Edmonton rap artist Cadence Weapon invited Oilers fans to join him Monday afternoon to record a music video for the reworked version of his Connor McDavid tribute song.
The born and raised Edmontonian wrote the original song in 2017 to honour the Oilers superstar and the entire team.
“It’s a tribute to Connor McDavid, the Oilers, new and old,” he said. “And this new version I made has got a bunch of players from the current roster. People have been DM-ing me daily for the last seven years asking for a new version of the song. So, I finally relented. We’re in the Stanley Cup. Now is the right time.”
The artist says he’s really proud of the team.
“I’m really stoked that they’ve made it to this point,” Cadence Weapon said in an interview with Global News on Friday.
“I really feel like we might be a team of destiny.”
In what he calls one of the craziest weeks of his life, Cadence Weapon got to work. After rewriting the song in one day last Monday, he got into the studio on Tuesday and sent the reworked version to his label on Wednesday. The song is already available to download.
“It’s been a pretty wild experience,” he said.
“I have a lot of nostalgia for that last Stanley Cup run. I was living just off of Whyte Ave and I remember just the madness and just the energy in the city. I kind of wanted to bring people back to that. Where were you in ’06?”
The updated version of the song includes references to the ’06 Cup run, Whyte Avenue bar Black Dog and players on the current roster.
The former poet laureate for the City of Edmonton said the reworked song is about hockey, but he also wanted to make it an ode to his hometown.
“I really just wanted to create some music for people to feel some local pride about Edmonton.”
In a post on social media from Pearson Airport in Toronto on Sunday, Cadence Weapon called on Oilers fans to meet him at the Bob and Doug McKenzie statue outside of Edmonton’s Rogers Place at 3:30 p.m. Monday for the video shoot.
“I feel like it’s going to be a time capsule for the city,” he said at the shoot Monday afternoon. “It’s something people can always look back on.
“It’s something that I wish I did when I made the original version in 2017. I didn’t do a video and so I felt like, let’s do it. I hopped on a plane, came over here and we’re just making it up as we go along.”
Cadence Weapon hopes to catch Game 3 of the playoff series while he’s in Edmonton. He also hopes to hear his song everywhere he goes while he’s in the city.
“I want you playing it in your truck, I want you playing it in your car, at your tailgate party, at Moss Pit.”
With files from Emily Mertz, Global News