Pick up this week’s edition of Exclaim to check out their interview with Jus Randy (f.k.a. May One 9 from Brassmunk), or just read below. Every time I see this, I get sad that they broke up.

By Ryan B. Patrick

“Whatever happened to May One 9 from Brassmunk?” As one of the O.G.s in the Canadian hip-hop game, the rechristened Jus Randy is back and very aware of what got him here. A past member of the Juno-nominated (and now defunct) Scarborough, ON underground group, Jus Randy looks back at that time fondly. “I definitely had a good time. We did our thing, travelled across Canada, worked with different artists and did our thing.” As Jus Randy, the rapper brings that wisdom and grown man sensibilities with Infobahn, a thoughtful, satirical look at how social media and digital communications intersect, and have both connected and disconnected today’s society. Again, grown man stuff. “Family Life” speaks on his current lifestyle and outlook, “Motherland/Bulawayo,” featuring J De Guvna, flips an M.O.P. sample to speak on serious steez, while singles “This is War” and “Gud Mawnin” show that Jus Randy’s lyricism and flow have only seasoned with time. “Definitely Brassmunk built the building blocks for what I’m doing now. Now that I’m a solo artist, I can really indulge in a lot of my personal experiences and express myself more.”

What have you been up to since Brassmunk?
I never stopped rhyming, never stopped being a fan of music. A lot of times when artists are out of the public eye, people say they stopped doing what they’re doing, but hip-hop is an art and passion, for me. I always continued and when it was time to re-emerge again as Jus Randy, a lot of people may be surprised at how sharp I am.

How has the transition to solo artist been?
Being a solo MC really isn’t too much of a transition, as far as being comfortable; I think it was more finding myself, as far as what type of hip-hop I wanted to do. And ultimately, it was about finding producers [Gameboy, JLBR Production/SweetSpot] that I was comfortable with.

What did you want to accomplish with InfoBahn?
I took the concept of the Internet and the information superhighway and just flipped it. Infobahn represents the whole digital communications era that we’re in ― that Blackberry, iPhone, Facebook and Twitter phenomenon. There’s so much communication, sometimes when you’re speaking with someone you’re not paying attention. It’s so hard to have real communication these days.

Previous: NEW ALBUM: Jus Randy “InfoBahn” (Available now on iTunes)