I Heart Hip Hop Karaoke Montreal

A party held at Le Belmont every month - this February, it's tonight -- Hip Hop Karaoke Montreal is not what you think. At all. Photo © Evelyn Reid

I loathe karaoke. The bouncy lyric ball teleprompter, the neverending stream of liquored-up off-pitch train wrecks devoid of stage presence wasting minutes of my life away... I can't be bothered to go to a karaoke bar. EVER.

Okay. I did go once. I was a cross between yawn-level bored and teeth-gritting annoyed -- dare you desecrate "Take on Me"? Can you hold ONE note??? Do you have Morten Harkett's cheekbones and smug, squinty pout?! I see no Nordic chisel. No elfin aura!!!* And the drinks sucked. And I lost my makeup bag. It was a terrible, terrible evening. Then I found my makeup bag. It became a less terrible evening.

I did not share this key piece of information with Hip Hop Karaoke team member Olivia Benaroche -- bias: I love this girl -- when she approached me on the subject of covering a recurring hip hop karaoke event in Montreal. My immediate reaction was "ugh." Her counter reaction? Insistence.

What she didn't tell me was how not karaoke Hip Hop Karaoke Montreal is. And that I was going to love what it's all about.

Let me explain.

More on:

• Hip Hop Karaoke Montreal
• Confessions of a Hip Hop Karaoker

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*I'm not actually this glib and superficial, at least not THE FIRST TWO HOURS INTO A GODDAMN KARAOKE NIGHT.