Classified Touring To Wake Up Canadians

Halifax MC/producer Classified starts a Canadian tour on Tuesday in Vancouver and will make his way east, reaching fans in often overlooked markets. Stand up, Fernie, B.C.

"We played a lot of small towns on the last tour, little towns I've never even heard of until I got there," says Classified. "We'd get crowds of like 150 to 250 people on average, but those 150 people loved every minute of it so the vibe was there."

With small towns sometimes being the best stops on a tour, Classified knows the importance of reaching fans in as many areas as possible and getting to places that may not normally get any hip-hop shows.

"I'm from a small town, so I kind of see where they're coming from and I know what the vibe is there," he says. "At some places, the first hip-hop show they had there was our one.

"A lot of them were our fans because they knew our music and stuff, but I'm sure some of them there were like, 'Oh fuck, a hip-hop show, what the hell's that? Let's go check it out 'cuz what the hell else are we gonna do?'"

Classified is touring partly in support of his newly released While You Were Sleeping EP, but mostly just to touch base with fans across the country. The EP — which consists of older material, a couple new songs and a bonus DVD — is mostly intended to give longtime fans hard-to-find repertoire that they've been asking for.

"A lot of people were looking for the older albums which aren't even available anymore," says Classified. "I kind of just wanted to take a couple of tracks off each one and put it out there and then just put on the DVD bonus videos.

"It wasn't for trying to get new fans. It's kind of just for people who have been supporting us and been with us, doing it to show them the growth of the older stuff that I was doing and trying to get something else out there this year."

While You Were Sleeping will have to hold fans over until the his next full-length, which he's currently in the studio working on. Look for it sometime in the summer.

Here are Classified's tour dates:
Jan. 15 Vancouver, BC @ Element
Jan. 16 Nanaimo, BC @ Queen's
Jan. 17 Whistler, BC @ Garibaldi Lift Co.
Jan. 18 Kamloops, BC @ Thompson River University
Jan. 20 Vancouver, BC @ Plaza Club
Jan. 21 Fernie, BC @ The Royal Hotel
Jan. 22 Banff, AB @ Wild Bill's
Jan. 23 Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room
Jan. 24 Calgary, AB @ The Warehouse
Jan. 25 Saskatoon, SK @ The Odeon Event Centre
Jan. 28 Hamilton, ON @ Absinthe
Jan. 30 London, ON @ Salt Lounge
Jan. 31 Oshawa, ON @ The Dungeon
Feb. 1 Toronto, ON @ Opera House
Feb. 2 Ottawa, ON @ Barrymore's Music Hall
Feb. 4 Montreal, QC @ Les Saints
Feb. 5 Trois Rivieres, QC @ La D'artgnan
Feb. 6 Quebec City, QC @ Dagobert
Feb. 7 Fredericton, NB @ Nicky Zee's
Feb. 8 Saint John, NB @ Ozone Night Club
Feb. 9 Antigonish, NS @ St. Francis Xavier University
Feb. 14 Charlottetown, PEI @ University Of Prince Edward Island
Feb. 15 Glace Bay, NS @ Savoy Theatre
Feb. 16-17 Halifax, NS @ The Marquee Club