*WARNING* Mizzy Mizz aka Motown Mizzy aka MiZZNUM PI aka the MiZZARD of Awes aka Poncho Sanchez tends to be long winded…so brace yourselves lol
Well another cross country run has come and gone! I always have mixed feelings after a tour, its great to be home and have my own bed but I still get what I like to call PTD or Post Tour Depression. I know that I’m built for road life because of that along with all the late nights/lack of sleep, crashing on our homies floors and the long drives are starting to become rather normal. This six week trip included 17 shows throughout the three sections of KIDS Summer School tour; Claim to Fame tour with DL Incognito and Tech Twelve, a few central Canada/southern Ontario dates and the Pocket Change tour with Theymedia. We also took the first lady of KIDS, Nikki Saint with us on this tour, which added a nice RnB flavour to each night.
We started off with the six date Claim to Fame tour with Canadian legends DL Incognito and Tech Twelve which includeded Whistler, VanCity, Kelowna, Banff, Calgary and Lethbridge. I grew up listening to DL and was always a huge fan of his lyrics/Tech’s production and to be able to build with them was so dope. The first few nights we just exchanged daps and they let us eat their rider food, which instantly was a great sign, haha. As the tour went on, we got a lot more comfortable with each other and shared lots of laughs, drinks and were also given some great advice/guidance from two cats I’ve always looked up to. Super humble dudes, a huge thanks to them and Outline Agency for having us as the main tour support, it was a hell of an experience. My favourite night out of all of the shows had to be Lethbridge. The vibe of the night started off a bit weird but in the end, it was a great way to end this part of the tour. The crowd showed a lot of love and we were shown great hospitality by DJ Booda, Rest in Power big homie.
After we finished off that portion of the tour, we continued east and hit Regina for a one off show with Def 3 and Sweatshop Union on some last minute isssh. We were thankful for the stop and to see some of our Regina family that we’ve met through Ali Dahesh. Big ups to Jason, Bob and Kalki for helping us out there and showing mad love.
Following Regina we were anxious to get to Kenora, where we rocked one of the dopest, largest venues in my lovely hometown, the Whitecap Pavillion. As openers we didn’t have the largest crowd of the night but they showed a ton of love and the night capped out with 800 people at the event. It was another cool experience because we’ve never done a room of that size and dealing with the reverb was a different beast but damn it was sick to have that much space to run around with on stage. I’m glad I got to cross that venue off my bucket list but look forward to being the headliner at that spot in the future. Respect to Nate and Mort Goss & Chris Jones for helping us get a slot in that show.
After making our way though northwestern Ontario, we kicked it in Toronto for nearly a week with our homies Babylon Warchild. Much love and respect to Raf and Reef for letting us crash at their spot for a few days. We only rocked one set there, in Ajax and it was a bit lackluster but we still did our thing and were able to catch up with some friends we haven’t seen in a while. The highlights for me personally were outside of performing. We crushed a joint with Unknown Mizery that will be featured on the KIDS next release, ohhhhhh shit do we got some dope things cooking for that. We got a chance to take in Caribana weekend for the first time, which was pretty wild. I’ve never seen anything like that, the vibe was nice, the costumes were crazy and the amount of people checking out the festivities was ridiculous. Our homie Reef also took us to this dope block party in his former hood, which was a cool experience as well. The biggest highlight personally was kicking it with one of my college professor Tony Sutherland. Always great to catch up with him, he holds a wealth of knowledge in the industry and we always have tons of laughs and shared our experiences from Caribana.
After Toronto, we carried on to Montreal for five days and were able to really soak in the city during this trip because last tour we had less than 24 hours. Thankfully it was our performance during the Masta Ace tour that got us booked for the Under Pressure Festival, which was running its 18th installment of this Grafitti/Urban showcase weekend. Sterling Downey and Melissa Proietti were gracious hosts and we can’t wait to be back in Montreal and build with them in the future. The vibe from this weekend were also amazing, so much hip hop involved!! At one point you have a DJ spinning tracks to the BBoy/BGirl battle, while graf artists were showcasing their skills on the city walls around Sainte Catherine street. It was pure hip hop ALL weekend long and if you ever get the chance to check this festival, I highly recommend it. We were part of a weekend wrap up show at Foufounes with Mr Lif and it was cool to see how he handled his live show, how he incorporated the crowd and kept his energy moving. It was great to rock that stage of such a legendary venue again! We also got to hit up Old Montreal on some of our downtime and took some sick photos and is where I think we got the photo of the tour…drawn for us…
We started to make our way back to northwestern Ontario after Montreal but made a pit stop in Scarborough and spent a couple nights with Munro’s cousin and I gotta say..DAMN. I didn’t even know that this type of view existed in Toronto, I’ll let the pictures do the talking for me on this one. A Huge thanks to Chelsea and Brian for welcoming us into their home and showing us this hidden gem!
We made a quick stop in Sudbury to do an all ages paint party on our way to the Pocket Change tour’s start in Sault Ste Marie. It was a different vibe but I’ve never seen anything like that either, just tweens screaming to have this waterbased paint shot all over them and they were pretty live. Mad respect to my aunt and uncle for holding us down everytime we roll through Sudbury as well!
The Pocket Change tour was a chance for us to reunite with our central Canada brothers, Theymedia. It was the first time we’ve headlined a tour and it was great to build with Tony, Preme IBE and Chepnko(LT) of Beatfarm. This section of our tour really allowed us to showcase our skills to our hometowns and it was a great way to finish this journey. BIG UPS to the Waltons and Theymedia for their hospitality in Thunder Bay, which is always amazing. We’ve been cooking up a 15 track project when we stop through there and it will feature production by Theymedia producers, AM and Tony Mcguire, as well as one track by Boston area producer C-Lance and lyrics by KIDS, Nikki Saint, Ali Dahesh and Theymedia.
The shows were a lot of fun and it was dope to see Theymedia get better and better each night, I highly recommend checking out our brothers if they are in your area!! Wawa was a fun stop, they always treat us like royalty and Yakub’s mother Jana takes amazing care of us, 1 love to her and Jody. This portion of the tour we got to spend a lot of time outdoors and get back in touch with nature. The meals in our hometowns were amazing, tons of walleye and a bit of fishing was done, campfires, a long ass canoe ride, some seadooing and tons of swimming.
The best part of this northwestern Ontario swing for myself was definitely Kenora, damn did we ever go out with a bang on this one. It basically felt like home field advantage for me this night and the crowd really showed tons of love and made my brothers feel right at home with me. The energy was amazing and K-town finally delivered the type of show that I’ve been bragging about for years, I can’t thank my people enough for that!! A huge thanks goes out to my folks for holding us down and treating us like kings when we roll through, this trip really touched my heart on a personal level, as well as musically.
This was a great and humbling learning experience on the road and I can’t wait till we head out for another venture in the future. The bonds built on these trips feel unbreakable and have helped us become a tighter family through all the conversations, music building and flatulence sharing along the road. I can’t thank Kelvin, Yakub, Munro and Nikki enough for all the energy they put into this venture…guys (and gal) we are one fucking hell of a team and our art, chemistry, skills, superpowers, and personal growth continue to impress me. I’d also like to thank Craig MacMillan, Tony Purple and Erika Kenning of Outline Agency for their continual help and support of KIDS! I’ll finally close this oout now and say thank you to all the fans we have/made but especially my family and friends that we got to see along the way, thats one of my favourite parts of being able to make these journeys across the country….till the next time Canada, this is Mizzy Mizz aka Motown Mizzy aka MiZZNUM PI aka the MiZZard of Awes aka Poncho Sanchez signing off! Peace, Love and Unity
PS. be on the lookout for a bunch more photos in the near future!!
KIDS After Class Sessions 
