In Houdini’s short career (he began rapping in earnest in 2016), the monster numbers he racked up spoke for themselves. It's not just all about sounding good and having bars and shit. “I don't try to sound like anyone else,” he said. He had faith in his own talent and swagger, and felt he was unique enough to break out. Though he noted that rappers in Canada lacked the infrastructure necessary to succeed, Houdini nevertheless believed he was destined for greatness. Once people see a face, they know what's up.” I'll be at these functions and just put myself out there. I'll go to the events that people are at. They're not even in the country-it feels like they don’t even know what the country is,” he told me when I interviewed him for this publication in March. “You can't expect Americans to know about Toronto’s underground and shit. In the meantime, he was doing what he could in the U.S., meeting with labels and networking. The artist, who grew up in Toronto’s Driftwood area, said he hoped to stay out of his hometown for “safety reasons,” but worried he would have to return due to difficulties renewing his artist visa. When he initially called me, he mentioned he was living in L.A. Something else we know: Houdini was incredibly ambitious. The real story here is that Canada has lost a wildly gifted, singular talent one with the potential to blow up big time-potential he was only just beginning to unlock. But while the Sun might paint Houdini as just another rapper-turned-statistic who had it coming thanks to hip-hop’s tendency to “applaud gang culture”-and quote fake Drake lyrics to illustrate their point -we know better. A trend that’s become tragically familiar-apparently so much so that it’s easy for some to trivialize these deaths, as the Toronto Sun did Wednesday in their tasteless headline about Jenkins' passing. His slaying is the latest in a profoundly sad trend of Toronto rappers losing their lives to senseless gun violence. Houdini, born Dimarjio Antonio Jenkins, was shot dead in Toronto’s Entertainment District on Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, he only got to cross off a couple of those goals. There were too many for me to write down. Once the rapper got the confirmation he needed, he listed off his year’s objectives like a litany. I wanted to feature him in Complex Canada’s annual 20 Artists to Watch Out For list he wanted to make sure I was a real person.
The first time we spoke, he called me directly on my cell, minutes after I sent him an email asking what his plans were for 2020.
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