Balancing your Career, Marriage and Kids
Sorry I’m late,” says Choclair as he breezes through the door of a downtown coffee shop. “But I’m a family man,” he adds, blaming a last-minute doctor’s appointment for his tardiness. Not exactly your standard tough-guy hip-hop artist.
The Toronto-based rapper, born Kareem Blake, admits that starting a family was the last thing on his mind when he began his career in the music business more than a decade ago. These days, though, with a hot single from his latest album, Flagship, hitting the charts, plus four Junos and several gold records in his trophy case, Choclair’s tackling an equally exciting career as a work-from-home dad, giving his daughters a taste of the biz.
His wife, Genelle Blake, initially stayed home with their daughters, Ke-Xin, 9, and Kaia, 3, but then she started missing the hustle and bustle of her career as a personal-banking rep.
“I liked my clients and what I did for a living, and I missed the feeling of providing. I felt like when I was at home, I was spending my days baby talking,” she says. “The happy balance for me is to work full-time during the week, then make the most of the weekends and the time I spend with my family.”
Choclair wasn’t surprised by her decision. “I never expected her to stay at home and be the traditional wife or fit into that role,” he says. “The bottom line is that she wanted to go back to work, so we made adjustments and made it happen.”
Adjustments that mean their girls sometimes hit daytime press junkets, radio interviews and television appearances with their dad (in Ke-Xin’s case, only after school and on holidays). Instead of hanging with a babysitter, these young ladies are regulars at MuchMusic tapings and boardroom meetings for Suave Dog, an independent recording label in which Choclair is a partner. Between play dates and loads of laundry, he also lets the girls sit in on recording sessions, at times to the frustration of producers.
“You hear their voices in the background of so many tracks,” he laughs. “The tech people were telling me to redo it, but I wanted to leave it. It’s just a little taste of real life!”
But Choclair’s business life can often take him far away from his home and family.
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