- 07 05 26
Released on vinyl on July 5, 2026 through El Gran E Records
Words & Vocals by Rob Crooks
Music by Deadly Stare (Scott Da Ros)
Words & Vocals by Pip Skid on United Front
Vocals by Cam Scott on 24 Hour Party People
Mixed by Scott Da Ros at Spaaceemoon Snoowcaat
Mastered by W.C. Spicer
Artwork by Scott Da Ros
Profunc is the first collaborative album from Montréal producer Deadly Stare and Vancouver-based Winnipeg emcee robcrooks on Texas-based indie hip-hop label El Gran E Records.
The title of the album is taken from the clandestine spy operation carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) from 1950 to 1983, targeting members of the Communist Party of Canada and other left-wing radicals. An acronym for “prominent functionaries of the Communist Party,” the purpose of PROFUNC was to collect and maintain detailed records of communists and their supporters in preparation for their imminent rounding up and internment. A list of suspected communists in Québec facilitated their unlawful arrest en masse by police during the 1970 October Crisis.
Deadly Stare’s layered and sweeping pysch-rap landscapes situate robcrooks’ unapologetically pro-communist lyrics within the revolutionary tumult of the twentieth century’s decolonial uprisings and the twenty-first century’s late-stage capitalist decay. Songs like “Revolutionary Optimism” and “Variation on a Scene” draw inspiration from the 1959 Cuban Revolution, with robcrooks bringing us into the jungles of the Sierra Maestra and the student organizing offices of Havana. “United Front,” a driving jam featuring one of Canada’s political rap pioneers, Pip Skid, draws a line between the progressive forces of history and the reactionary powers that kill to safeguard the system of exploitation. “24 Hour Party People” features Age of Self vocalist and comrade Cam Scott, and demonstrates that an artists’ role isn’t simply to document the revolution but to play a part in it.
Profunc is a propaganda album. It is propaganda in defence of working people, collective liberation and progress. It is propaganda against the status quo, the apolitical artist and the forces of reaction. Long live socialism!
(PROFUNC, an acronym for “prominent functionaries of the communist party”, was a top secret Government of Canada project to identify and observe suspected Canadian communists and crypto-communists during the height of the Cold War.[1]
In operation from 1950 to 1983, the goal of the program was to allow for quick internment of known and suspected communist sympathizers in the event of war with the Soviet Union or its allies.)
