The Montreal-based group Butta Babees brought hip-hop and radio to life through thought provoking lyricism and killer verse’s. The fierce rhymes by the group’s emcee’s, Stephen “ZipLoks” Hennessy and Osei “Manchilde” Alleyne, were backed by DJ Raid’s powerful beats. The group would often feature several other talents who frequented their radio show, including the Toronto female-emcee, Motion.

Born from ILL Groove Garden on CKUT 90.3FM, Butta Babees’ climb to fame highlights the impact of college radio for growing “underground” music genres. ZipLoks and Manchilde began as radio hosts of the show and after being inspired by featured musicians, they decided to test out their own work with their audience. Their well-rounded music palettes, with interests in rock, reggae, R&B, and acute love for vinyl helped shape their sound.

As a spoken word artist, Manchilde’s structure often focused on a stream of conciousness and storytelling approach, whereas ZipLoks originated as a hype man for the group, bringing energy and flow to their performances. ZipLoks calls the group of rotating DJ’s and emcee’s ‘a family’, with all their past collaborators adding something unique to their story. One of their more popular tracks, “Understand Yourself”, reps this idea of unity, showing the various Montreal neighbourhoods and landmarks that impacted them. The music video was featured on MuchMusic and helped push them to the national level.

Butta Babees have since performed with several luminaires including Mos Def, Jill Scott, and the Roots. The group represents an era of hip-hop that had to fund the fight to make the charts. Making a music video and getting radio play was often very expensive, with today’s technologies these productions are now easily accessible with the latest iPhone or Spotify account.

They continue to appear on air with CKUT and have since branched out into academia and community service, using their hands-on knowledge to educate youth. Manchilde has a degree in History from the University of Concordia and is an educator, leading several workshops and lectures on the topics of hip-hop and urban culture.