Canadian hip-hop artist Prevail of Swollen Members thought he wanted a question mark on his tombstone when he died, but after further reflection decided he’d prefer an exclamation point.
If he were to die six months from now, he’d spend at least some of that time in Europe.
“I think I’d try to BASE jump off the Eiffel tower,” he told The Cord in a phone interview.
“One thing I’d want to do for sure is drive the racetrack at Evergreens Formula One track in Germany.And, also, there is a restaurant in Spain called elBulli that I’d want to go to.”
In 10 years, Prevail hopes “to be on a beach working on [short stories and novels] and watching [Canadian hip-hop artist] Tre Nyce winning Grammy awards on TV.”
Until then, Prevail is more than content rapping alongside Mad Child in the Canadian rap mogul Swollen Members.
“We come from similar but different backgrounds,” said Prevail on his relationship with Mad Child.
“I think you’ll find that although we have a lot of the same underlying goals in life we have different ways of thinking how we should get there, which is great because it leads to open conversation.
“We play the devil’s advocate to each other in a lot of situations. That’s why we named the first album Balance – because we bring that out in each other.”
Prevail compared himself and Mad Child to a yin-yang; Prevail is the black and Mad is the white, both literally and figuratively.
When Prevail and Mad Child first started making music together and getting into the industry, they didn’t know what to expect.
“We were just making music for the love of making music,” he said.
“And we still are,” he adds referring to Swollen’s new album, Armed to the Teeth. “But now that we’ve already had some success, we know what it takes to get to the top.”
And they plan to do just that.
Swollen Members is seeking to re-establish their career in Canada after a difficult time working to overcome Mad Child’s drug addiction.
“Mad has a very strong personality,” said Prevail on Mad Child’s drug trouble.
“I think what happened with him and the pharmaceutical run is that a certain part of his personality was tapped into that for a certain amount of time that was pleasurable to him.”
Prevail explained that Mad Child quickly realized that the pleasure he felt was false and being induced purely by the drugs.
On how Mad Child overcame his addiction, Prevail explained, “He did it himself, pure mental determination.”
“I actually saw the change in his eyes when he wanted to start quitting. He wanted to quit, it wasn’t people saying ‘dude, it’s time for you to quit, this is ridiculous.’ He actually just realized that it was time for him to quit and it was a road to recovery from that moment forward.”
Swollen Members will perform their signature sound, “Dark, brooding, with heavy lyrics and beats,” on Dec. 3 at the Starlight.
