Suburban Noize Records revealed today that Madchild, emcee for veteran Vancouver, British Columbia Hip Hop group the Swollen Members has been banned from the United States. The emcee has been denied access by US customs officials, upon trying to cross the border.
In a statement, Madchild said the following: “I was on my way to meet my brothers in Swollen Members to perform some shows in the United States. I went to go through customs at the Vancouver Airport, and I was pulled into the customs waiting room. I must have sat there for three hours before I was even called up to the desk, which was odd considering there was hardly anybody else in there waiting. When I was finally called up, the agent started questioning me about being a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club and when I replied, ‘No,’ he just continued to repeat the question over and over again. After five more hours of waiting, watching him go back and forth, looking on the Internet and asking me the same questions over and over again, I was finally called to the front desk. He asked me another series of questions and after a total of eight and a half hours of questioning I was told that I was officially banned from entering the United States.”
The emcee continued, “The thing that is frustrating to me is that I am being judged for the people I associated with and for some trouble I had back when I was a minor over 16 years ago. In the last year I’ve managed to defeat my drug addiction and really worked on changing my life to become a better person. I’ve even started speaking at high schools here in Canada to talk to kids about the perils of drug addiction and hopefully use my journey to inspire the youth to avoid the pitfalls that I fell into. It’s extremely disheartening to me to know that after turning my life around, it feels like a second chance is evading me. Unfortunately when entering the United States, I’m not judged on the person I am today, but rather on my appearance and whoever the customs officials perceive me to be, which is discrimination.”
On March 15, 2011, Madchild and the Swollen Members will release Dagger Mouth on Battle Axe/Suburban Noize Records.
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(January 4)
UPDATE: Suburban Noize Records announced today that Mad Child turned his United States Customs experience into an EP, February 15’s Banned From America.
“After being turned away at customs, I drove home that night feeling full of disappointment and frustration. I knew I had to do something positive as a way of dealing with it, so I started writing about the experience,” commented Madchild in a statement. “I started recording immediately and didn’t stop for six days. I was only sleeping a couple hours a day, because if I wasn’t writing or recording, I would have gotten myself into some trouble. Looking back, this was the best thing I could’ve done for myself and some dope new songs came out of these recording sessions. Everyone at the label loved the material and I’m excited for fans to hear it.”
The tracklisting to the five-song EP is as follows:
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1 – Black Phantom
2 – Mental Explosion
3 – Little Bad Wolf
4 – Super Ill Villain
5 – Re-birth of the Warlord
