I met Bryan Finlay online, he met me thru Toronto
teen rap phenomenom L’il Jaxe’s website (formerly L’il JayZ). Finlay is a pop
artist from Edmonton , Alberta Canada .
His song “Good Times” was produced by Producer Hands Up, a member of another
Canadian band. “Sentimental Fool” is a very good song I love which he recorded
with Mike James and Troy Sampson who own a music group and were involved in the
Bounce mall singing competition which produced some Juno winners including past
winners like Quantesha Benjamin and Kreesha Turner. She called Kreesha Turner a
“sweet girl” and loved her so much. I reminded him of the “Bounce with me” song
Kreesha had on the radio back then calling it an ode to the station. Bryan won that talent
competition too meaning that he’s gonna be famous, like it or not people! LOL.
He liked the Winnie the Pooh song and sang
it all around the house performing it in front of his parents. He was in a
talent show in grade 7. I asked him who he would love to work with in the music
biz and he told me Joshua from Marianas Trench .
He praised Josh as a song writer especially co-writing that monster hit “Call
me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen. He chose Alyssa Reed as the female artist he
would love to work with. We spoke about the award shows and he was nominated
for the Edmonton Music awards as Best Male artist. I asked him about going to
work in the USA
in the music business. “Sentimental Fool” was picked up by a US clothing
retailer to play in their stores. At the time of my interview in July, he had
never been to the US
and wanted to visit Texas .
Texas will be
the sister state to Alberta
in my view, the cowboy stuff.
He loves Justin Bieber, wish Drake will
drop a verse on his album and told me Simon Cowell and the X-Factor debate and
other talent show. He thought Canadian Idol and X-Factor should be back in a
Canadian form. He even suggested Michael Buble as a judge and we talked about
Celine Dion and Jully Black laughing over the strictness of those singers as
Judges. I asked him for his birthday wish to pick an artist to perform with on
a tour, which was a tough decision. He picked Britney Spears! We talked about
the autotune being overused in music. He said it’s “getting kinda old.” Looking
at Jesse J and Adele, he praised their real voices. Jesse J is his fave artist
and he sang that verse for me. WOW! His voice was off the chain!
We talked about touring with the young teen
groups. He was about to turn 19
in August and I asked him on his everyday choices as fan
always want to know. He uses a Samsung Galaxy, loves Subway as fave fast food,
fave reality show was a tie between Jersey
Shore and the Real world
on MTV. I got to know Bryan
very well. He is an everyday young man. He will be getting an album together in
less than 1.5 years and has these 3 singles available on i-tunes via his
website. As the Bell
emerging Artist of the month of July 2012, he shouted out Connie Bernadi at
Magic 100FM in Ottawa , Canada for promoting his Bell honour. I actually
got that press release as well and was very impressed with Bryan . Bryan
is incredible, fantastic and talented.
Finally, I asked Bryan to sing me a song. This was SICK!! He
truly is talented!! He sang the chorus of one of his songs…“All I can wait is
for you to discover me.” Though I am no longer in Canada , Bryan Finlay no doubt, I
will meet somewhere, some day. Look how long it took for me to meet Drake,
Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg and my lovely friend the late Whitney Houston. It took
some traveling around the world and sheer luck. I have met Snoop in 3
countries, Canada ,
Nigeria
and the USA .
Remember, this is about your fave singers
as they are emerging. I love to interview them as they are emerging and thus,
one day when Bryan
blows up big, just like I sat next to Justin in 2009 at the MMVA’s when he was
only a visiting 15-year-old backstage, Ciara when she had no album. Nicki Minaj
when she was a model with no album and Young Jeezy when he was just selling
CD’s out of the car outside the Hot 1079FM venue in Atlanta in 2003. Bryan
Finlay will become so big and I said it today on this my July 2012 interview
with him as Bell Media’s emerging artist of the month for July 2012. Congrats Bryan . It was worth the
wait to show you to the world in my HipHossip anniversary special.—MsKemi Dec 18th 2012 Nigeria .