It was five years in the making.
Whistler rapper Ump has been a well-kept secret, but now he's ready to go public with It's Not You, It's Me, his third album.
It will be released on iTunes on Christmas Day, Friday, Dec. 25, and costs $8.
Ump, a.k.a Daniel Kapchinsky, grew up in the resort. He has not been performing in recent years as he got on with making his songs. But he'd like to change that now the album is complete.
"Music's just my life," he says.
"I really have to get on it. I have a low presence on the Internet and that impacted opportunities.
"To make a long story short, I basically had the album ready in the summer, but in trying to plan the release party, every week in Whistler there was something huge going on already. I ended up putting it aside."
But now he's ready."I always wanted to put out a Christmas album and this is an album coming out on that day, but it doesn't have Christmas carols," Ump laughs.
He hopes the release day will have music lovers reaching for newly gifted iTunes cards.
Ump is currently working on videos to accompany It's Not You, It's Me.
Speaking of which, from some of his earlier work it is clear he has a good sense of humour.
In his 2012 video for "Bossin in the Pine," Ump raps a kind of Whistler dream wearing a baseball shirt emblazoned with the word "Alpine" on it while setting out his song in an underground parkade in the village.
And with words like "Every time I'm at the club I'm getting in with no wait," he expresses the dreams of every lifty on a cold Friday night.
Not surprisingly, his name back then was Alpine Underground. It might not have changed but for a chance encounter.
"One day, I was wearing a black hat and a black-collared shirt and somebody said, 'Hey, you look like an ump!' and it stuck. Making a name for yourself is really hard as a musician, and I thought it was good."
Musically speaking, he has always embraced trap music and now it is a very popular stream to fish in.
"Beyonce is making songs using beats that I like, beats that I would produce," he says.
"So in a sense, I was doing what I was doing the whole time and now the music has come around. It is really focused on what I'm good at. The main kind of music is the electronic rap-like version of trap. I got lucky, I guess."
Ump hopes to move to performance and DJing.
"I have a side DJ project called Whistler Taxi. That will be my performance alter ego. I've been making a lot more beats, a lot more instrumentals," Ump says.
For more information, visit www.theumpmusic.com.
