Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Thabo Chinake (who calls himself KTheChosen) came to Calgary in 2015 as an international student.

Chinake, named a Top 20 Compelling Calgarian by the Calgary Herald in 2022, has been a key player in creating the LYFE (Lost Yesterday, Found Eternity) Project which brings together newcomer Calgary musicians and honours the lived layers of their music. The project has over 10 rappers and singers, including 2023 YYC Music Awards People’s Choice nominee Tea Fannie and many instrumentalists such as saxophonist and DJ Slim Tyme. The first single, Nigerian-born Jey Oh’s Eternal Memory, a lovely, layered R&B song that’s a perfect summer soundtrack, hit the pavement July 7. Something Different, a song by K-Riz x The Blue that marries rap with a flowing sense of musicality, was released in early September
The entire LYFE album will be released Nov. 17, 2023

The project emerged from the seeds of a casual conversation between Chinake and executive director of the Immigrant Council for Arts Innovation, Toyin Oladele, just before the pandemic when the two noticed a trend. “We go to all these events, you know, Ethnik Festival, other festivals, and it’s the same performers every time, and the music might be from a Black artist but it doesn’t really represent the culture where they are from,” Chinake says.

There were ongoing conversations, but as with everything else, the pandemic slowed action down. Chinake’s vision was to invite newcomers to lend their musical talents to enhance the bigger picture. Over time, the LYFE Project emerged.

“In terms of trying to formalize it, we would have video calls and just try to formalize … what would this project look like, who would be on the project, what’s the best way to do it … I think collaborative projects are great because you’ve got so many voices involved, but there need to be clear objectives and clear leaders, right, because otherwise they kind of expand horizontally but don’t actually move forward.”

Chinake, aware of a diaspora of people from Africa and the Caribbean, wanted to capture some of their experiences. “So, we talked about what’s the perfect team, and that was around the time that (3rd Verse Record’s Nii Ayi) and I started talking. He was coming into the industry from the managerial and studio manager perspective. It’s funny because I’d spoken to Toyin about Nii, ‘Oh, he’s creating a studio that might be an ideal location to record.’

“As we started talking about his goals and things he wanted to do it was like, you know what, I think we’re all talking about the same things from different perspectives. That would have been earlier this year, early March.”

Ayi adds, “September or October me and (3rd Verse producer and engineer) Chef Beatz and a couple of producers started talking about doing a collaborative project for the city. And seeing as I ran 3rd Verse Records, the music studio here, when you work with some artists you don’t have much control over release dates … So, when we first started the studio, you felt like there’s an element that’s outside of your control if you want to market or have people hear your sounds. So, I think I need to do a project that represents the city that brings people together, that could be a label project.” Ayi and Chef Beatz had already put out a “beat pack” featuring R&B, hip-hop, Afrobeats and “house techno type vibes.”