Kent Driscoll
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (Sep 19/05) - He will answer to Capa Cassidy or Profella Q, but the name his mother gave him is Qaqasiq Kudlualik, and he raps.

The 17-year-old, and other Iqaluit youth, have adopted hip-hop music as their own, and a small performance scene is even developing. The kids just don't want to listen to their hip-hop heroes, they want to be one.

Kudlualik writes his rhymes "when I have nothing to do."

He's been doing it for a couple of years now.

Kudlualik looks like most of the young men in Iqaluit. He wears a New York Giants jacket and a Nike tuque. He listens to rap music, but he has made the decision to join in, not just sing along.

Kudlualik isn't in school, but he isn't proud of that. "I used to skip. I want to go back and try to learn the drums."

Two of the most valued things in hip-hop are originality and truth. Kudlualik has both.

"I freestyle and nobody else here does it."

He first took the stage at this year's Toonik Tymes festival, and stage fright was his enemy.

"I almost peed in my pants. I saw nothing but black, too. A friend of mine told me to look at the clock and not the crowd, and that helped.

"I think it was the first time they saw an Inuk freestyle."

For the uninitiated, freestyle is when a rapper makes up the words on the spot, improvising an entire verse or song. It takes a quick mind, timing and originality. He isn't limited to English either. Profella Q can rhyme in Inuktitut.

"I have a few Inuktitut rhymes. They really crack up my friends."

Some rappers focus on a reaction from the crowd, and shocking someone can be as effective as impressing them. Kudlualik is more reserved. He doesn't want to portray something he isn't.

"I'm not a gangster or a hoodlum. I just do it myself," he said.

Self-confidence is important in hip-hop. A cocksure strut and a healthy ego are important when you faces the criticism of the masses.

Kudlualik has a touch of that, just a touch. When asked about other rappers in Iqaluit, he shrugs and says, "All I see is them saying lyrics from other rappers."

It might seem like mild criticism, but in hip-hop, someone who copies the rhymes of others is as bad as it gets.

If you catch a Profella Q show, expect a bit of political satire as well. "Some people have problems with the government, sometimes I make jokes about the MLAs."

If there are youngsters in attendance, Kudlualik keeps it clean. "I swear a little bit, but I didn't put any of my swears on (at Toonik Tyme) because there were little kids around."

He hopes to record his work, even if it is just on his home computer. For now he downloads instrumental tracks and makes up lyrics for them.

Qaqasiq Kudlualik tries to share the reality of his life through his music.

His song "Feel The Pain" is about, "when we lose family, broken home, it's about shitty lives."

There is a Reason is about him being picked on when he was younger.

There is a Reason

Like I said/
I would never show you what I got/
Now you're sayin'/
That's what I thought/
How do you like my CD/
That you just bought/
But I'm not rapping about getting chased/
By the cops/
Without getting caught/