Mr. Wisdom, telling it like it is…

I’ve never had a rapper on Donald Glenn’s Songs for Sunday before, but that ends this week with the arrival of Mr. Wisdom, aka Joel Critchley, a superb rap artist from Kelowna, B.C. With two decades of music-making behind him, Mr. Wisdom has established himself as a force on the Western Canadian rap scene and seems poised to break out to a wider audience in the not too distant future. He’s also my second cousin, and I’m sure he doesn’t remember, but I once babysat him for his mom Debbie in Vancouver about 40 years ago.

Heavily influenced by hip hop and rap gods like Nas, 2Pac, Ice Cube, Snoop and Eminem, his music is tight and edgy, and abundantly supported with compelling video like this YouTube rendition of I Am the One. What do I like about his music? I like that he always tells his truth; He tells it like it is.