Julian Thomas
Julian Thomas may be a fresh voice in Toronto's burgeoning music scene, but the Etobicoke-bred, downtown-hardened 30-year-old has been honing his craft for nearly two decades.
Since first putting pen to paper at age nine, Thomas has been using music to navigate what he calls his “roller coaster” life, absorbing diverse styles -- everything from Michael Jackson to Led Zeppelin, 2Pac to Incubus, Talib Kwali to Pink Floyd -- and spitting out raw, emotional soliloquies aimed squarely at the pulmonary artery of every listener.
Julian Thomas creates what he calls “conversational music” -- hazy, textured, cinematic landscapes on which he stretches his rhymes; vividly recalling moments so personal they shatter people's hearts, while aiming for “the highest connectivity.”
Coming up in the city’s west side, the emerging artist would spend hours scouring his favourite albums for the saddest songs, throwing choice cuts on a 25-song MP3 player and repeat listening on long bus rides while frantically jotting down multisyllabic rhyming couplets in his notepad. “When people saw I had my earphones in, they knew not to bother me,” he recalls.
Growing up in a neighborhood where the majority of the population "were from war torn countries" and gun violence was a reality of life, Thomas learned to turn inward, affecting an aesthetic intensity that sheltered a sensitive soul. “I look like I want to kill someone 99 percent of the time, but I really just want to love everyone 100 percent of the time,” he says, bringing to mind a favourite lyric: “Young bull with the horns on, you know I pierce the halo.”
That Thomas sees himself reflected in such a manner is not surprising. In his music, listeners can hear both sides of the story. Like the man himself, nothing is as it seems: harsh can be beautiful, melancholy can bring unbridled joy.
It’s a dichotomy he credits to being raised in Toronto. “Toronto's story is the world's story. The whole world is filtered through this one city. One thing’s for sure, whatever form his music takes, it’ll always tie back to the agony and ecstasy of heartache: a tribute to those plaintive anthems that have always guided him.