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“Most people don’t want to be woke.” A Toronto rapper outranked Kendrick (for a week) with the help of a Chicago born social worker
A Toronto artist turned college radio sensation has been working with a producer who once toured with The Roots and also had a heart attack in the process of making their latest album.
Growing up in Chicago shaped producer, mind activist, and musician Furious Evans in ways that still majorly influence him today.
“I can remember being tied to the situation, the gangs, the poverty, the kids in school. It just is a feeling more than it was like I was seeking something out,” Furious confessed to Windy 6ix, while wearing a balaclava mask to honor late violinist Elijah McClain who died from police illegally injecting him with ketamine in 2020.
1
Childhood
Raised by a 17-year-old mother who adored her record player and a 19-year-old father, uncles who read comic books and skateboarded around Chicago, and his pianist grandmother, Furious felt like he stood out at an early age.
2
The Feeling
“It was really early that I felt the culture in the city. I was like, I just gotta do it. I gotta beatbox. I gotta beat on my chest. I gotta scratch up my mother's records when she told me not to,” he said.
3
Intro to Hip Hop
The now master student of social work at Grand Canyon University first started producing with sampling because it was cheap back in the ‘80s and ‘90. In “Ballad of the Brutes” as part of Furious’s latest collaboration on Errol Eats Everything, he chops up Drake’s voice from “Know Yourself.”
The entirely digitally produced album Errol Eats Everything was released on Feb. 11 and has already gained nearly 40,000 listeners on Spotify.
Though his musical and family roots prevail in Chicago, Furious moved to Las Vegas on a football scholarship in 1990, where he often hopped on the mic after practice, eventually being shunned from his Christian coaches for his outgoing protests against racism.
IIt was actually through his college radio KUNV where Furious discovered one of his idols Chuck D after listening to Public Enemy during the midnight rap slot.
It’s no surprise the songs he’s produced with Errol have also been a hit amongst college students, as Errol’s EP NYAM! topped the Hip Hop Top 30 on the North American College Charts (NACC) during the week of Feb. 5.
“This is very difficult to do, to be conscious, and to write a song that doesn't turn everybody away,” Furious said, referencing his psychiatric hospital internship. “Most people don’t want to be woke. They say, 'Just give me my drugs. Tell my mother I can come home.'”

The Digital Collab

Furious initially met Errol Eats Everything, who was bouncing between Toronto, New York, and Las Vegas. Now, their communication is mainly text message and email to organize virtual studio sessions.

“If he had topped the chart with no one actively promoting the album, that would indeed be unusual, but the joy of College and Non-Comm Radio is that if enough stations connect with an artist, this sort of thing can happen and has happened before,” NACC spokesperson Zach Wild told Windy 6ix.
Although their team had some help with artist promotion company Co-Sign, who handles the likes of Brother Ali and Denzel Curry, but it’s somewhat rare to see an independent artist with miniscule social media presence top higher than Kendrick Lamar even for just briefly.
Anyone can technically submit their music to NACC or any college radio station, unless the artist is too big to play on their airwaves, ahem Kendrick Lamar. His last album wasn’t actively pushed like Errol was, according to Wild.
However, all songs are ranked through the same method regardless of promotion.

TikTok

Once upon a time, not long ago… 🌆👀 Yeah, I was out in Toronto, moving reckless. Nicki, Lola… names changed to protect the guilty. 😂 Some stories are better left in the past… but not this one. Album drops February 11. Pre-save now - https://foundation-media.ffm.to/eee. 🎶🚀 🎥 @ramsayalmighty #ErrolEatsEverything #HipHop #Storytelling #Toronto #The6ix #NewMusic #Feb11

“Reporting is done by the station Music Director (or directly by the Hip Hop MD or, if a station just has one hip hop show, but the person who hosts the show. They log into the NACC system and report their Top 10 most-played artists for the week,” Wild said.
What’s unique about Errol is his approach to promotion—instead of boring social media posts centred around “yo, pls listen to my album”, the MC shares animated skits Boondox-like characters living out the lyrics in his songs.
“The mind of the oppressed people, the disenfranchised, and marginalized, is very interesting to me,” Furious said.
The album explores themes of oppression, consumption, and identity amongst the Black diaspora in North America, all topics Furious studies as a social worker.
“I'm six foot, I'm 250, I'm a big black guy, and I'm from the Ghetto, and I never and no matter how I try to parlay that? Nobody would let me parlay. So, I’m just finding courage. I'm finding courage in the story that I can tell,” he continued.
In 2021, a year after getting married, Furious suffered a heart attack at his son’s football game.
“I woke up Thursday with new blood, a new heart…I remember how hard it was to breathe again,” he recalled, noting that he created a whole playlist to breathe to and citing working on the album gave him a reason to keep breathing.
His resiliency reflects the spirit of Chicago artists Lupe Fiasco, Common, No ID, Chief Keef, and Curtis Mayfield.
“In this respect, you just have to be committed to humanity… Mental health is the new poverty,” Furious said.
Artists like Common and Lupe Fiasco now contribute to MusiCares, a Recording Academy initiative supporting Chicago’s Hip Hop community. Meanwhile, Toronto nurtures underground Hip Hop through events like All in Together, a series uniting all four elements of Hip Hop. Their first get together is at The Baby G on Mar. 13 at 7 p.m.
“The Hip Hop community here in Toronto is too separated. I thought creating an event like this would bring the culture a little closer together in one space…Hip Hop is all about self expression & personally as an artist I feel like creating art is a form of therapy. It's cathartic to get feelings off your chest in whatever medium you work in,” All in Together founder Frank José Román Garcia, A.K.A. H4Z4RDOUS, told Windy 6ix.
Even as a Chicagoan, Furious admired the underground Toronto MCs of the 90s.
“While everybody else was kind of shiny shooting it in the U.S., we had to go look for other artists in Toronto or even Jamaica,” he said.
Underground artists continue to thrive in both cities. Toronto listeners can discover local talent on University of Toronto’s CIUT 89.5FM during Generation Next on Saturdays from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. while Loyola University Chicago’s WLUW 88.7FM showcases independent sounds and DJs.
Music became Furious’s sole path when a buddy of his sat him down to listen to Step Into the Realm by The Roots. The next day, he bought a Rhodes keyboard for $300 from a pawn shop.
In 2001, his band, The Chapter Crew, submitted a track for Questlove’s True Notes album. Out of 10,000 entries, their song was selected thanks to Furious’s experience in sampling.
Questlove was so impressed that they opened for The Roots—their first live performance together—on the same day Furious’s son was born. They later played for Nas at the House of Blues, opened for Ice Cube, and performed for Mos Def.
After balancing family life and various jobs, including chauffeuring David Hasselhoff and his kids at the MGM theme park in Las Vegas, Furious and Errol are already ready to release their next album.
“You get your soul from having experiences that test you, and then you survive, and you get to tell the story. Even in Chicago, I was apart from Chicago because I was given a vision to see it differently, and I treated people differently. I work with people differently,” the producer said, who admits he still can’t make singles.
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