Pressa sits down with AllHipHop and talks Drake vs Kendrick, why the city didn’t take the beef personal, and how Tory Lanez didn’t crack until 10 years in. He breaks down the real Toronto sound, being from Jane and Finch, going independent, and why outsiders need to stop trying to “figure out” the city.
SlopsShotYa talks to the Canadian star with no industry polish, no safe answers and pure real live at WonWorld Studios. Pressa simply gives his raw perspective on Hip-Hop, beef, business, and culture straight from Toronto.
AllHipHop: Do you listen to dancehall?
Pressa: Yeah, all the time.
AllHipHop: Anybody ever compare you to Alkaline? You sound like a rapping Alkaline.
Pressa: What’s crazy about it, my grandma mentioned, my grandma tells me I’m somehow kind of related to Alkaline, but not really. Like, you know, I don’t know. I think like my cousin’s cousin or something, you know, in yard. My grandma said, “Yeah, Alkaline,” she like, “His family, his auntie,” da da da da.
AllHipHop: West Indian people don’t got not one person not related to someone. They got to ask the last name, some out there cousins.
Pressa: Yeah, I know exactly how that go.
AllHipHop: Press Machine 2 is a great body of work. Long time coming. What took so long to cook it up?
Pressa: I was going through a situation at the time and I just had to reset everything. My business was all messed up. I had to go back, my corporation, my taxes, all that stuff. So I reset and got stuff rolling. Put my team back together, restructured my team, and now it’s goal time. You’re gonna see a lot more music from me.
AllHipHop: That’s a way to come back. On the intro “Machine Gun,” it had that “Went Legit” sample vibe, also “Drop Slow” by Kanye. Was that on purpose?
Pressa: I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t know what was on there. I’m tuned out a little bit. As much as he say I be smoking and tuned out, I don’t really notice a lot of things. I got selective hearing, selective thoughts. Sometimes I go on the beat and I’m just doing my own thing. I wasn’t really aware of certain things.
AllHipHop: So how long did it take to get the project together?
Pressa: The project’s easy. It was more my business. I can make music every day. It wasn’t the music holding me back. It was my business, and how I had to come out my label deal. I was signed to RCA before, just transitioning from there. I had to get my bag right because I’m independent. You feel me?
AllHipHop: Is there a big difference between Canadian laws and the American music business?
Pressa: In Toronto we get grants. They fund us. Artists in Canada, they’ll give us 20, 30, 40, 50 G’s as funding. Even when I used to tour, when I did the 50 Cent tour, I was doing it out of love. But they’ll give me money each date. Like a stipend. It’s like grants, money from the government.
AllHipHop: So it comes out the tax money?
Pressa: Yeah. They support their local artists and stuff. Shout out to FACTOR and shout out to the whole Canadian grant team. They always look out for me and all the artists coming up. That’s how a lot of Canadian artists are able to put out projects and get a little support and push.
AllHipHop: You’re one of the originators of that newer Toronto sound. Do you feel like you get enough credit?
Pressa: I’m not entitled to credit. If they give me my flowers, they give me my flowers. I was never the entitled type. I just got to do my part and keep it coming, be part of the culture. It’ll be dope.
AllHipHop: Explain Toronto’s signature sound to people who aren’t tapped in.
Pressa: The signature sound is that melodic sound. Like Houdini, Robin Banks, me, even like Burna, you feel me, my brother Burna Bandz. That’s the sound. There’s bare of us. There’s QTB, there’s so much of us that actually have influence onto the city. I feel like we’re part of the main culture.
AllHipHop: When you collab with an American artist, do you try to “Americanize” it?
Pressa: I kind of just do my own thing. People gonna feel me regardless. I try American style beats sometimes, like a Lil Baby type beat, but I never switch up my lingo or hide where I’m from. I make everybody know I’m from Canada. Toronto, the trenches, Jane and Finch. Why would I come to America and try to steal their culture? Obviously you guys got mad influence in us. I might have took some of the culture on accident, jewelry or whatever, just being influenced. But never intentionally like, “Yo, I want to be American today.” I’m proud to be Canadian, bro. We got manners. We respectful. You know what it is.
AllHipHop: Put me on some Toronto lingo.
Pressa: “Wasa demiana.”
AllHipHop: What’s that?
Pressa: It’s like dead man marijuana. It’s weed. Like pass the demi.
AllHipHop: That’s clean. But the internet, Reddit, YouTube, all that. How do you feel about outsiders being nosy, trying to figure out what’s going on behind the music?
Pressa: Hopefully they don’t figure out the pieces of the puzzle. Hopefully they never figure it out.
AllHipHop: I get it. As a New Yorker, it can feel predatory when people “solve” your neighborhood like it’s content. Toronto and New York got similarities though.
Pressa: Toronto and New York is much alike. You guys got strong Caribbean culture. I got family in Toronto, plenty cousins. I used to come to New York all the time as a little boy. Jamaica Avenue, buy a little chain. Shout out to the Coliseum.
AllHipHop: The Coliseum, yes. Jewelry downstairs, jackets upstairs.
Pressa: Facts. I was like 10, 11. My uncle brought me. Outside got the mixtapes. It was lit. Toronto is heavily influenced in Caribbean culture, so that’s why I say Toronto and New York is much alike. Just a little colder. It’s like a 6 hour drive.
AllHipHop: 2026 looking like what?
Pressa: I’m working on my album right now.
AllHipHop: So what is Press Machine today, mixtape or album?
Pressa: A mixtape.
AllHipHop: I’m still confused on the difference nowadays.
Pressa: Same. I still don’t even know.
AllHipHop: Back in the day mixtape was free music to get the album hot. Now it’s like YouTube and SoundCloud, and maybe “less effort” than an album.
Pressa: Oh okay. I get it. Press Machine was definitely a mixtape.
AllHipHop: You got a name for the album?
Pressa: Nah, I’m still working on it. I got some dope records in the stash.
AllHipHop: We waiting on that next Drake feature.
Pressa: I don’t know, man. Go check it out on Press Machine II. It’s probably on there.
AllHipHop: I wanted to ask somebody from Toronto. Did y’all take “Not Like Us” personal?
Pressa: It’s music at the end of the day. But I feel like Drake’s a better artist all around. Kendrick had that one song, it was hot, but Drake has a million of those. Hundred million slaps. You feel me? Like what are we competing with right now? We want to hear stuff too, for the ladies. I didn’t know a Kendrick song until “B,” and then “Not Like Us.” That’s probably the only two songs off the top of my head. “Poetic Justice” hard though.
AllHipHop: The battle fed YouTube too. People ate off that.
Pressa: Oh yeah. It was good for the city, good for music, good for Hip-Hop. A lot of people say we didn’t have a big moment, and that was a big moment.
AllHipHop: Before we go, I’m still mad about that World Series, bro.
Pressa: The greatest World Series of all time. Seven games. Crazy. We folded. They should have put me on the field, bro. I would have never fumbled that. Put me on third base, I would’ve made it home. These guys get paid to be stars. You better hit that ball.
AllHipHop: Baseball is a sport of failure though. They say you good if you fail seven out of ten.
Pressa: That’s a fact.
AllHipHop: Last thing. Drake is basically the OG of Toronto now. You want that kind of longevity?
Pressa: Yeah. Remember Tory Lanez didn’t crack till 10 years later.