Langdon Auger performs on Saturday night at Sugar. Tickets ($10) are available at Complex, Lyle's Place and Higher Ground.

The money he earns from recording and performing is largely irrelevant to Langdon Auger, who would continue to pursue the aforementioned activities even if they put him in the red.

That's how deep his love of hip-hop runs, and how dedicated the 32-year-old rapper-producer is to his craft. "I couldn't live off what I'm doing right now," Auger said of his career. "It's about my passion for it."

To earn a living, the selftaught, self-confessed hip-hop kid is a sales rep for a fishing-tackle company.

Auger, who wrote his first rap at age 11, continues to produce his own material, mostly out of the basement of his Esquimalt home. Over the course of his 10-year career, the rapper-producer born Scott Langejan has written, recorded, and released seven recordings, a number of which are considered among the best to come out of Victoria.

To mark the occasion of his fifth and latest fulllength recording, The Illuminaugi, Auger has a release party scheduled for Saturday night at Sugar, his first local appearance in close to a year. Auger doesn't play Victoria often enough to wear out his welcome, which means his live performances always draw a sell-out crowd. "I don't do everything I get offered," he said.

"If I hold out and do my own shows once a year, I can have control over it. And people won't get sick of me."

Aside from brief stops in Edmonton (where he was born), Toronto (where his family lived until he was just over a year old), and Vancouver (where he attended BCIT), the B.C. capital and its surrounding area has been Auger's home base for more than a quarter-century.

He's happy to be a homeboy in the strictest sense of the word. In fact, those closest to him today he met while at Claremont high school. Many of those were in the crew of 17 that joined Auger in Las Vegas for his stag party, shortly before his wedding a year and a half ago. "I still hang out with all the same people, so I never felt like I missed much when I lived in Vancouver. I didn't skip a beat when I moved back."

Auger's raps feature countless local references - Clover Point, the drivethru at Wendy's, the tennis bubble at Cedar Hill Recreation Centre - but they are also full of tributes to his fallen friends and family. Life has thrown Auger some curveballs, a journey he details in depth on The Illuminaugi.

Some close to Auger have fallen prey to drugs and their after-effects, while others have died accidentally or from natural causes. Regardless, the compounding losses have had a considerable impact on Auger.

Though he's a bright, funny and all-round nice guy, when he speaks about the subject, or when he writes about it in new songs Life's Funny and Long Road, there's an underlying sense of sadness.

Auger faced tragedy in his early 20s following the accidental death of Patrick Willows, the younger brother of his best friend, Dylan Willows. Patrick, 19, was killed crossing the Pat Bay Highway in 2003, roughly a week after he took a road trip with Auger and Dylan to see Auger perform at a concert in Whistler.

His death two weeks before Christmas left their vast circle of friends and family in shock, but it also taught everyone involved a serious lesson about life.

"You can make money, but you can't buy your dead friends back," Auger said solemnly. "Enjoy your life while it lasts."

Despite the tragedy, his relationship with the Willows brothers, who were his roommates for a year shortly after high school, brings only positive thoughts to mind.

He paid tribute to Patrick with the 2004 single Pat's Song, and is happy to count Dylan, now the morning-show host at Victoria radio station The Zone, as one of his best friends.

Dylan Willows and Auger have followed a similar path to success. In fact, Willows served as Auger's manager during his most prolific period, a streak that saw two Auger singles top the charts at Vancouver urban radio station The Beat in 2003.

Earlier that year, Auger's ability as a freestyle MC notched him a win at Vancouver's Scorch The Mic battle. Soon after, his career-making single Island Nites became a staple of The Beat's by-request countdown, eventually hitting No. 1. That same summer, another one of Auger's singles, Got Ya Caught, once again topped the request lines at The Beat, making him one of only two Canadians - and the only independent artist - ever to top the station's nightly request program.

Auger had moved to Vancouver in 2001 for school, but when Island Nites put his name out there he had no choice but to focus on his rap career.

That changed, however, following the death of Patrick Willows. Back home in Victoria in 2004 while on Christmas break from BCIT, he knew his life in Vancouver would soon come to a halt.

"I had such a good time that Christmas. When I went back to school in January, I thought, 'What am I doing here?' "

He moved back for good in 2005. Though a career in rap was no longer his focus, Auger stayed active in the local scene.

And while his life has changed dramatically in the years since - Auger and his wife are expecting their first child later this year - he won't give up hope that lightning could strike again.

"That's what Island Nites and Got Ya Caught taught me.

It only takes one song."

mdevlin@timescolonist.com