Indie rap luminary Bazooka Joe 204 (formerly John Smith) is back, detailing a life well-wasted in Winnipeg’s drinking holes and dark alleys, one bare-knuckled bar at a time. Prairie Nilsson, Bazooka Joe’s 8th solo offering, features the veteran storytelling MC leveraging tales of lost payday weekends, agoraphobic apathy, and middle-aged rap regrets into raucous, but unsparing explorations of class, addiction, and privilege. Legendary producer bigmcenroe’s timeless, layered, music box boom bap provides a banging backdrop for Joe’s authoritative delivery, clever hooks, and deft technical touch.

Bazooka Joe’s rap career began in earnest in 1999, when, known as John Smith, he started releasing music with stalwart Canadian indie rap label Peanuts & Corn Records. Initially a scrappy battle rapper, Joe quickly displayed a knack for detail driven community stories rooted in his unique upbringing, with one foot firmly planted in Winnipeg’s notorious North End and the other on the shores of the Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba. A pioneer and player in Canadian rap, Bazooka Joe has remained relevant and active in the studio and in concert over decades, having shared the stage with a diverse group of artists including Propagandhi, Sean Paul, and Killer Mike. “Kinship Of The Down & Out”, from Joe’s critically acclaimed 2004 album Pinky’s Laundromat, recently made the Winnipeg Free Press’s list of Manitoba’s 150 Most Important Songs.