A meet and greet with the new king of rap

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: DAY ONE
Shahmeer Ansari is a Toronto-born rapper who’s relocated to New York and pursuing his dream full time.

“You mind if I go get a beer?” the king asked as he sat down for his FaceTime interview.

Let me explain; Shahmeer Ansari — better known as Shah — is a Toronto-born rapper, newly relocated in New York. “Shah” and “meer” both translate to “king” in Arabic.

“My parents put those two words together to mean ‘king of kings,'” he said. “Shah is also a good word to rhyme with. [That's] what people call me — that's the rap name.”

The 26-year-old, though now pursuing music full time, has BComm and MD from the University of Toronto to add to his name.

He also had a brief stint on Wall Street.

“I was just in the pursuit of money,” he said. “What I realized when I started working [there] was that it's sort of a soulless job ... you're inevitably going to be doing bad things. You're encouraging others to put their money in unethical things ... [so] it seemed like a safe decision to go and do medicine.”

He's accomplished a lot in the educational aspect of life, but rap remained his first love throughout school. He even started a non-profit organization that taught kids how to read and write using rap.

“I discovered rap like so many other '90s kids ... that's your art form, that's what you can relate to, that's your therapy,” he said. “[In university] I was always looking for beats, I'd always be rapping but it was just for myself.”

“After the first year or two [of med school], it was clear that wasn't going to be the primary hustle. Rap was definitely calling at that point.”

Upon graduating med school in 2012, Shah decided to pursue rap full time, even evolving his sound from classic '90s rap to contemporary artist.

Shah relocated to the concrete jungle, his second home.

“When I was coming up in the rap game ... Toronto [didn't and] doesn't have that love for its own artists like the way you see it down here in the States,” he said. “New York is more based on your borough or your neighbourhood. [When] people meet an artist who's from their part of New York, it's an automatic love.”

He said his music is on the “same level of hustle” in New York, whereas in Toronto he's too loud and too intense, and where he draws inspiration for his music isn't what you'd expect from a guy in his mid-20s.

“[My inspirations] are more people and organizations that have done ground-breaking things,” he said. “These are the things that really motivate me.”

He listed people and organizations like Julius Caesar, NASA, Malcolm X, Gandhi — even the British Empire and Genghis Khan.

“They're people [and institutions] doing things on a very big level,” he said. “There's this fascination like, damn, these guys took over a lot of shit. They were ahead of the rest of the world and they were able to dominate.”

In short, he's set on staying ahead of his peers, by rapping about other things.

“One of the things I'll rap about is money, and that's part of my background; Wall Street and knowing economics.”

He explained that instead of talking about spending money frivolously, he talks about the regret of spending money foolishly.

“Buying illicit substances when I could have been buying ounces of gold, and if you look at how much gold has appreciated over the last 10 years... this isn't something rappers talk about. But I could rap about it now and in a year it'll still be fresh because it's so far away from anyone's frame of references.”

Needless to say, he wants to be the change in the scene.

“I wanna do whatever the fuck I want ... and also make enough money where I can impact people's lives positively and use the money however the fuck I want,” he said. “Buying books, buying food and buying weapons for people who are hungry and oppressed and trying to get freed.”

“The measure used to define how gangster a rapper is [should be] by the positive change, or even by the change they make outside of their community. Who fed the most [people] on earth? Who bought the most books? ... I want to spearhead that and at the very least be the rapper that makes change on a history textbook level.”

“There's a lot of money wasted in this industry and I want to see it go somewhere good.”

To find out more about Shah, visit thisisdayone.com, Like him on Facebook at facebook.com/dayofshah or follow his Twitter handle @DayOfShah.