Marvin 'The Fly' Kee's final album releases on June 21
Calgary musician and community fixture Marvin Kee's unreleased tracks, completed posthumously over three years, debut as 'Weapon of Mass Creation'.
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Calgary will hear the final musical work of Marvin "The Fly" Kee on June 21, when Mo Gravy Records releases "Weapon of Mass Creation," an album Kee spent his last years recording but never completed before his death in 2023.
Kee was a fixture in Calgary's music scene for decades, playing in punk-funk band The High Rollers and later as a bassist in Sargeant X Comrade. He recorded tracks across seven different studios in the years before his death, but the album remained unfinished. His sister Linda Kee and producer Evgeniy Bykovets spent three years completing the work, enlisting 20 musicians to add finishing touches.
The album is a dynamic mix of funk, neo-soul, R&B, acid jazz, punk, and hip-hop centred on Kee's inventive guitar and bass playing. Contributors include multi-instrumentalist Ravi Poliah, saxophonist Scott Morin, bassist Lisa Jacobs, percussionists Orlando Retana and Luis Tovar, and five vocalists dubbed the "Fly Girls." New York rapper Kool Keith appears on the funk-hip-hop hybrid "Increase the Peace."
On the slinky track "Lovebomb Sexmachine," soul singer Amy Lee Owens performs lyrics Kee wrote. Other tracks feature lyrics from contributing vocalists including Chenelle Roberts, Ainsley Christine, Yolanda Sargeant of Sargeant X Comrade, and Sammy Jean, the original singer of Flytrap.
Bykovets said Kee was the connective tissue in Calgary's music community. "He played a big role in the music scene. He was the glue holding a lot of things together, a lot of the community in the music scene, but also outside of music. There were a lot of people who relied on Marvin. He was the type of dude who would expose you to all the cool stuff."
In 2024, a mural created by Calgary artist Alex Kwong was unveiled in Inglewood depicting Kee and venues he performed at along the "Music Mile." The unveiling was followed by a New Orleans-style funeral march down 9th Avenue SE and coincided with Flyfest: A Musical Tribute to Marvin (The Fly) Kee, which brought together collaborators for a musical celebration.