jam a DJ yeah so Jamar yeah who took Roger Ashby's spot yeah I knew about that

yeah I was talking to Marilyn about that actually but I didn't know he was a DJ and he DJs under the name

Jay Nice because he was a big Nice and Smooth fan okay yeah yeah yeah so like in honor of like Greg Nice Greg Nice yeah that's amazing

like the two I's and everything I think he added two I's so yeah he's Jay Nice and he's a Michimese DJ oh that's cool and you were on That's amazing Like the two I's And everything I think he added two I's So yeah He's Jay Nice And he's a Michimese DJ Oh that's cool And you were on

Maryland last week Yeah Maryland I do that regularly I'm a resident chef Of Maryland Of course She's been around A long time

She's the greatest man She deserves everything man She's OG You know She does radio in the morning Gets up Does radio in the morning

Runs Does Maryland dentist Hustles all this stuff, goes back. She's amazing. She's great at what she does. She's a Toronto radio institution. It's a Canadian institution. Yeah. You know, she's not Canadian, though.

Oh, she's not? Is she from Pittsburgh or is she just a Pittsburgh fan? I thought she was from Pittsburgh. I thought she was born and raised in America and then she came up here. But Maryland's fantastic. She is fantastic. I dug that.

Sample the meters. By the way, tell me anything. Spit out those legs. Remember Papa Video? I always like pop a video okay pop a video yeah i could watch hours of pop a video because it's like you know the jam or whatever you know the video but like these things will pop up like oh this the extra was sick and then the whatever that's like the original meme yeah yeah so you could do pop up audio yeah

yeah so but that's all we sampled the meters and when we shot the video we used the actual record and so we put it in like this grain basket with some grain and we're scratching on top like it was a turntable you know just like to illustrate the whole concept bringing like the past and the future together right so we did that we and then came to toronto um to do like the canadian music video awards and that's where we met like all these og toronto djs like um master ron nelson we met ron nelson we met dj x um paulie lopez all these dudes right jason palma and i remember jason and Pauly cornered me in the Cameron house one day and they said yo bro why did you take that meters record and scratch it on the grade like we didn't even know it's like oh you know Justin's dad had these fresh records we sampled

it we just brought it out but it's like a highly coveted uh collector's item you know that's amazing now why what why does uh the maximum definitive uh come to an end like how does how does it you break up or i kind of morphed into bassist bass you know and it just kind of took off and then there i was like did you do both simultaneously for a while i was doing both for a mile and then the bass bass just kind of exploded and i'm so i was like oh i was doing this thing and then it just that was it you know well here let me let me get to the oh there's a few big ones but let me get to the the first one i remember from much music all right yo so you know part of why this record blew up is coolio fantastic

voyage came out the same time and they used to play the videos back to back funk mobile and then coolio right and then this turned into the summer of whatever that was, 92 or whatever it was. Yeah, I'm going to say 93, but you would know better than me. So I was playing this last, so my wife's from Edmonton,

who's a bit younger than me, but I was playing some bass in space, including this next album. But basically, she was grooving out, remembering bass is bass, and it's good stuff, man.

Yeah, man, it's good. I remember writing this record on the couch at my aunt's house. I was just coming from the club. I came home and I had this idea, like some really visual lyrics. So I wrote out all the lyrics on a line paper with a red pen. I used to write all red pen back then. And I wrote all the lyrics And then the next morning

Chin called me He's like Yo what's up Did you write anything For that thing That we were working on I was like Yeah check

I'll sing it to you When I wake up better So that's what you hear On the beginning of this song Is the answering machine Recording us talking Saying Yo when I wake up better

I'll call you back And I'll sing you The stuff that I wrote Right Amazing See pop up audio I love call you back and i'll sing you the stuff that i wrote right amazing see pop-up audio i love it pop-up audio you just do this the whole time so all right so you said you shouted out chin there they'll shout out like who was in bass is bass with yourself here bass is bass with myself chin and jenny and ivana santilli and you were still uh mic. Still MC Mystic. MC Mystic.

I love it. Can I just call you that for the rest of the episode? Yeah, if you want, man. Does Marilyn ever call you that? No, she never. Maybe after this she will. Amazing. Here, I'm going to just play a bit more here. On that death that can't survive I can't survive Ooh, yeah

I need a ride Let me ride Shadda pop, shadda pop, yeah Ooh, shadda pop, yeah Riding in my Funkmobile Yo, I remember when we used to do this song live, we used to do the chorus for probably like 20 minutes straight at the end. And my voice would just be like mashed up, you know?

Oh man, it grooves. It's fantastic, actually. And maybe time makes everything sound better. I don't know, but it sounds great in the headphones right now. That's for damn sure. Now, so Funkmobile obviously got a lot of attention and stuff. And so did Funkmobile exist before the first album? Like, just break it down for me. How do you get the...

No, we were making, unbeknownst to everybody, we were making this kind of first bassist bass record, right? I was still kind of in both groups thing. And I was working with them a lot doing stuff doing shows um and writing and all that stuff with them and before you knew it we had a body of work and we put it out shot a video photo shoot and i was like part of the photo shoot and then the thing right and next thing you know we put this song out and uh much music Played the hell out of it Yeah

And then radio picked it up Back then We used to go to record companies And they used to say Nah we don't get it You're not Canadian enough That's the word we used to get a lot You're not Canadian enough

Right And we like wow Okay that's kind of crazy Yeah it's bizarre yeah Yeah I mean like Tragic Hip Our Lady Peace Was running things You know what I mean That like, Tragic Hip, Our Lady Peace was running things.

You know what I mean? That's funny, because I think Maestro told me that when Maestro broke, right, with... Stevie B saw him on Electric Circus. Yeah, yeah. So he was talking about

how he rapped American style, like, and he wasn't a Canadian-sounding rapper, but that's an interesting little thing we put on our artists or whatever. But, so how did... You know what's funny?

Then when this song blew up and the record blew up and all this stuff, we put on another thing and it started to blow up. All the record companies came back and all those same people

who said we weren't Canadian enough, a year later were like, this is the most Canadian thing ever. We want to sign it. We got a black guy india guy that's italian girl it's like super canada and then they like took it waved the flag and we got an american deal with that and so we went from being like not canadian enough to super can super canadian in like a year now i kind of screwed up the chronology here but so you're you're you know the band uh your first

band they're the maximum definitive is an edmonton band right but this is a toronto band basis base yeah i came for the maximum definitive i was supposed to stay two weeks we're doing soul in the city rap city uh do you remember the host was it michael williams who was hosting this stuff do you remember back soul in the city back then was um master t it was a master t to sell the city uh uh electric circus we're doing the whole back then was Master T. So Master T did it. Master T did it. Electric Circus. We're doing the whole circuit, right?

And I was supposed to only stay for two weeks and I just never went back home. I slept on my aunt's couch. And then it just kind of morphed, you know? And then you just hooked up with like Chin and Nirvana?

Well, what happened is a few months earlier, the Maximum Definitive and this other version of Bassist Bass ended up doing this small pool hall in Vancouver for Music West, a music conference back then, right? Okay. And so they saw our show and we like squashed that show and we loved that. They were like this kind of brand new heavy-ish kind of sounding thing at that time, right?

And a couple months later denise donlon the head of much music called me at my house in edmonton right so we did the conference in vancouver about everywhere everybody went back home respectively so i'm at home in edmonton and denise donlon called me up one day and i'm like she's like hi this is denise donlon i'm like whatever it's like puffy calling you you know no it's a big deal denise oh she called back and she's like oh no no seriously you know we you know you're nominated for juno and we want you to come out to much music and perform on some shows perform on the canadian music video awards right so i was like okay cool and i remember

saying you know we kind of broke so we can't really get out there yeah she's like no don't worry we'll make sure we take care of everything and you come out do the show so we came out did the show we won the award and then we ended up doing the whole circuit in much music all the electric segments all that stuff yeah yeah yeah of course 299 queen yeah yeah so when we got called to do all those performances i was thinking like it would be fresh to have like a live band backing us up, right? And supporting all this stuff. So a couple months earlier, I had met Chin and Ivana in Vancouver. So I called them up and I said, yo, we're coming to Toronto. We're doing this stuff. Do you want to be our backup band? And they're like, yeah, sure. Yeah,

we do. So they ended up being our backup band for those live performances. And then that turned into just, you know, good energy and building. And next thing you know, we did this record. Just put out this song Funkmobile. Yeah. And it just boom, you know. Funkmobile changes everything. Okay.

So that first album is called First Impressions for the Bottom Jugglers. Jigglers. Yeah. First Impressions for the Bottom Jigglers. I decided it should be Jugglers. Is it too late? Is it too late to change it's too late it's too late it's like when bush came out and they said oh we got to be bush x remember this and then it's like oh no now we can be bush again yeah yeah that's a renegotiation that's right all right the yeah fuck jugglers jigglers uh you know

what actually you know what i actually want to put the blame on you if i may because that's what i do with my guests i put the blame on them but if I may, because that's what I do with my guests. I put the blame on them. But I'm pretty sure that there's a sentence I actually, because I'm reading this sentence because I like the line in it, that I think I copied and pasted from the bio on rogermooking.com. So I think you've got it spelled. I think you've got jugglers. Is it jugglers?

Yeah, I'm dead serious because the line I liked, I might as well just spit it out, but food feeds the body. Music feeds the soul. So I was copying the line with that because I was going to ask you about that. And it's also got the name of this album and they call it Bottom Jugglers. But this is Bottom Jigglers.

We'll check that. Somebody's getting fired today. Nah. Some stern words. Maybe a congressional hearing. I want to see you angry like i just want to yeah record that i don't know if you want to see me angry man you get angry i don't get angry a lot no but if i do you seem chill like i'm feeling myself chilling because it's like contagious no i don't get angry a lot you know i stay pretty calm and or else energized but uh if i get angry

it's not it's not cute. Well, you got a good life. We'll get to all this. People are tuning in now. They're like, I thought this guy was a celebrity chef or whatever. And this guy, Toronto Mike, just wants to talk music. But we will get to the food stuff, of course. And that line, food feeds the body, music feeds the soul,

that sort of encompasses encompasses both those worlds right like uh yeah um and that is your line like you didn't get no pr company wrote that i came up with that when i was um putting out my first record soul food my first solo record soul food we were building up a bio and all that stuff and i was like yo we need to use this tag this is you know just this just hit me one one night there's a lot of things do and we just threw it it became like a tagline that all these years later people still gravitate to you know because it really sums up what the whole thing is yeah and you get the multi-dimensions here now back to the juno so you what was it like you win that you know so you're not just nominated but you win it right uh best r&b soul recording in 1995 like so what's it like to win a juno like is that a big deal or

we were really surprised about the juno and we did you go to the juno we performed at the junos that year um where was it it wasn't edmonton it was in hamilton ontario the hammer the hammer yes shout out to steve pakin my last guest from the hammer uh it was really surreal to be on stage at the junos you know for people don't know it's like in America, it's like the Grammys, right? So, yeah, it was really surreal to be up on stage at the Junos thinking, wow, like a year ago, these people said we weren't Canadian enough. And here we are, like representing Canada in a big way, you know? Do you remember, like, I mean, was that a big year for like the Tragical Hip? Do you remember any of the other like acts that were uh i remember our lady peace was really popping i remember um

yeah superman's dead oh yeah the earth was popping it was us um who else man 95 like a sloan i'm trying i'm trying to think of 95 was still in the matrix three more years i love dream more they they recorded that album in dj ron nelson's house oh yeah the end the legacy begins i know i'm telling i'm mainly telling the listeners because i can't tell roger anything this guy no no no no no no yeah dream warriors yeah we actually maximum definitive opened up for the dream wars in edmonton before the whole get out of here this club called the bronx man it was really like a underground rock, punk rock spot. So the night before, GWAR played.

You know about GWAR? Of course GWAR, yeah. GWAR, like they wear, if anybody doesn't know out there, they wear all these costumes and they have like these squirt guns that spit blood. Yeah, they're scary looking guys. Yeah, so we went, we got there and there's like blood all over the ceiling and all this stuff.

Amazing. It was us and the Dream Wars, man. That was a great show blood all over the ceiling. Amazing. Us and the Dream Wars, man. That was a great show. And now the legacy. You know, I'm trying. That's where I first met Ivan Barry and of course, Lou and Q. Yeah, King Lou and capital Q. Jane and Finch, guys.

That's cool. Now, okay. So we talked about so much to cover here, but let me get to the jam that my wife would kill me if I didn't play it because she absolutely adores this song. But I used to do this live and my lips would freeze from beatboxing.

By the end of it, it's like, oh my God, let's end this right now. I'm all over your blue skies. Who afflicted you with pain? I'll cry for you once again. They cast a shadow on your soul They try to sell everything you own They sit and wait for your decay I'll cry for you once again

You know that I cry, cry, cry For you once again You know that I'd cry, cry, cry For you once again I'd cry for you once again Yo, we owe this song to The Roots. The night before this song was written, there was a Roots concert at the Opera House.

And at that time, they had this kid named Rozella used to travel around with them. Rozella, you know, is like crazy beatbox, like incredible beatbox human. And that really inspired the whole beatbox thing. Oh, wow. This whole record, yeah. So this record is like, really, the Ro beatbox thing in this whole record. This record is like, really, the roots are a big part of it.

Again, pop-up audio, man. I'm digging it. Digging it. Now, okay, so if you had put a gun to my head and said, hey, Mike, name the biggest hit in Bassist history, I would have said Funkmobile. But this is really it, right? This is your biggest this is the biggest hit, right? It depends how you measure it, I guess.

I don't measure statistics. I don't look at statistics, man. I look at like... Your quality over... Maybe this got a lot of radio playing. Because at this time, we had signed to the record label and we had produced a song with the same people who did the Diggle Planets, right?

Yeah, yeah. So we did that record and then we put it out and this was the single that the record company pushed from our first major label debut thing, right? So that got the full breadth of radio and promotional tour and all that stuff going behind it, right? So maybe that contributes a bit more. Yeah, I think what I read is that it was your first top 20 hit, I Cry.

So this is From Memories of the Soul Shack Survivors. 1995, is it right? You guys were touring with Barenaked Ladies and Crash Test Dummies? Yeah, we did. That's quite the CanCon tour right there. We did James Brown in that year. We did a lot of really... Yeah, somebody said that.

Who was it? Oh, yeah. So 40 and Dunking is his name on Twitter. Anyways, he tweeted at me and said he saw you guys open for James Brown back in university. That's crazy. Yeah, we toured with James Brown. That was incredible, man. We were just watching that guy every night.

Hardest working man in show business. Yo, you know what's amazing? He'd been touring with the same band like 40 years at that point, right? And he would go through sound check with them for like two, three hours. And he would just grind sound check with them for like two, three hours. And he would just grind one section every night. He'd grind the vocalist for like three hours in sound check. Then the next day, he'd grind

the piano section for like three hours. Then he'd go grind the rhythm section the next night. They've been playing with him forever. They know the stuff. Amazing. But just grinding. You know, it's like when a James Brown crowd, are they happy to see you guys? What like uh like when a james brown crowd like are they happy to see you guys like what is it like opening up for james brown man that's that's like

i would just wear a t-shirt that said like i opened for james brown like and i would that's all i would tell i'd be on maryland dennis and they'd be like oh we're gonna cook this dish or whatever you'd be like maryland i opened for james brown seriously that's all i'd say we did masonic temple in toronto you know which is a concert hall you know everybody knows there's a concert hall it's a legendary venue in toronto for like hip-hop music and just in general you know it's all dj ron nelson doing yeah dj ron comes back to that yeah that guy so um yeah we played concert hall with james brown i gotta tell you we squashed that show we left that show we destroyed that place and then I remember

walking around outside going wow we just played with James Brown right just walking around we walked backstage

we were talking to all this band and we met James and all this stuff was he nice he was cool but he's very aware of the fact that

he is James Brown that's what happens he's a living legend bro yo he deserved that yeah when you are James Brown like dude come on you's a living legend bro yo he deserved that yeah when you are James Brown like dude come on you better damn

but well be aware that you're you're James fucking Brown he's very he's very aware he's James Brown you know well deserved but

I remember thinking wow if I never do anything in music ever again I'm straight after that yeah but not music in life

right for music I was like yo you can shut it down I could go to sleep and I'm good I'm straight. After that. Yeah, but not music. In life. Right? For music, man. I was like, yo. You can shut it down. I could go to sleep and I'm good. I'm straight. James Brown, you know, a fun fact that came to light recently

is the first time James Brown ever played this city, Toronto, was at a, like, now it's gone. And now it was a roller rink in Mimico called the Mimicombo. And it was James Brown's first ever live appearance in Toronto. As you know, Mimico is not- I thought it was the Cinesphere down by the-

Ontario Place? Ontario Place. Yeah, yeah. I thought you did that too. No, not at first. I don't think it existed back then, man. Really? But this is back in, I don't know, like late 50s or something like that.

I don't know. Because he's a custom, man. He came up like that, right? Do all these little, little spots all over the south build build well he earned that uh moniker hardest working man in showbiz and i don't know how long he played at the uh masonic temple at the the concert hall but uh he put on a show yeah it's like 90 minutes and who mops up the sweat like he's got people he's got a team for that people yeah right. Late great James Brown here. Jill LeBlanc wants to know, when's the bassist bass reunion?

That's a great question, man. I don't know if that'll ever happen. But nostalgia is a potent drug. You know this. Like right now, that's why you see all these people coming back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're getting that money.

Guys like me have money now. I don't have money, but guys like me have money. And they'll throw it at, uh, nostalgia based stuff. They liked in the mid nineties. Well, that idea kind of flew around a little bit recently. And,

uh, you know, chin came to me. He's like, yo, we should do this. So the promoter came to me about this thing. And I'm like,

I just looked at my calendar and I go, yo, dude, I just, there's no way I could pop it in that calendar, you know? And you're, yeah,

I mean, we'll get to it, but you've got, you've kind of made a name for yourself in an unrelated industry so uh yeah not pretend up. Well, if I do say so, I take your word for it if you do say so. Don't say stop if you do say go. It's a two for one and it's Tuesday, y'all. So we start chatting, blah, blah, blah. Ballooning from Cali, burning from Manhattan. Never been north and I should have knew then. Said they wish they always had Canadian friends. Do I like snowing? What about the weekend? Have I ever been to the spots that they be in? No, yes, yes say though I do make noise And I do lay low I do my thing

And I do make dope I don't stay still And I don't do blow Hmm That's when the moon Turned blue Too bad to be good And too good to be true

Too bad to be true Now What are we listening to here? Uh This is a single Off my new record Eat Your Words It's uh

The song's called Too Bad To Be True So And again I'm gonna try within reason keep it chronological but i wanted to do all the most of the music stuff up the top here but uh like so bass is great bass is bass uh when do they when do you guys split maybe it's like 95 96 or something that's like you're like a comet man you you're there for a short time, but you shine bright, right?

Am I right? This is not a long run. You know, it's interesting. We were making a really dope record. I just found some demos actually the other day. We made this incredible record

actually, and it's sitting in my basement. I know how to get that heard. Nobody else has it actually. I don't think, Chin is like, yo, you found it, send me that.

I'm like, nah. That's funny. We get some nice records on that demo. Well, people talk about the Beatles, right? the beatles were 10 years but you know in north america it was like six or something years six and a half years or whatever and they did all this stuff but you guys beat that man uh that it was like a hot four maybe yeah so was it just you wanted to do other stuff ah you know your bands are built to break up you know what i mean you wanted to do other stuff? You know, your bands are built to break up. You know what I mean?

You talk to bands. Tell that to the Rolling Stones. Yeah, but they fight. But they're just like, this is too much money. They're busy counting their money. That's right. They fight. But it's hard, you know, man.

You go out on the road, you sleep in a van, a bus with these people. And you sweat. You see all the good, the bad. It's hard, you know. And as I know from talking to some other bands from the mid-90s, it's like Canada's not it's not an easy country to tour

right like this is an expensive vast it's hard to make a living it's expensive it's hard to make

a living in Canada and so you know that contributes to it for sure so why didn't couldn't Funkmobile

be a big American hit you know what I'm saying and isn't that when you can start to we had signed a co-venture deal we were like the first Canadian to we had signed a co-venture deal we're like the first canadian group to ever sign a co-venture deal uh with the u.s so we partnered with a woman

who launched a black sheep and she restructured def jam this woman named lisa this or that this yeah so she had signed them and she'd done a lot of stuff now she does movies she did that movie precious and she's executive producer amazing woman right um but they signed us buju was on buju bantan was on the label it was us this kid rob bacon who was like this multi-instrumental prodigy kind of maxwell type of kid um and she had the whole richard pryor catalog oh wow and so we were the signings and we did a co-venture deal with uh a&m polygram in canada and her through uh polygram america and we were launching the uh you know that album with i cry and all that stuff so they had different singles and different videos in america that canada never saw and stuff like that but you guys

go your separate ways and base space but uh and then that so then the new album like so if you you continue to record new music, even though you're Mr. Chef on TV and everybody knows you. I always like, that's my safe haven, right? Because making TV is a very democratic thing. Making cookbooks is a very democratic thing. Doing recipes for a variety of things is a very democratic thing. I work with a lot of companies and everybody's chiming in. Right.

But making records ising in. Right. But making records is me in a room, one of the person, the engineer, and I'm just free, freedom, you know? Intimates posted for a millicent Got you a couple yachts but never been to sea Got you a big whip but gotta rent a seat Never be enough, just imagine ten of me like in a tenement Where your friend leaves, your enemies grieve Something fishy, man, it must be land The opposite of heaven sent Overspent, bleeding money where the razor when they shoot you in the back How the laser went

Tell you more is more and give you evidence Till you get more than you hesitate I'm waiting. What are you waiting for? Make you take risks that you never would. Make you make choices that you never should. That's just greed. I'm waiting. What are you waiting for? Saving that ticket. I want what I have and I want to use what I have. That's my wife. I was going to ask. I was waiting for the pop-up audio on that one.

That's my wife. Okay, so this is Greed. This is also on the latest album, right? What's the album called? Eat Your Words. Eat Your Words. And if somebody were going to pick this up, they just This is also on the latest album, right? What's the album called? Eat Your Words. Eat Your Words. And if somebody were going to pick this up, they just look for it on whatever.

Every digital platform known to mankind on earth at the moment. But it's credited to Roger Mooking. Why not MC Mystic? This name isn't sleeping right now? This is my third album as Roger Mooking, you know? So it's like, that's what it is. People know me. They know what I do.

And name recognition is key. They'll see that name and they'll think there's some recipes in there. I mean, that's just like, I kind of feel like if you're, you know, not 20 years old and you're carrying around like a moniker like that, unless you're Nas. It's just like, yo, just use your name. That's the truth, man. Remember the Simpsons when Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney put like lentil soup recipes into their music. Right. Because they wanted. Remember this? I don't know that.

OK, yeah, OK. So it was like a baby. I'm amazed. But there was like recipes for vegetarian dishes because they were staunch vegetarians, like embedded within it, like subliminally or whatever. If I listen to the new album, am I going to pick up some cooking tips? Are they embedded? No, no cooking tips in there. There's a lot of cooking tips elsewhere but not in this bubble a question from uh riz r-i-z-z i think yeah so he says uh i think it's he it could be a she but hello sir i think you're the sir i don't think anyone knows me for you that was you sure yeah nobody oh yeah it is me yeah i'm actually honored riz whoever you are i

don't think only cops call you sir when you're going like don't call me sir actually well yeah well point taken there you're right i would really like to know where roger got his inspiration for the song uh live from the barbecue uh it's one of my favorite songs from the new album, Thanks Riz. So live from the barbecue? Or is it live from the barbecue? Live from the barbecue. So that's basically biographical events,

real life events that happen to me while traveling around, eating, doing barbecue shows, right? Sometimes I find myself in these untoward parts of a country that are not very friendly to people of my melanin right and uh some things happen you know i've had guys tell me we got guns out here boy i've had people say you should be swinging from that tree by a rope really like this is so it's in the record i say that in the record there's quotes you know like

those are quotes right so so the mason dixon line uh yeah but you don't have to go south of mason dixon line to be honest but it gets colorful down there for sure yeah i hate here i mean i was uh you know i have lived this life of privilege you know white skin blue eyes i didn't have a say in the matter by the way it just said no i feel you bro yeah i was born that way and uh but you know enough maestro and ron nelson to be like oh i'm good i'm good when nelson tells a story about how uh he brought hip up to the uh the concert hall like the first shows in toronto and canada actually and he said uh i can't remember what the band was if it was uh krs1 what was krs1 what was his band called the bdp yeah bdp i can't it might have been that. It might have been Public Enemy.

I can't remember right now. But he says, here's when he knew things changed. He said, at the end of the show, this guy came up to him. This guy comes up to Ron Nelson and says, here's your cash. It was a wad of like 20s or something. And DJ Ron Nelson says, what's this for? And the guy goes, oh, that's your cut of the t-shirt sales. And then he said, this is DJ Ron Nelson telling me on this program.

He says, that's when he learned things that changed he said um he said black guys didn't buy t-shirts but the white guys bought bought lots of t-shirts and he says that's when he realized the the crowd coming out to these hip-hop shows at the uh concert hall suddenly were a bunch of bunch of white guys and he said that's when it was all different i just saw method man red man ice cube in london ontario wow and i think i was one of eight black people and maestro was there so maybe one of nine black people that's right he's in guiana that's right now uh that's funny because i took my daughter to see chance the rapper at oh yeah he's good right excellent whitest crowd i've ever seen and i've

been to tragically hip shows okay so this is a this was a we're super white and i don't know why i don't have any answers here uh toronto's a very diverse city but uh that's the culture you know like black culture's dominated pop culture from you know james brown yeah you know you go back he built up his stuff michael jackson they built up their stuff in the black community but when it popped it was the white audience that was was doing all that stuff you think Bob Marley was only playing the black people you know Yugoslavia Australia you play Bob Marley people know this stuff word for word right absolutely hey my friend before we get to the uh the cooking stuff here I want to give you some gifts here in fact I'm actually curious about this so you put your glasses and phone on a

frozen lasagna so your phone's freezing as we speak here but that is uh that's a lasagna courtesy of uh sponsor palma pasta thank you they have palms because i mean you you never you never cook the same meal twice right you're basically i'm always like tweaking little things here and there yeah for sure but you would never slum it by buying, even though it's wonderful, but nothing beats making it yourself at home. Yeah, what I do is I make big batches of stuff, and then once we finish dinner, I'll break it down into portions and freeze them in portions.

So if you need to make a quick lunch for the kids, boom, you just reheat that, throw it in the thermos, they're good. Dinner, you're running from here to there, come back, boom. So my fridge is loaded with like meals on meals right now you're when you're roger mook and you don't you don't need to have a frozen lasagna from palma's kitchen but maybe you can either vouch for it you vouch for it yeah they actually before they were a sponsor when i was paying my hard-earned money full value i i had them cater my wedding this is how good this food is. This is authentic Italian food. So they're in Mississauga and Oakville.

Go to palmapasta.com to get the address. But you can also, we usually cater your events if you go to palmapasta.com, but they're on skip the dishes too if you want to give it a shot. So thank you, Palma. You're taking that home with you.

Thanks, man. There's some stickers on top of there too. So there should be a Toronto Mike sticker. StickerU.com, custom made stickers. You could get MC mystic stickers made up you upload the image you get as many as you want you could do temporary tattoos or buttons or decal these decals you've been seeing in the back they're from sticker you so they got a new

location on queen street uh like a bricks and mortar location and there's a contest going on i've seen some entries come in and they're fantastic so if you uh have taken a photo that you consider to be an iconic photo of toronto uh please tweet it at toronto mike and sticker you and include the hashtag sticker you to and i i'm gonna at some point i gotta find out what day this contest ends but there's a hundred dollar gift card coming your way to spend it on stickers, and StickerU will take the image that you took, the iconic photo of Toronto,

and will produce stickers from that as well. So I urge all the listeners to do this. It's a contest from StickerU. There's a six-pack of fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery for you, Roger. Nice. Including the new pumpkin ale, which is, as you know, seasonal.

Seasonal, seasonal. Just came out. So take that. So if there's too many kids come up to your house and just get bent, then you can deal with it. You ever been taking your kids around and they have the one house

that has the special stuff for the adults? There's a house in this neighborhood where they'll give you a glass of wine. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. I know. That's a super boost.. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Wow. I know. That's a super boost.

I'm in the wrong neighborhood. Yeah. Listen, there's room for you here. Come on. This is a true story, and I wonder if I could get away with giving out Great Lakes Brewery to the parents when they come around. But yeah, enjoy your six-pack of craft beer from Great Lakes.

Nice. They're the first sponsor in, and they've been fantastic hosting the Toronto Mic Listener Experiences. One day I'm going to try to get MC Mystic to play one of the Toronto Mic Listener Experiences. Okay, that's good. So you better block my number now. Yeah.

Okay, what else I got? Oh, speaking of the pumpkin ale and speaking of Halloween, this is cool because you can take one of the kids. I don't know how you decide which one, but that's my struggle always. But I have two tickets for you, Roger, to go to Pumpkins After Dark. And you're probably wondering

what the hell is that, right? Okay, close your mind and imagine 5,000 handcraft pumpkins that illuminate the skies of Country Heritage Park in Milton, Ontario. Oh, wow. it's happening from today really i think it starts today and it runs through uh november 3rd so the sun goes down

and they light up all these yeah and there's music too so they carve up these pumpkins in like real swaggy ways is that what it is if you can imagine the what it would look like 5 000 of these things and you got, there's even more. There's music and what else? Sculptures and stuff. So, I mean, I honestly, I'm going for sure.

I'm going to email you a couple of PDF tickets. Okay, that's cool. And if listeners want to save 10% right now, they go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and they use the promo code

Pumpkin Mike. Capadia LLP CPA iss, they're accountants. I call Rupesh the rock star accountant. He sees beyond the numbers. He's also doing this thing where if listeners have any questions they want to ask of a great accountant, no charge, obviously, he's going to record his answers that I'll play on future episodes. So I saw several come in since we announced this on the Steve Paikin episode,

but this is a Roger. You can do this too. Not even tax season, but you might have something, but your small business venture is something to do with one of your enterprises or whatever. And you're wondering, should I move this there? And you know, life, whatever you want, a good qualified accountant who sees beyond the numbers to help you out with. So you can email this to me or DM it to me. My dms are open on twitter or you know you can you can uh send it by smoke signals or carrier you get grimy stuff coming in dm too listen i kinds of stuff maybe you do

i would be excited to get some of that but once in a while i get like a olga who will tell me that she likes how i look and wants to get to know me better or whatever. And my alarm goes off and says, I don't know. Well, no. Yeah, of course. Of course, I delete right away. As far as I delete, honey. Of course.

Did I mention the promo code is Pumpkin Mike? So if you want the 10% off, you go to pumpkinsafterdark.com and that promo code Pumpkin Mike. And Capadia, send me any way you want. Get it to me by carrier pigeon pumpkinsafterdark.com in the promo code pumpkinmike. And Capadia, send me any way you want. Get it to me by carrier pigeon or whatever, and I'll get that to Rupesh. And I want to play something from Brian at propertyinthesix.com. That'll segue nicely into your cooking life,

if you will. But this is Brian. Propertyinthesix.com Hi, Roger. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike's. Remember that one bedroom condo I just listed in King West? Well, it sold over list price the first weekend. As first impressions are everything, and I made sure it showed amazing. If you have a condo you want to put on the market, call me at 416-873-0292. You also know the drill and Galleria condos as well by now. So if you want in on that project and all the buildings

to come, I am your guy. Roger, being a successful musician and a celebrity chef is not something that you normally see. Curious if you ever considered being an artist as well, since I have a feeling that you would be pretty damn good at that too if you put your mind to it. Okay, so you got the music thing going on. You're gifted musically. This has been in you forever, it sounds like.

I wake up, I dream songs, and I wake up and I put memos down and then I go in the studio and record them. Most of my songs are like that. It comes innate to you, and then we're now going to and record them. Most of my songs are like that. So it comes innate to you. And then we're now going to talk about this other side of you, which is the cooking side. But do you also have an artistic side?

Like you're not painting? Well, I think cooking and music is pretty artistic. But if you're thinking in terms of visual arts, it's the thing I envy the most, actually. The one thing I envy in life is being able to draw or paint. I have cousins and my sisters are painters. Oh, wow. I'm a great painter in Vancouver. My cousin runs an animation studio and all that stuff,

and they do amazing work out of Toronto here. They do The Incredibles and all these movies everybody watches, right? Oh, yeah. They draw all that stuff. And I envy that the most, man. I see the animators in the studio, they just move their hand a certain way and a couple ways later,

and it's like, wow, this is a really amazing person that just came off the paper. And I try and do the same thing. I try and move my hand in the same way. It just doesn't work. You know, you just don't have that gift, man. I don't have that touch.

Well, it's probably a blessing you don't have that gift because you got the four kids and you got the whole you know celebrity chef empire and you got the music career i don't know when you'd have time to be painting you know i know maybe when i can make enough money then i could like learn yes well jim carrey or jim carrey is a good example or george w bush this is all he does yeah that's all he does now right yeah that's, that's right. I remember that, yeah. He's got time on his hands and he's going to use it painting.

He does an inauguration every now and then just for fun. Or, you know, he has funerals, right? Like he has to make appearances at certain funerals. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so my wife wants to know, this is Edmonton Monica, I'm going to call her. Edmonton Monica wants to know, why did you become a chef? And you tell this story because when did to know why did you become a chef like and you tell this story because uh like when did you realize you wanted to be a chef like how does

this how does this side of you come to fruition so I was three years old and you know how like we had some um I was in Trinidad at the time and you know we're surrounded by family like aunt's uncle is always around in Trinidad right and you know you ask little kids what are you gonna be when you grow up so she asked me that when i was three and i said i'm gonna be a chef and i didn't blink you know and she's like what do you know about being a chef because they come from a my grandfather their father was a chef running restaurants and bakeries and so they came up in it right they're like what do you know about this do you know how hard it is i'm like i don't know what i'm gonna do and so i knew that and then when i was around 15 um i got this job working for this construction guy in the summer and he realized how

bad i was like the first day so he would just put me on demolition right and then he'd be like okay demolition this kitchen so i'd be like demolition the tiles and stuff he's like which is fun right because he goes man you're so bad at this so he drove me he talked to my dad he's like yo this kid is bad you know i can't have him around right what does he like to do he goes like to cook so he drove me straight off of the construction site he had just finished building a restaurant and he took me in the back door of this like family restaurant kind of like a denny's you know okay in alberta he took me out the back and he's like yo this kid is interested so i stood there the whole shift and i just looked at them cooking the da da da da da then i met the manager and that was my first job really after the construction fiasco was so bad i lasted a day construction and that was it yeah man i started cooking and then i would take all my money

from cooking and go to the recording studio and so i just did i did that forever man so yeah you make your make your cash uh cooking which is a passion anyway and then yeah i love to fuel your other passion yes i just spent all my time there wasn't a lot of school work getting done and stuff but so was it is it after bass is bass disbands? Is that when you realize? Do you realize at that point maybe there's a career doing the other passion? Well, I was doing stuff like I was licensing songs to the UK. And every now and then somebody would ask me to score a commercial or film.

And I did that. And that was pretty much enough to get me by. I was like a single human at that time and rent in toronto was cheap still right right i remember relatively right so i could get by on that stuff i did that for like a year and a half two and i'm like okay i gotta get something so then i went to straight into cooking man and this went to george brown started started from the bottom now you're here check it out right it's crazy now okay so the television show yeah and i have to plead a little ignorance is that i don't

actually watch a lot of like cooking shows like it's just it's not my jam right i could just talk to you about uh your your new album for the whole time. But is it Man Fire Food? Yeah, Man Fire Food. This is the big one, right? Yeah, we just finished season eight of Man Fire Food. We just did 101 episodes of Man Fire Food. So that's a pretty good one. And what's the premise of Man Fire Food? Anybody who's cooking over live fire

will go travel to them and see what they do. So by proxy, we cover a lot of barbecue, but we also do like lobster boils fish roasts uh corn roasts we went to jamaica and cooked fish on by the beach um we've been to puerto rico and they have like these chickens we've been to hawaii and they do these like spinning chickens over coals and so as long as there's a live fire food i'm the man uh and it's interesting and the contraption is cool the people are cool we're there man what's the difference between a barbecue and a cookout uh white people say barbecue black people say cookout that's like america you know it's like america it's like so i can't call it if i call it a

cookout that's like appropriation i can't uh i gotta call it i mean you're in canada maybe you're safe i've never it's funny you say i've never called it a cookout but i i often hear about yeah usually it's in america they call it they have a cookout and i think oh they have a barbecue but i thought they also say they also say barbecue but you never hear white people say cookout gotcha gotcha okay taking notes over here i don't want to i don't want to screw up man kevin in alberta speaking of alberta look kevin in alberta says uh what's the coolest fire setup you've come across in your travels that's the a and then b is what's the spiciest food you've ever eaten two-parter uh two-parter two different

things the coolest fire setup i mean i've to some amazing locations like in Napa. You know, there's this one dude who owns like wineries. He sells and grows commodities, grapes, and pistachios, basically. And then he's got hundreds of acres of stuff. So we're on their private property. He's overlooking these beautiful vineyards in Napa. Built this Inferneo thing, which is like a double stacked fire setup with steel. So you put fire on top, fire down below.

We cook like this huge fish, salt crusted. And, you know, so that was cool. But the vista and the location is really a beautiful part of it. And the sun is setting and we're eating this fish that we just cooked. And, you know, so that was pretty memorable. We do stuff like that.

And did we mention where this is? Okay, Cooking Channel. Yeah, Cooking Channel in America. In Canada, too, Cooking Channel and Food Network. Just want to make sure people know where the heck Man Fire Food is. I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but what's the spiciest food you've ever eaten? So I used to do this other show called Heat Seekers with my man, Aron Sanchez, another chef, right?

We used to travel around. Not the pitcher. What? No, no, no, no. I'm just saying. Bad joke, all right. So we used to travel around and do this show eating hot food. And one time we stopped in Tampa,

and these guys took all these like eight different types of chili or something like that, and he fire roasted them on a clothesline. Then he takes them and he grinds it all up so you imagine like a bowl of soup right half of the bowl of soup was ground up chilies of different heats but hot like ghost pepper down right yeah half of the bowl and then he just put some chicken broth in it just to top it up and some noodles and that was it so it's basically just eating blazing hot chilies by the pound. And you took this down? I took one spoon of it. One spoon.

It was like, whoa. I don't know. I feel like it would give you an ulcer or something. That's extreme, man. I couldn't keep that show going for too long. Oh, now I'm thinking of, I know you don't like it when I, maybe you're okay with it, me dropping all the Simpsons references. But I'm now thinking of when Johnny Cash played don't like it when i maybe you're okay with it me dropping all the simpsons references but i'm now thinking of when uh johnny cash played that coyote or whatever

and he because the peyote peyote is that yeah yeah and he's uh homer took was tripping out yeah yeah you should take peyote and then go do the pumpkins the punk five thousand pumpkins would you do that with me i would i'm not saying that you should do that. As long as you have a guide with you, you need to have a... A peyote guide. Yeah. It's interesting. I went to Cusco in Peru over my travels.

Yeah, yeah. And you see all these signs all over the lamppost. Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca tours. Every lamppost is an ayahuasca tour, you know? Is that a white person thing now? We're going down to China. I feel like that a white person thing now like that we're going down i feel like that yeah i feel like that's probably yeah certain things just black people don't do certain

things you know diving you ever see black person shark diving no no no jumping from a plane no do you have a full i was gonna say you have a i need the list uh you need the list right do you like so do you uh because your your background is diverse right because um do you identify as a black man well you know after like so many years of going to jobs or like having like people pull their purse when you get on the bus or like you know people tell you we got guns out here boy in society you identify just by proxy or self-defense right you kind of kind of position yourself like right i'm only just up here but personally i'm a human bro i'm just like a human being roman earth roman earth we're doing our thing but society functions with that differently you know so i gotta be on my p's and q's and not be stupid. I could get pulled over for a bad license plate

and all of a sudden I could end up on the side of the road or in the hospital. I got to be careful about that. Oh, I can imagine. Now, so my wife from Edmonton, she's of Filipino descent. So I will tell people two of my four children are people of color. That's what I tell them. That's as close as I can get.

I try to pass in all the communities and whatnot. But you have an Asian background, right? Yeah, my grandfather came from China, Guangdong province in China and ended up in Trinidad. And Mu King,

that's a Chinese name, Mu King? So Mu, Mu is one of the six original Chinese names. Mu, Chin, Li, Wu is another one and the other two I always forget, right? So there's six original names., Mu, Chin, Li, Wu is another one, and the other two I always forget, right? So there's six original names.

So Mu, when my grandfather came to Trinidad, he had to fill out paperwork, and he had very limited knowledge of English language. But in China, you put your first name, your last name, your surname first. So Mu Qing Yun is his name, right? So when the guy looked at it, he's like, what's your name? He's like mu king yun is his name right so when the guy looked at he's like what's your name he's like so you tell him his name and he goes well nah it doesn't work because we need to fix this so he the guy there amalgamated it as mu king right interesting and

that's how it ended up as mu king so any moo kings on the planet are first generation is my grandfather. That's wild. That's pretty cool. Cool. I thought it was like, you're the king of the moos. This is what I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah, we play with that.

Around my house, we got like all these cows with crowns and stuff. Very, very, very interesting. So, okay. So you mentioned the heat seekers. What about, tell me about Greatest of America. You did, you hosted, do you still host it on the Travel Channel?

That's now a show called Man's Greatest Food. So I travel around and find, you know, the top 15 burgers in America, the top 15 pizza, the top 15 street food, the top 15 et cetera. How many shows are you currently on? I currently like shows that I'm the host of. Uh,

there's two, but I do a lot of different like guest feature, judging things all over periodically all the time. Like anything, uh, currently, I mean, in addition to the,

the Maryland desk. So how often, how often do you pop over and say hi to Maryland? Probably four times a year or something like that. Okay. Okay. They try and give me more, but I'm just not around.

No, I know. I was going to think, so you gotta, gotta i mean these are lengthy like and with the four kids uh i guess that's tough right you gotta like you're away from home a bit i'd take it uh yeah i need to yeah but yeah because you got fed i was gonna say eating them is important that's right that's right and is it no not in my business but uh is the TV thing more lucrative than the music thing? Is this the, like when it comes to feeding the family? You know what's interesting is the TV and the music feed each other.

So people in the TV world think it's really interesting that I do the music and that I can score things. They just think it's cool. So that you get TV gigs and like endorsement deals because people think it's cool. And I fill a space that not a lot of the other chefs can fill. You know, I can cook a chicken like the next chef. But in terms of positioning it like as an entertainment or lifestyle thing, they might not be able to fulfill the breadth of that promise to the audience in the same way as I'm able to do it. Right. So we capture a lot of stuff,

and sometimes the feed feeds the music projects, and sometimes the music feeds the food projects, and they really coexist together. So from lucrative, I don't look at it as separate streams. It's just one stream. There's got to be a show where you can merge them. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's got to be some project i mean you'd be the perfect guy for that who else is

gonna do that right yeah yeah i think there's some things bubbling yes you still do like charity work like for example uh second harvest you're still doing stuff yeah i'm ambassador for second harvest for save the children i just did an event for prostate cancer i'm on the george brown foundation i work with uh raising money for them wow uh my friend she's now at the sick kids uh not as a patient i should point out but uh she was uh her name is jordy uh and she used to help coordinate the big second harvest uh events and stuff yeah yeah second harvest is amazing man they do amazing stuff it's really incredible i've gone on

the trucks followed the dropped off stuff gone to the food programs where the kids come and eat after school and it's magic what they do so essentially like if they scout out places in the city where they have like leftovers essentially or on food they can't use perfectly good food oh no yeah but it's like you go to a grocery store and you don't want to buy the potato that looks looks a certain way right right yeah so the the retailer the grocery store will put those aside they're perfectly good potatoes they just look sure wonky yeah and so they'll save that stuff or stuff meat that may be like is about to expire that next day that they're not going to be able to sell they'll sell it and it gets the food program that night and they cook it that night right so it's still good it's perfectly good food and otherwise that would just end up in the landfill which is horrific yeah especially if

people are going to bed hungry people going to bed hungry man there's so much and that's what obviously kills me in the restaurant industry is like there's a lot of waste in the restaurant industry from you know from the customer side you know, they eat part of this and then they throw it out and they don't know I'm full now. And it gets wasted. You see kind of food waste in it. It just used to kill me in restaurants. You know, so I'm like, yo, I got to offset that, you know. So good for you for volunteering your time and your big brand name for the cause.

Like that's that's cool, man. Yeah, I'm more enamored with what they do, to be here well they could always use new drivers you can just get your truck license that'd be hot yeah maybe i can pick up the kids in it throw them in the back that's right hey you give me an idea man maybe i'll help you out on that one you also uh got books right yeah i got a cookbook tell me about tell me about that so for my very first show we uh did this show called everyday exotic that really launched my tv food career um and we did a cookbook for it it's pretty good people still seem to like it it's a lot of fresh

recipes and you co-created everyday exotic right like that yeah yeah that was one of the caveats of me doing the show because i come from the music industry and I know how the entertainment industry can manipulate talent, right? So I went into the whole food thing very reluctantly. I didn't really jump at it. But they were interested in me and I like the people around it. to do something that i feel really passionate about i have to have a say at the table and be able to control my destiny in this thing especially if it's going to be my first time launching something to the public from that because people in canada people knew me as the music guy right so i'm like relaunching my whole thing and i wanted to be like if i'm going to relaunch and it fails i want to be on me and if it wins i'll be like okay i'm cool you know i mean so uh yeah i ended up co-creating that concept with a really great dude named al mcgee he's a legend in canadian tv um very gracious human and i gotta tell you man we worked really closely together on that launch that and you know

i got there's a few line by line items on there but it's because i wanted to control what the look and feel and everything of that show was about like but you will be like a what do you call a talking head like you you'll be a hired gun like you don't need to have a piece of the pie or whatever or do you like on every show yeah like some shows i'm like some shows you're just the you're just the handsome face of the project but even on like with man fire food, right? Technically I'm that, but every location goes through me. Okay. You know, so technically they don't need to do that,

but you know, the show turns out better if I'm happy with the location. You know what I mean? So what's next for you? Like do you have like more books you want to write, different television projects you want to launch? Yeah, I like to branch out into different realms of the entertainment industry. Maybe take the entertainment aspect a little bit broader so we have the food and the music stuff good.

But I love to do voice animated cartoons or build different television shows that aren't food related at all. I've been in the television industry for a decade now, right? So I've seen a lot in how people do things and i know a lot of production companies and folks and so i'd like to be able to kind of leverage that just to do different things just for that creative outlet since i can't draw right that's right now uh back to music real quick here so of course we we talked about, about your, your latest album, Eat Your Words. And it's your fourth studio release.

Yes, sir. And what did I read there? That always, it was influenced by, oh, look at that. Yeah. So Trinidadian,

Calypso, Venezuelan vibes, classic hip hop, rock and funk. I mean, it sounds like a, I always have trouble pronouncing the difficult words, but kaleidoscope.

Kaleidoscopic, yeahidoscope kaleidoscopic yeah kaleidoscopic well you play Greed right and Greed has like this kind of rocky guitar thing with this

Tribe Called Quest kind of live drums kind of feel laid on top of it and the vocals are very like frenetic everything is like

really frenetic and like boom boom boom relenting unrelenting right and then you have like Too Bad To Be True which you also played

was really upbeat and light and lilting and bouncing. It has a totally different feel. Yeah. So if you go through the whole album, you're going to feel like a lot of different moods, you know?

Yeah. But where do you record? Like, do you have a studio or do you go? I go to a studio called Studio 8 in Mississauga.

It's a home studio. This guy's got, i've been in all kinds of studios big studios you know two thousand a day studios blah blah blah blah blah right this guy's studio sounds the best it's the most transparent studio i've ever listened to studio eight i take the mixes out of there and they sound great in every car every speaker and so we have a good rhythm going there man he's good good dude when you're listening to music on your own time like what are you listening to what kind of music are you digging i listen to a lot of like the new stuff so i'll actually go through like the suggestions

that come up on my streaming services you know and i'll check that it's like oh let me check that one you know let me check that one and every now and then i find some good things so recently there's a woman named victory boyd i've been on if you check that out she you'll search it under victory really good i think she beyonce is a fan of her um her you heard her her yes yeah she crazy this really good um i listened to kendrick lamar listening to um still the old the other day i was listening to steely dan is that reeling in the years weather report i just like records you know like yeah yeah weather report i was listening to the other day graceland i listened to a couple days ago

you know i like music man i like all kinds of music and what about back in the like i don't know i think when you were a teenager like so what were you listening to as a teenager if i could go back uh epmd um yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah tribe called quest yeah um dream warriors digible planets and i used to like listen to like all these records because we want to sample them so i listened to like led zeppelin and weather report again or ah steely dan record just uh all kinds of records man yes yeah i was looking for samples back then you know back there diving into the crates right so you dig in the crates and you hear all kind of stuff it's like wow all of a sudden it's like wow that's a really good record you know who are these steely dang guys well who's it run dmc tells the famous story about how they would yeah they like to mix up the uh aerosmith uh yeah that's that became naturally

they just made that record because they were chopping up aerosmith and they're like yeah that's yeah they were chopping up aerosmith and then they got popular they could actually call aerosmith which was like the smartest thing Aerosmith ever did. Like I heard, I don't know if it was a slam dunk. Like I don't know if they had to be talked into it or whatever, but I think maybe Joe Perry didn't want to do it or something. There's some story there where maybe Steven was into it and Perry didn't

like rap or something and didn't want to do it. But smartest thing they ever did. And then he saw Run DMC play Madison Square Garden. He's like, hmm, maybe we should mess with this. Of all that stuff and i i always remember you remember the uh soundtrack the judgment night does this ring a

bell at all so judgment night was a movie i remember judgment amelio estevez or something anyway the soundtrack was they took hip-hop artists and they had them go with like new rock like alternative rock artists they would mash them together i think scarface has a record on that that's really i love a lot i don't remember i'm trying it would be like they took like uh i mean it's so much um trying to think of exact examples but uh i uh always liked it i always still do when the rock and the kind of the hip-hop mashed together is that why you have mishimi here next week yeah ragged death jamaica yeah you kidding me i've always she's been on a couple times I actually

just a couple weeks ago quick aside is that I had Biff Naked on so oh Biff Naked I thought she was with Biff Naked yeah lovely woman right

tell me she was always lovely she was cool she was cool with us yeah yeah you know she lives around here now like she lived in Vancouver for 35 years that's right man

she's amazing she was amazing live I never seen her live and I was like who is this human she's crazy yeah I'm with you man but so she was here uh third time actually coming here and then i she didn't know she had no idea so she's sitting here the door on upstairs is unlocked mishy me lets herself

in because we pre-arranged this and mishy's like so she she comes down and crashes the party because uh they did a tour together it was called biff's punk and rap some tour in the mid 90s or whatever and it was just like it was amazing to see mishy me and biff naked kind of mutual but admiration but all this is to say yeah i really do like the jamaican funk stuff when you take that like mishy with the rock stuff you take like corn they did like a lot of hip-hop production program drums all that stuff they add into that mix you know um which vig was doing a lot of chopping up stuff like that and mixing it and unbeknownst a lot of garbage and stuff yeah yeah yeah a lot of that hip-hop production stuff you're mixing it in man always loved it and i mean

raging his machine all that stuff but the the my favorite always was uh bring the noise with public enemy and anthrax yeah that was a good record that was yeah for sure for sure crazy record so my friend um is there anything anything you want to uh like promote or anything i didn't cover that you want to just share with everybody because you've been amazing that's cool man you covered all the bases i think i think it was sha, Mike. TMDS. I'm going to change what TMDS stands for. Maximum Definitives. Right.

Now, Roger, I have a technical issue with the live stream, which is fine, because the podcast was recorded perfectly, and it's going to sound amazing. And this thing will be online like 15 minutes after we take a picture. But if anyone out there is like, why the hell for the second episode in a row did Mike screw up the live stream?

It's because I'm having technical difficulties over there which I'm going to have to fix because tomorrow, Scott Morrison, who was a long time Toronto Sun sports writer and he was at Sportsnet

until very recently, let him go. He's my guest tomorrow. So he's not as handsome as you, Roger, but... It's hard. It's hard to match. my guest tomorrow. So he's not as handsome as you, Roger. It's hard. It's hard to match. It's true.

So I'll see if I can get it working for Scott. But thanks for doing this. That was amazing. Thanks a lot, man. I appreciate it, though. And that brings us to the end of our 517th show. I bet you get a 517 tattoo after this. I was thinking about it.

Right next to the 4161. Right. Yeah. Smart, smart. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and Roger, you're at Roger Mooking. Yeah, at Roger Mooking for everything. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

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Pumpkin Mike. See you all next week. We won't go away Cause everything is Rose and green Well you've been under my skin For more than eight years It's been eight years of laughter And eight years of tears And I don't know what the future Can hold or do

For me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and green. Yeah, the wind is cold with the smell of snow. It won't be today. And your smile is fine and it's just like mine. It won't be today. And your smile is fine. And it's just like mine. And it won't go away.