SEGA
Against All Odds
Album · Hip-Hop/Rap · 2020
Against All Odds isn’t just the debut mixtape from one of Toronto’s most promising new rappers. It’s the cornerstone of a new hip-hop empire rising up in the Six. Since 2016, SEGA has served as the loyal right-hand man to fellow Scarborough MC KILLY, whose self-released 2017 breakout single “Killamonjaro” and Juno-nominated full-length Surrender Your Soul took the duo to festival stages around the world, while his DIY label, Secret Sound Club, nurtured the city’s next generation of rappers and R&B phenoms. With Against All Odds, SEGA becomes the first artist aside from KILLY to release a full-length on Secret Sound, representing a next-level move in both the MC's and the label’s evolution. Fittingly, SEGA treats the occasion like a title-match event, with the extended, synth-swelling intro of “Rob Van Dam” serving as the entrance music that ushers him to the ring. And once he’s in, he pulls no punches—Against All Odds is a potent shot of future-trap fury that takes aim at the fair-weather friends who only care about his money and the hood-to-prison fate that befalls so many in his community. But SEGA also softens his gritty flow and rapid-fire patois to deliver more vulnerable admissions of heartache, and introduce a smooth singing voice he hopes to showcase more on subsequent releases. “I made these songs between 2017 and 2019,” SEGA tells Apple Music, “so it's the journey of me growing as an artist, through all the obstacles that I had to overcome.” Here, SEGA gives us the track-by-track lowdown on how he beat the odds.
Rob Van Dam “It's a powerful song—the intro is building up, like it's gonna be a motion picture, like Lord of the Rings or something. An epic battle is about to begin, and I'm about to tell an epic story. So the long intro really just draws that out, and then when the beat hits, it's just overflowing with energy. Rob is one of my favorite wrestlers. When I was a kid watching Rob Van Dam, he always moved like a ninja, doing these flips. I thought he was one of the sickest ones. So in that line where I say, ‘I feel like Rob Van Dam, flying off the ropes,’ I just feel like nothing can stop me.”
Hot Body “I heard the beat, and I was like, ‘Yo, this could be like a chant—I don't know what I would say, but this beat is super powerful.’ So I just started freestyling: I said, ‘Hot body, Come Molly,’ and I just kept going in—there's a Sidney Crosby line, because he's one of the best hockey players, and I referenced Ricky Bobby because [Talladega Nights] is one of my favorite movies. 'Hot Body' is strictly performance music—it's an epic beat, so when people hear it, they'll just wanna go crazy.”
Lethal Weapon (feat. Benjy Mane) “I called this one 'Lethal Weapon' because me and my homie Benjy are going back to back. I say, 'It's Lethal Weapon, like our backs are touching'—like the cover of Lethal Weapon, the cop movie. So since we're going back to back, I just felt like we should spit some real shit, so I speak on how before you have money, people are not gonna really notice you until you do. People you haven’t talked to in a long time will be like, ‘Long time no see!’ And it’s like, what are your reasons for checking in all of a sudden? So there’s a 'fuck you' type of energy on the track.”
Can’t Compare “When KILLY started blowing up, we'd go to parties and invite some girls over, and they'd be like, ‘Oh, where's KILLY?' And I'd just be like, 'Uhhhh...he's missing.' So that's where that line about KILLY came from, which is funny.”
Plot “Where I come from, it's super gritty, so there are a lot of things I've witnessed around me. I rap about loyalty, and a lot of gritty shit. When I say, ‘Free ’em out the cells, and not the block,' it's like the block is still like another cell. N****s are still trying to get out from how they live, but they're still doing some stupid shit that could get them thrown back in prison.”
CashApp “My engineer sent me the beat, and I thought it was super hard. So because the beat was so hard, I wanted to do some soft vocals on it. It's all about money and the lessons my parents and my manager were teaching me when I started getting it, like, ‘If you can't buy it twice, then don't buy it.'”
Henny Talks (feat. a4) “It’s a little Drake love, I’m not gonna lie—it’s an emotional track. My girlfriend dumped me while I was on tour—we were in Russia and I was super drunk, and we just made that song.”
Lose (Interlude) “I recorded 'Lose' in 2017—this was the first song I actually first tried to sing on. I really tried a different approach, because I’m trying to test my boundaries. The song talks about loyalty—with the people that I surround myself with, I can't lose.”
Ground Works (feat. KILLY) “This is literally stories of me and KILLY back in Scarborough before all this started happening. So I rap about where I used to live and what we used to do—it's a real origin story.”
Collect “With 'Collect,' I wanted to see if I could just go in and freestyle, and not just do some basic lines, but try to come up with some metaphors—I just wanted to go in and start rapping.”
Slime (ft. KILLY and Nessly) “This was one of the first songs we recorded, and it has two of my favorite artists on it. For years, fans have just been asking for this song [after performing it live]. And I was like, ‘Fuck it, let's just give it to them,' and it became the outro for the project.”
Rob Van Dam “It's a powerful song—the intro is building up, like it's gonna be a motion picture, like Lord of the Rings or something. An epic battle is about to begin, and I'm about to tell an epic story. So the long intro really just draws that out, and then when the beat hits, it's just overflowing with energy. Rob is one of my favorite wrestlers. When I was a kid watching Rob Van Dam, he always moved like a ninja, doing these flips. I thought he was one of the sickest ones. So in that line where I say, ‘I feel like Rob Van Dam, flying off the ropes,’ I just feel like nothing can stop me.”
Hot Body “I heard the beat, and I was like, ‘Yo, this could be like a chant—I don't know what I would say, but this beat is super powerful.’ So I just started freestyling: I said, ‘Hot body, Come Molly,’ and I just kept going in—there's a Sidney Crosby line, because he's one of the best hockey players, and I referenced Ricky Bobby because [Talladega Nights] is one of my favorite movies. 'Hot Body' is strictly performance music—it's an epic beat, so when people hear it, they'll just wanna go crazy.”
Lethal Weapon (feat. Benjy Mane) “I called this one 'Lethal Weapon' because me and my homie Benjy are going back to back. I say, 'It's Lethal Weapon, like our backs are touching'—like the cover of Lethal Weapon, the cop movie. So since we're going back to back, I just felt like we should spit some real shit, so I speak on how before you have money, people are not gonna really notice you until you do. People you haven’t talked to in a long time will be like, ‘Long time no see!’ And it’s like, what are your reasons for checking in all of a sudden? So there’s a 'fuck you' type of energy on the track.”
Can’t Compare “When KILLY started blowing up, we'd go to parties and invite some girls over, and they'd be like, ‘Oh, where's KILLY?' And I'd just be like, 'Uhhhh...he's missing.' So that's where that line about KILLY came from, which is funny.”
Plot “Where I come from, it's super gritty, so there are a lot of things I've witnessed around me. I rap about loyalty, and a lot of gritty shit. When I say, ‘Free ’em out the cells, and not the block,' it's like the block is still like another cell. N****s are still trying to get out from how they live, but they're still doing some stupid shit that could get them thrown back in prison.”
CashApp “My engineer sent me the beat, and I thought it was super hard. So because the beat was so hard, I wanted to do some soft vocals on it. It's all about money and the lessons my parents and my manager were teaching me when I started getting it, like, ‘If you can't buy it twice, then don't buy it.'”
Henny Talks (feat. a4) “It’s a little Drake love, I’m not gonna lie—it’s an emotional track. My girlfriend dumped me while I was on tour—we were in Russia and I was super drunk, and we just made that song.”
Lose (Interlude) “I recorded 'Lose' in 2017—this was the first song I actually first tried to sing on. I really tried a different approach, because I’m trying to test my boundaries. The song talks about loyalty—with the people that I surround myself with, I can't lose.”
Ground Works (feat. KILLY) “This is literally stories of me and KILLY back in Scarborough before all this started happening. So I rap about where I used to live and what we used to do—it's a real origin story.”
Collect “With 'Collect,' I wanted to see if I could just go in and freestyle, and not just do some basic lines, but try to come up with some metaphors—I just wanted to go in and start rapping.”
Slime (ft. KILLY and Nessly) “This was one of the first songs we recorded, and it has two of my favorite artists on it. For years, fans have just been asking for this song [after performing it live]. And I was like, ‘Fuck it, let's just give it to them,' and it became the outro for the project.”
Against All Odds
SEGA
Against All Odds isn’t just the debut mixtape from one of Toronto’s most promising new rappers. It’s the cornerstone of a new hip-hop empire rising up in the Six. Since 2016, SEGA has served as the loyal right-hand man to fellow Scarborough MC KILLY, whose self-released 2017 breakout single “Killamonjaro” and Juno-nominated full-length Surrender Your Soul took the duo to festival stages around the world, while his DIY label, Secret Sound Club, nurtured the city’s next generation of rappers and R&B phenoms. With Against All Odds, SEGA becomes the first artist aside from KILLY to release a full-length on Secret Sound, representing a next-level move in both the MC's and the label’s evolution. Fittingly, SEGA treats the occasion like a title-match event, with the extended, synth-swelling intro of “Rob Van Dam” serving as the entrance music that ushers him to the ring. And once he’s in, he pulls no punches—Against All Odds is a potent shot of future-trap fury that takes aim at the fair-weather friends who only care about his money and the hood-to-prison fate that befalls so many in his community. But SEGA also softens his gritty flow and rapid-fire patois to deliver more vulnerable admissions of heartache, and introduce a smooth singing voice he hopes to showcase more on subsequent releases. “I made these songs between 2017 and 2019,” SEGA tells Apple Music, “so it's the journey of me growing as an artist, through all the obstacles that I had to overcome.” Here, SEGA gives us the track-by-track lowdown on how he beat the odds.
Rob Van Dam “It's a powerful song—the intro is building up, like it's gonna be a motion picture, like Lord of the Rings or something. An epic battle is about to begin, and I'm about to tell an epic story. So the long intro really just draws that out, and then when the beat hits, it's just overflowing with energy. Rob is one of my favorite wrestlers. When I was a kid watching Rob Van Dam, he always moved like a ninja, doing these flips. I thought he was one of the sickest ones. So in that line where I say, ‘I feel like Rob Van Dam, flying off the ropes,’ I just feel like nothing can stop me.”
Hot Body “I heard the beat, and I was like, ‘Yo, this could be like a chant—I don't know what I would say, but this beat is super powerful.’ So I just started freestyling: I said, ‘Hot body, Come Molly,’ and I just kept going in—there's a Sidney Crosby line, because he's one of the best hockey players, and I referenced Ricky Bobby because [Talladega Nights] is one of my favorite movies. 'Hot Body' is strictly performance music—it's an epic beat, so when people hear it, they'll just wanna go crazy.”
Lethal Weapon (feat. Benjy Mane) “I called this one 'Lethal Weapon' because me and my homie Benjy are going back to back. I say, 'It's Lethal Weapon, like our backs are touching'—like the cover of Lethal Weapon, the cop movie. So since we're going back to back, I just felt like we should spit some real shit, so I speak on how before you have money, people are not gonna really notice you until you do. People you haven’t talked to in a long time will be like, ‘Long time no see!’ And it’s like, what are your reasons for checking in all of a sudden? So there’s a 'fuck you' type of energy on the track.”
Can’t Compare “When KILLY started blowing up, we'd go to parties and invite some girls over, and they'd be like, ‘Oh, where's KILLY?' And I'd just be like, 'Uhhhh...he's missing.' So that's where that line about KILLY came from, which is funny.”
Plot “Where I come from, it's super gritty, so there are a lot of things I've witnessed around me. I rap about loyalty, and a lot of gritty shit. When I say, ‘Free ’em out the cells, and not the block,' it's like the block is still like another cell. N****s are still trying to get out from how they live, but they're still doing some stupid shit that could get them thrown back in prison.”
CashApp “My engineer sent me the beat, and I thought it was super hard. So because the beat was so hard, I wanted to do some soft vocals on it. It's all about money and the lessons my parents and my manager were teaching me when I started getting it, like, ‘If you can't buy it twice, then don't buy it.'”
Henny Talks (feat. a4) “It’s a little Drake love, I’m not gonna lie—it’s an emotional track. My girlfriend dumped me while I was on tour—we were in Russia and I was super drunk, and we just made that song.”
Lose (Interlude) “I recorded 'Lose' in 2017—this was the first song I actually first tried to sing on. I really tried a different approach, because I’m trying to test my boundaries. The song talks about loyalty—with the people that I surround myself with, I can't lose.”
Ground Works (feat. KILLY) “This is literally stories of me and KILLY back in Scarborough before all this started happening. So I rap about where I used to live and what we used to do—it's a real origin story.”
Collect “With 'Collect,' I wanted to see if I could just go in and freestyle, and not just do some basic lines, but try to come up with some metaphors—I just wanted to go in and start rapping.”
Slime (ft. KILLY and Nessly) “This was one of the first songs we recorded, and it has two of my favorite artists on it. For years, fans have just been asking for this song [after performing it live]. And I was like, ‘Fuck it, let's just give it to them,' and it became the outro for the project.”
Rob Van Dam “It's a powerful song—the intro is building up, like it's gonna be a motion picture, like Lord of the Rings or something. An epic battle is about to begin, and I'm about to tell an epic story. So the long intro really just draws that out, and then when the beat hits, it's just overflowing with energy. Rob is one of my favorite wrestlers. When I was a kid watching Rob Van Dam, he always moved like a ninja, doing these flips. I thought he was one of the sickest ones. So in that line where I say, ‘I feel like Rob Van Dam, flying off the ropes,’ I just feel like nothing can stop me.”
Hot Body “I heard the beat, and I was like, ‘Yo, this could be like a chant—I don't know what I would say, but this beat is super powerful.’ So I just started freestyling: I said, ‘Hot body, Come Molly,’ and I just kept going in—there's a Sidney Crosby line, because he's one of the best hockey players, and I referenced Ricky Bobby because [Talladega Nights] is one of my favorite movies. 'Hot Body' is strictly performance music—it's an epic beat, so when people hear it, they'll just wanna go crazy.”
Lethal Weapon (feat. Benjy Mane) “I called this one 'Lethal Weapon' because me and my homie Benjy are going back to back. I say, 'It's Lethal Weapon, like our backs are touching'—like the cover of Lethal Weapon, the cop movie. So since we're going back to back, I just felt like we should spit some real shit, so I speak on how before you have money, people are not gonna really notice you until you do. People you haven’t talked to in a long time will be like, ‘Long time no see!’ And it’s like, what are your reasons for checking in all of a sudden? So there’s a 'fuck you' type of energy on the track.”
Can’t Compare “When KILLY started blowing up, we'd go to parties and invite some girls over, and they'd be like, ‘Oh, where's KILLY?' And I'd just be like, 'Uhhhh...he's missing.' So that's where that line about KILLY came from, which is funny.”
Plot “Where I come from, it's super gritty, so there are a lot of things I've witnessed around me. I rap about loyalty, and a lot of gritty shit. When I say, ‘Free ’em out the cells, and not the block,' it's like the block is still like another cell. N****s are still trying to get out from how they live, but they're still doing some stupid shit that could get them thrown back in prison.”
CashApp “My engineer sent me the beat, and I thought it was super hard. So because the beat was so hard, I wanted to do some soft vocals on it. It's all about money and the lessons my parents and my manager were teaching me when I started getting it, like, ‘If you can't buy it twice, then don't buy it.'”
Henny Talks (feat. a4) “It’s a little Drake love, I’m not gonna lie—it’s an emotional track. My girlfriend dumped me while I was on tour—we were in Russia and I was super drunk, and we just made that song.”
Lose (Interlude) “I recorded 'Lose' in 2017—this was the first song I actually first tried to sing on. I really tried a different approach, because I’m trying to test my boundaries. The song talks about loyalty—with the people that I surround myself with, I can't lose.”
Ground Works (feat. KILLY) “This is literally stories of me and KILLY back in Scarborough before all this started happening. So I rap about where I used to live and what we used to do—it's a real origin story.”
Collect “With 'Collect,' I wanted to see if I could just go in and freestyle, and not just do some basic lines, but try to come up with some metaphors—I just wanted to go in and start rapping.”
Slime (ft. KILLY and Nessly) “This was one of the first songs we recorded, and it has two of my favorite artists on it. For years, fans have just been asking for this song [after performing it live]. And I was like, ‘Fuck it, let's just give it to them,' and it became the outro for the project.”
