#HIPHOSSIP5 CANADIAN EXCLUSIVE : MEET BRYAN FINLAY, BELL MEDIA'S EMERGING ARTIST OF JULY 2012.

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 18^th 2012 Nigeria.

BryanFinlay.com

Twitter @BryanFinlay