This year we begin a commentary on the world of music through articles, pictures and video with the help of music insiders and guest writers. Today, we introduce Mike Sorbara, a man with a lot to say, who will be a regular here on The List.

I started listening to hip hop in about 1987 when I was 7 or 8 years old, at this time hip hop was also 7 or 8 years old and the world/scene was much different. I come from a very musical family that has appreciated artists, in many different genres, that make music for the sake of the music… not the wealth, for many generations. my great gramma was the lead soloist at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, St. John’s, Newfoundland and her two brothers were drummers in WW1, their job was to march in FRONT of the front lines and play the soldiers into battle, a job that is only performed once.

I grew up hearing stories from the 70′s when my dad and uncle saw everyone from Harry Chapin and Diana Ross to Humble Pie, Miles Davis, Emerson Lake and Palmer and Queen. my brother Joe is very involved in the jazz community and received the highly regarded Oscar Peterson scholarship from york university and is a founding member of the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto.

I chose to make hip hop my particular path and have met similar achievements although in a different form in a forum that hasn’t been recognized by most of the world for very long. I used the general music/media knowledge that I grew up with to become one of Guelph’s favorite HMV employees. This allowed me to network with essentially every hip hop fan in the surrounding area, and as hip hop and the world changed, I continued to make sacrifices to travel to concerts and put in alot of work to listen to music that wasn’t always very easy to even purchase in Canada at the time.

Through close ties with noah23′s ‘plaguelanguage records’ and Philaflava.com (the elite message board for ‘progressive hip hop’ which boasts members such as Aesop Rock and Slug) my knowledge and opinions have become of interest to many people, some agree, many don’t, but give me a chance, it’s often difficult (at first) to understand someone who comes from a completely different world than most…

-Mike Sorbara aka Intellicon aka SlowBe aka SlowBe Won Kenobi aka SlowBe Trice (Real Name No Gimmicks).