Five things you should know about 'I get on (the TTC)'
Melissa Leong, National Post
Published: Tuesday, December 09, 2008
A catchy new hip hop video making the rounds on the Internet has caught the attention and admiration of the city's transit commission. People have watched the ode to public transit, called I Get On (the TTC), almost 30,000 times since it was uploaded to YouTube last Thursday. Melissa Leong suggests five things to take note of:
1 Last month, Syrus Watson, a 21-yearold studying comedy writing and performance at Humber College, was on the subway, listening to a song by Young Jeezy, featuring Kanye West, when he decided to write his own lyrics to the tune. The parody even includes the ubiquitous Auto-Tune technology, which corrects a singer's pitch while sometimes giving him a robot voice.
"I've always thought, the way hip hop is right now, I could be a rapper, anybody could be a rapper," Mr. Watson says. With Auto-Tune, anyone can also be a singer.
2 Mr. Watson recorded the song with Randal Medford, a 21-year-old broadcasting graduate of Centennial College, in a friend's garage studio. They complain about waiting for buses and people who intrude on your personal space. "Move your leg over dog, stop touching mine, I'm super straight ... I hate people on the bus that feel the need to flatu-late." But the song has love for the better way: "The TTC can be a drag, other times it's super great." "Gas price remedy, take the 43 Kennedy/ So broke, so poor, catch the 97 Bloor."
3 Adam Giambrone, chairman of the TTC, said the transit commission is "impressed" with the "terrific" video. "It represents many peoples' feeling towards TTC ... love and frustration," he said. Mr. Medford attended an awards gala with him Sunday night. They rode the Dufferin bus home together. Mr. Giambrone said they are exploring how they could use the video. How about instead of the chimes when the subway doors are closing, they play the chorus: "I get on the TTC, on, on the TTC."
4 Mr. Watson says he is a proud supporter of the TTC and continues to pack his pocket with Metropasses while his friends purchase vehicles. "Ever since I was young, that's how you get around. You live in Toronto. That's it. A lot of people have a lot of problems with it, delays, fare prices. Our fares are considerably lower than most places. ....
You should just appreciate the convenience of it and sit back and enjoy the ride." Think of what you can do with the free time. Write a song.
5 "We expected our friends to say, 'Oh, you guys are funny,' and that's it. Somehow it got big," Mr.
Medford says. Then he verbalizes the fear that likely plagues all stars of viral videos: "I don't want to be a one-time hit." "The best-case scenario would be that Syrus and I become spokespeople for the TTC. From there we start doing other jobs and we get an acting career out of it." (I heard that the Numa Numa Guy who got 700 million viewings of his 2004 Web cam dance video, recently made an album. So, there is hope.)
