Toronto Star
TTC an unlikely muse for aspiring entertainer
December 09, 2008
TESS KALINOWSKI
TRANSPORTATION REPORTER
It's been 22 years since the Shuffle Demons released their classic, "Spadina Bus" and nearly half a century since 1950's "The Subway Song" celebrated the opening of the Yonge line.
Now there's a new ode to Toronto transit, a rap song and video called, "I Get On (The TTC)," that has been attracting thousands of hits on YouTube and social networking sites since it was posted Dec. 4 by a couple of 21-year-old performers from Scarborough.
The affectionate, light-hearted look at the city's quintessential ride on the Rocket, was written, performed and shot by Humber College student Syrus, whose real name is Rudolph Anthony Watson.
His friend, Randal 4Man (Randal Paul Medford), a former MuchMusic intern and graduate of Centennial College, assisted with the video shoot, back-up vocals and 10 hours worth of editing on the project.
Shot in late November, the video is a playful parody of American rapper Young Jeezy's, "I Put On For My City," a song Syrus loved.
Instead of convertibles and scantily clad women, the Toronto duo's version features scenes from Keele and Kipling stations, the 43 Kennedy bus and the TTC stop near Syrus's home.
In one scene, Syrus spills a deck of Metropasses from his pocket. In another, Randal is shown chasing a bus down the road after it fails to stop for him.
"I take the subway from Kennedy to Kipling on a daily basis. I've got nothing to do basically and I'm in comedy writing so I figure I might as well take the hour and a half and write some stuff," said Syrus, an aspiring comedic actor, who is studying comedic performance at Humber College.
The video has caught on because so many people can relate to the content, he said.
"Everybody has their individual experiences on (the TTC) but you've got to love it because it's convenient and you see funny stuff all the time, which is why I wrote about it," said Syrus, who says he has seen it all, from fighting couples and the mentally ill to people sitting and standing too close and digging in their ears.
Randal, who wants to direct, act and produce films, says he can't sit down on the bus or subway without falling asleep. But once, standing on a packed Dufferin bus from the Caribana parade for more than an hour, he and a friend engaged their fellow passengers in a loud debate on the difference between the sexes.
"The whole bus got into it. It was the most entertaining bus ride I've been on in my life," he said.
The pair knew they were onto something last Friday, a day after Randal had posted the video on his YouTube page.
That morning Syrus noted 726 hits. By the time he went to bed, "I Get On," had attracted 4,262 viewers.
A new version of the video was posted Dec. 9, deleting a brief homophobic slur that appeared in the original and was causing controversy online. Syrus and Randal say it was meant as a joke but when they realized it was offensive they moved as quickly as possible to take it out of the video.
TTC chair Adam Giambrone, who happened to ride the Dufferin bus with Randal on Sunday following an awards reception, is supportive of their effort.
"This song, along with a lot of the other pop presentations of the TTC, all confirm the fact that the TTC is important to the day-to-day lives of people. That comes through not only in terms of pop culture references but in ideas and positions people articulate," he said.
