Alick Mac

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity, spelling, and readability. The original conversation was longer and has been condensed for the episode.

Cold open

Alick Mac: I think that they kind of strip away our soul, and they keep us from being human, ultimately, and experiencing the joys of vulnerability and being emotionally honest.

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Eric Chan: I’m Eric Chan, and you’re listening to Inlet Wire — your direct line to BC artists.

In this episode, I’m joined by Alick Mac, a rapper, singer and songwriter from the Comox Valley.

His writing is personal and vulnerable, and that eventually led to Boys’ Club — a one-man show exploring masculinity, mental health and misogyny.

I started by asking him where that vulnerability comes from.

Alick Mac: I would say it comes from a fairly honest and vulnerable place.

I really try to use songwriting almost as a journal, and I really try and reflect on experiences that I’ve had in my life.

I feel that songwriting also helps me make sense of certain things that have happened in my life, and certain feelings and emotions. It’s really been helpful in just helping me navigate the challenges of life that everyone deals with.

Eric Chan: That way of writing came later. Music itself was there much earlier.

Alick Mac: It’s interesting. I wouldn’t say I necessarily grew up in the most musical household.

I enjoyed singing. I was in choir quite young, and I found that that was fun. It was never really beyond that anything I took too seriously.

I would say it was more going into my later years, my teen years. I started to listen to hip-hop more because it was really what people around me were listening to, and I really enjoyed it.

Eric Chan: These days, a song can take shape in a lot of different ways.

Alick Mac: It varies.

Sometimes there are days when you’ll hear the beat and you’re like, “Oh, I know exactly what I’m going to say. I know the energy I want to bring to this.”

Then there are other days where it’s a little bit like, okay — and it kind of goes back to what I was saying about trusting your songwriting.

Sometimes, if I haven’t written for a month and it’s day three back to writing, I find myself thinking, “Nothing’s coming to me. I don’t know if this beat is the one.”

Sometimes I have to say to myself, maybe nothing comes of this. Maybe this is a bad song.

Eric Chan: And bringing other people into the process can change it again.

Alick Mac: What it’s looked like for me in terms of my collaborations has been kind of all over the place.

I’ve had instances where I’ve worked very closely with people. Not that I’ve necessarily been producing myself, but offering input from the beginning around the production choices, what sound I’m looking for, and what qualities I want the song to have.

Then, on the other hand, sometimes it’s as simple as buying beats off YouTube. So it really has varied for me.

Eric Chan: If you want to hear that side of Alick, “Toothpaste” is a good place to start.

Alick Mac: I think “Toothpaste” is probably one that best highlights my qualities.

There’s a good blend of singing and rapping, and I’m proud of the lyrics of that one especially. I think I was able to get across the vibe and the message that I wanted to.

The whole idea of that song is it being kind of a gloomy day and things aren’t going right, but finding that hope in what I’m doing, in my creative pursuits, and in the joy of creativity and creation.

Eric Chan: But some songs ask him to go somewhere much more personal.

“Easier to Shout” is one of those.

Alick Mac: It was definitely quite a raw, vulnerable creation.

With it being my second release, I felt that it kind of established what I wanted to be creating or doing with my work, which was just speaking from my experiences and really just trying to be as sort of naked as possible.

Eric Chan: And that vulnerability opened up a bigger conversation.

Alick Mac: I was first starting to think about masculinity, what it means to be a man.

I think there are a lot of pressures on men to be really emotionally stoic — don’t display your emotions, don’t cry.

I never considered myself an extremely tough or macho person, but I read this book called For the Love of Men by Liz Plank. In reading this book, I was able to see how, even on a very subtle level, some of my behaviours were a response to some of the ideas of what a man should be.

Even some of the ways I would shut down emotionally if I felt overwhelmed by my feelings.

The book was really eye-opening for me, and I wanted to put that in a song because I felt like that wasn’t necessarily a conversation I was having with a lot of men, but I felt like it was something that a lot of us would relate to.

Eric Chan: And that’s where Boys’ Club starts to come into the picture.

Alick Mac: Boys’ Club is a one-man show. It’s about masculinity, mental health, misogyny.

It’s kind of about what being a man means to me and what it has meant to me in the past.

It’s in large part connected to some of the stuff that we’re seeing in the world today. There are a lot of negative online influences who have risen to prominence, who are espousing all these ideas of what a man should be, often with this undertone of misogyny and this idea that a man must dominate a woman.

I don’t think those ideas are productive for either side.

Obviously, they’re clearly harmful to women, but I think that, in a different way, they’re very harmful to men.

I think that they kind of strip away our soul, and they keep us from being human, ultimately, and experiencing the joys of vulnerability and being emotionally honest.

Eric Chan: Turning those ideas into Boys’ Club also meant thinking beyond a normal music set.

Alick Mac: I got into the Nanaimo Fringe Festival and was speaking to the artistic director, and I kind of realized there was actually an opportunity to do something that was an artistic challenge for me.

When I started to think about it, I got really excited. I thought, this is a great project for me to work on.

From there, I started to develop Boys’ Club.

First, it was about putting the songs together, and then the gaps in between. It’s essentially a format where I perform a song and then I speak about the next song.

Eric Chan: For Alick, the goal isn’t really to leave people with an answer.

Alick Mac: The hope is that it leaves them questioning some things in their lives.

Why is it that I feel uncomfortable when my male friend opens up to me?

Why is it that I barely, or have hardly ever, cried in front of anyone?

Little things like that.

The hope is to even just plant a seed that can lead to growth.

Eric Chan: That was Alick Mac.

You can find his music and more about Boys’ Club through the links in the show notes — and if he’s playing near you, definitely go check out one of the shows.

I’m Eric Chan. Thanks for listening to Inlet Wire — your direct line to BC artists.