Steve 'Flash' JuonIf you’re reading this review and it makes you curious about Ninja High School, do yourself a favor and don’t go to any website with “.info” at the end. It was bought by a domain name squatter years ago who collects a few pennies off anyone who visits the site or one of the links they left there. I wouldn’t usually go out of my way to point this out but I was about to add a Discogs link to the review and saw it promoting the “.info” as an authoritative source. Consider this a public service announcement.
So who are Ninja High School then? From the other sources I can find they’re a group of friends from Guelph who started out playing parties locally, got enough buzz to sign a couple of deals for distribution in Canada and Germany, stayed together for three years and then called it a day. Success is all in the measuring stick you hold up to it. By the conventional standards of going mainstream, headlining sold out tours worldwide and becoming household names, Ninja High School never made it. It has been almost 18 years since “Young Adults Against Suicide” was released and the day I wrote this review was the first day I had ever heard of NHS.
If on the other hand “finishing third” is an acceptable metric of success, Ninja High School did quite well for coming Straight Outta Guelph. Going from playing parties locally to having an album distributed internationally is far more than most aspiring rap bands will ever do. Their lead emcee Matt Collins is not a terrible listen. He’s the product of a Canadian kid who undoubtedly grew up listening to Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, N.W.A and Geto Boys. Recognizing his only chance to achieve the success of his idols was to not shy away from the obvious, he winds up sounding like a Beastie himself. This was the correct choice given that his crew are going for the same mix of sampling and live instrumentation that made the Boys cult favorites with some chart topping singles.
“Young Adults Against Suicide” feels like an album that was one tiny step removed from being a crossover success itself. Perhaps if they had toured as the opening act for Gym Class Heroes or Sage Francis they would have found their audience in the United States. There are times they veer toward nu metal with tracks like “Positive Laser” and “Film Video,” and weird experiments like “Nap” were probably best left on the cutting room floor, but in general their vibe is up tempo hip-hop with a strong musical backdrop. “Jam Band Death Cult” has a chorus that would need too many edits to go pop, but everything about the song sounds ready to make that jump, down to that offensive and catchy hook.
I can only surmise that in the end Ninja High School were a victim of their circumstances. The market was already overcrowded with aspiring soloists and rap groups in 2005. YouTube had not yet taken off as a streaming platform (nor at all really), Spotify wouldn’t even exist for another year, and Soundcloud was two years away. The local buzz took the kids from Guelph to the level that was possible without someone with deep pockets behind them pushing even harder. Let’s be honest too and say that “Young Adults Against Suicide” may simply have been the culmination of their dream. If they wanted to achieve more they could have stayed together, campaigned to sign with a major label in the States, and taken advantage of those new distribution platforms as they grew in size and popularity. They are a footnote by their own choice and nothing to me indicates they’re unhappy with being fondly remembered by a small group of people for a few years time.