Canadian hip hop
Encyclopedia
The Canadian hip hop scene was first established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much more slowly than Canada
's popular rock music scene
, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground
phenomenon until the early 2000s.
Canada had hip hop
artists right from the early days of the scene — the first known Canadian rap single, Singing Fools
' "The Bum Rap", was released in 1982. Toronto
's CKLN-FM
was also an early supporter of the genre, launching Canada's first hip hop program, The Fantastic Voyage, in 1983. For the most part, however, the infrastructure simply wasn't there to get most artists' music to the record-buying public.
Even if a Canadian hip hop artist could get signed to a record label at all, it was very difficult for them to get widespread exposure — even if their music video
s were played on MuchMusic
, many artists still couldn't get their records into stores or played on the radio. Although a few Canadian hip hop artists did break through to mainstream success around 1990, through much of the following decade Canadian hip hop experienced a slowdown without any significant artists breaking through to the mainstream — although many hip hop musicians continued to record and tour, not one Canadian hip hop song reached even the Top 100 on a Canadian pop chart between 1992 and 1998. Beginning in 1998, however, a sequence of events spurred by the anthemic collaborative single "Northern Touch
" finally brought hip hop back into the mainstream of Canadian music.
Canada's propensity to create quality artists who rarely achieved public recognition prompted Allmusic to state that Canadian hip hop is the "best-kept secret in hip-hop." However, with the entrance of Drake
, R2MORO, K'naan
and the burgeoning success of Kardinal Offishall
after the turn of the millennium, Canadian hip hop artists have finally achieved worldwide mainstream international recognition.
, Maestro Fresh-Wes
and Dream Warriors
did manage, for a brief time in the late '80s and early '90s, to break into the mainstream. In 1989, Maestro's first single, "Let Your Backbone Slide
", was the first Canadian hip-hop single to break the national Top 40 and U.S. Billboard
charts. It remained the bestselling Canadian hip hop single of all time until 2008. Other notable rap singles of this era include Maestro's "Drop the Needle", Devon's "Mr. Metro", Dream Warriors' "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" and "Wash Your Face in My Sink", Ground Control's "Another Dope Jam", MCJ and Cool G
's "No Sex With My Sister" and "So Listen", and Kish
's "I Rhyme the World in 80 Days".
Michie Mee
became, in 1988, the first Canadian rapper to sign a deal with an American
record label. This action did not result in significant chart success for her — she has asserted in interviews that the reggae
influences on her 1991 debut album Jamaican Funk: Canadian Style
met with resistance from American label executives and radio programmers.
The Get Loose Crew
released an independent mini LP in March 1988 from their own record label East Park Productions with global distribution, thus becoming the first Canadian rap group with international record sales. The group featured the first recorded white rapper (MC Shadow
) in Canada, second in the world only to American Def Jam artists Beastie Boys
. The group disbanded in 1990 forming notable groups JUST Me, B-Kool (a Juno Award
nominee), and Self-Defence.
In addition, DJs K-Cut and Sir Scratch of the Toronto
/New York
-based hip-hop group Main Source
were Toronto natives. In 1991, Main Source released the hip-hop classic Breaking Atoms
, which featured the debut of a young Nas
before his rise in popularity. Rap also began to surface in Canadian mainstream pop in the early 1990s. Rapper Frankie Fudge performed a rap break in Celine Dion
's 1990 single "Unison" and appeared in her video. Female R&B
duo Love and Sas
performed rap in their 1991 single "I Don't Need Yo' Kiss".
applied to the CRTC for an urban music station in Toronto, which would have been the first such station in Canada, but that application was denied in favour of a country music
station — which Toronto already had on its radio dial.
The decision was controversial, and hurt the Canadian hip hop scene considerably. Hip-hop and R&B fans in Toronto relied on Buffalo, New York
's WBLK
, an American station with no Canadian content
responsibilities, while other Canadian cities often had no access to any urban music radio stations at all. After 1992, Michie Mee was the only Canadian rapper to make an appearance on the national pop charts until 1998 — and even she didn't accomplish the feat with a hip hop song, but by partnering with the alternative rock
band Raggadeath
for 1995's "One Life".
Sol Guy, a hip hop promoter with Figure IV Entertainment
, said in 1999 that
Ottawa
-based hip-hop group Organized Rhyme
, which featured a young Tom Green
before his rise to fame, had some success on MuchMusic
with "Check the O.R." in 1993, but did not receive widespread radio airplay or reach the RPM
charts. Maestro Fresh-Wes, who moved to New York City
in 1992 and attempted to break into the American market with the albums Maestro Zone
and Naaah, Dis Kid Can't Be from Canada?!!
, found his career faltering in this era. Snow
, who had a number one Billboard hit in 1993 with "Informer", is sometimes mistakenly labelled a rapper, but in fact his style was more accurately described as dancehall
, a style of reggae
, than as hip hop.
Many American hip hop artists were popular in Canada, and Black Canadian
musicians such as Infidels
, Deborah Cox
and The Philosopher Kings
had notable successes in the R&B, pop and rock genres; however, even the most prominent Canadian hip hop acts during this era, including Ghetto Concept
, Rascalz
, Farm Fresh
and Hip Club Groove
, struggled to gain any kind of attention outside the campus radio
underground.
That began to change in 1996, when the Urban Music Association of Canada was formed to build the domestic and international profile of Canadian urban music. The following year, Dubmatique
broke through as the first Quebec
rap band to top Canada's francophone pop charts, and some controversy erupted in Toronto when Milestone was again passed over for an urban radio station on its second application. Instead, the CBC
was awarded 99.1 to move its existing Radio One
station, CBLA
, from the AM band — and, ominously, this was believed at the time to be the last available FM frequency in the city. The CRTC decision was not met with as much uproar as there had been in 1990, because the ruling was not seen as much of a shock; indeed, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the CBC would receive the frequency.
The most notable Canadian hip hop album during this era, Rap Essentials Volume One
, was a compilation which featured the debut singles of both Kardinal Offishall
and Choclair
.
hip hop band Rascalz
quite unexpectedly found themselves at the centre of a sequence of events which gave Canadian hip hop an unprecedented level of media attention, leading the Canadian music and broadcasting industries to make a number of structural changes which would ultimately give hip hop musicians a more stable and commercially visible platform going into the 21st century.
First, Rascalz collaborated with emerging rappers Checkmate
, Kardinal Offishall
, Thrust
and Choclair
to record "Northern Touch
", a galvanizing statement of purpose for Canadian hip hoppers which was released as a single in 1998 — and which beat the odds to become the first Canadian hip hop hit since 1991. Although the song just barely missed the national Top 40 charts, peaking at #41 in RPM
, it reached the Top 10 in most major markets, and was the first Canadian hip hop song to reach the Top 100 at all, and the first to garner widespread radio airplay both in Canada and internationally, since "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style".
Later that year, Rascalz won the Juno Award
for Best Rap Recording
for their 1997 album Cash Crop
. Because of Canadian hip hop's lack of commercial visibility, the award was presented during the non-televised portion of the ceremony, along with the technical awards, rather than at the televised main gala. The band had not yet arrived at the ceremony when the award was announced — when they did arrive, they were simply pulled aside and told that they had won the award.
Alleging that racism
was a factor in the award's scheduling, the band refused to accept the award. Speaking to the press afterward, the group and their co-manager said that
For several weeks cultural critics and hip hop musicians debated the issue in the press — some suggested, in fact, that the hip hop award's lack of visibility could be seen as not just a result of Canadian hip hop's poor commercial performance, but also a contributing factor.
Maestro Fresh-Wes, now known simply as Maestro, also broke his own hit jinx in 1998, with "Stick to Your Vision
" — buoyed, in part, by a Guess Who
sample — becoming his first chart hit in seven years. Although he would not actually reach the Top 40 for another few years, Kardinal Offishall also made his first appearance as a solo artist in RPMs Top 100 in 1998, peaking at #91 with "On wit da Show
". Artists such as Choclair and Saukrates
were also beginning to make waves in the press, as the year's more dramatic events renewed attention on Canadian hip hop.
As a result of the Rascalz controversy, the Junos moved the Rap award to the main ceremony the following year. It was won, inevitably enough, by "Northern Touch".
issued an Order in Council to the CRTC directing it to give precedence to applications that took into account Toronto's cultural and racial diversity, effectively guaranteeing that Milestone would get a license in the new round of hearings.
On June 16, 2000, the CRTC awarded one of the frequencies to Milestone, on the company's third attempt. The other frequency was awarded to Aboriginal Voices
for a station to serve First Nations
communities. At the beginning of this same year, the internet became home to Canada's largest rap/hip-hop website publication and community, HipHopCanada.com. Also in 2000, the CBC created and aired Drop the Beat
, a television series about hip hop music and culture which was billed as one of the first such series in the world. The show starred Merwin Mondesir
and Mark Taylor
as the hosts of a hip hop show on a campus radio
station; the cast also included Michie Mee, DJ Shamann and Kardinal Offishall.
Finally, in 2001, CFXJ
(Flow 93.5) debuted as Canada's first urban music station. Urban stations quickly followed in several other Canadian cities, as well, and for the first time, Canadian hip hop artists had a network of radio outlets for their music — as well as numerous record labels committed to rectifying their past lack of interest in the genre. In the 2000s, numerous Canadian hip hop artists, including Kardinal Offishall
, Drake
, Classified
, k-os
, K'naan
, Swollen Members
, Sweatshop Union
, Buck 65
, Belly
, Moka Only
, Shad
and Cadence Weapon
, as well as many R&B artists, have emerged as mainstream stars.
In addition to terrestrial radio, the national satellite radio
networks CBC Radio 3
and Bande à part
, which are both dedicated to Canadian independent music of any genre, also include numerous emerging hip hop artists in their playlists. Bande à part has produced a compilation album of unsigned Quebec hip hop artists, 93 tours, which it distributed as a free download from its website. Several prominent contemporary hip hop artists, including Shad, Cadence Weapon, K'naan, Sweatshop Union and Omnikrom, have in fact risen to prominence through these channels instead of through terrestrial radio.
Apart from a few major stars the hip hop scene has largely continued to struggle in obscurity. Virtually all of the urban-format radio stations which debuted in the early 2000s, including Flow 93.5, have since shifted from a pure urban format to a rhythmic contemporary
format. While the stations still play some hip hop, they now focus far more on artists who have already established crossover Top 40 appeal — meaning that emerging artists can no longer rely on the stations to help them build their audience. In 2010, further, Milestone announced a deal to sell Flow 93.5 to CHUM Radio, a division of the mainstream media conglomerate CTVglobemedia
. However, a new radio station, CKFG-FM
, was licensed to Toronto in 2011 as a community radio
station authorized to broadcast a broad spectrum of African and Caribbean
musical genres, including hip hop, reggae
, soca
and rhythm and blues
.
Canadian hip hop musicians have also continued to face obstacles when attempting to break into the American
and international markets. Music critics and journalists have sometimes attributed this to the perception, real or imagined, that stereotype
s of Canada as a land of igloo
s and hoser
s get in the way of Canadian rappers being taken seriously. It was not until 2008, when Kardinal Offishall
reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100
chart with a collaboration with established American star Akon
, "Dangerous
", that a Canadian rapper had a major chart hit in the United States. He was shortly followed by Drake
, whose 2009 single "Best I Ever Had
" reached #2 on the Hot 100, making it the most successful Canadian hip hop single in the U.S. to date. Another major international breakthrough came in 2009 when a remixed version of K'naan's single "Wavin' Flag
" was announced as the official Coca-Cola
theme song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup
. The song has since become a chart hit in at least 16 countries worldwide.
In 2011, Mike D (Michael de Jong born feb 1984) along with other vancouver rappers took to the internet. Phukt.ca was the initial site of rap music which spread quickly. Next polished tracks we constructed they appeared on bowdown.org (this site use to contain pictures of undercover police cars aswel as other illegal material . Mike de Jong took the real life stories and has made them into an audio diary. Also slimshifty.com is another one of the new rap type genre that Canadian rappers seem to be using more commonly.
, being Canada's second largest city and one of the world's largest French-speaking cities, has developed its own niche of French language hip hop, which later spread to Quebec City and throughout the province of Quebec. Although a few French rap singles broke through to mainstream success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Les French B's "Je m'en souviens", Kool Rock and Jay Tree's "M.R.F. est arrivé", Le Boyfriend's "Rapper chic (Je rap en français)" and Dédé Tracké's "T'es qui toé", as in English Canada this early success was not sustained, and francophone hip hop remained largely an underground phenomenon until the emergence of Dubmatique
, who became in 1997 the first francophone Canadian hip hop group to reach Canada's francophone Top 40 charts. Dubmatique were followed by acts including Muzion
, Manu Militari, Yvon Krevé
, Loco Locass
, Catburglaz, Atach Tatuq
, Taktika, Sir Pathétik
, Sans Pression
, Omnikrom
, Anodajay
, Gatineau
, Radio Radio
and Treizième Etage.
In 2005, The Dope Poet Society
released a multilingual single and video entitled, "All of Us" off the album ProIntelpro: Promote Intelligence Program. Lead vocalist ProfessorD.us raps in both English and French on the track, accompanied by a posse of six other rappers rhyming in a total of five different languages. The most internationally successful hip hop musician from Quebec is Ghislain Poirier
, a producer whose own albums primarily feature francophone rappers from Quebec and France, but who is also now an influential remix
er equally sought after by anglophone rappers and dance musicians from Canada and the United States. Roi Heenok
, a rapper from Montreal, has become an Internet phenomenon in France, and has performed in Paris
three times since 2004.
youth culture, spearheaded by prominent artists such as Kinnie Starr
, War Party
, Eekwol, Inez Jasper, Joey Stylez
, Lil Pappie
, Plex, Anish, Tru Rez Crew, Samian
and Team Rezofficial
. First Nations hip hop artists typically perform a style which blends hip hop with traditional First Nations music
.
David Dacoine, a member of Tribal Wizdom, has hosted workshops across Canada encouraging aboriginal youth to take up hip hop as a method of creative expression and self-empowerment. Anish created the first ever First Nations Hip Hop Festival; subsequently, the event was held at Pasqua, Saskatchewan
in 2004. The Aboriginal Voices
radio network also airs a weekly program, hosted by Plex, devoted to First Nations hip hop.
In 2009, Team Rezofficial became the first aboriginal hip hop group with a song on the RapCity Top Ten. The song "Lonely" went to number one. In the same year, Manitoba's Native Communications radio network launched Streetz FM
, a hip hop station in Winnipeg
which was Canada's first radio station marketed primarily to aboriginal youth.
and West Coast hip hop
are major influences on Canadian artists in the genre, Canadian hip hop also incorporates a number of other influences not commonly seen in the mainstream of the American genre. The Black Canadian community is much more dominated by people of Caribbean
heritage than is the African American
community in the United States. As a result, Canadian hip hop is significantly influenced by the rhythms and styles of Caribbean music. English Canadian hip hop tends to be influenced by Jamaican
, Trinidadian
and Bahamian
styles, while francophone hip hop from Quebec is commonly influenced by Haitian music. Artists such as Michie Mee, Dream Warriors, Ghetto Concept, and Kardinal Offishall have incorporated dancehall
or reggae
into their music.
The genre-hopping "Tom Waits
with a beatbox" style of Buck 65
, who integrates country
, rock
, folk
and blues
influences into his music, has also become a major influence on Canadian hip hop in the 2000s. His influence is especially strong on hip hop artists from the Maritime provinces, such as Classified
, but can also be seen in artists such as Ridley Bent
and mcenroe
.
Electronic music
is also a significant influence, notably seen in artists such as Cadence Weapon
, No Luck Club and Ghislain Poirier
, and jazz
music has been incorporated since the early 1990s, particularly in the work of Dream Warriors
, Social Deviantz
, Mood Ruff
and Da Grassroots
. Artists such as K'naan
, k-os
, Grand Analog
, Touch and Nato
, Dragon Fli Empire
, DL Incognito
and Graph Nobel
have pursued styles which blend a diverse mix of hip hop, rock, jazz, world music, and R&B influences.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's popular rock music scene
Canadian rock
Canadian rock describes a wide and diverse variety of music produced by Canadians, beginning with American style rock 'n' roll in the mid-20th century. Since then Canada has had a considerable impact on the development of the modern popular music called rock...
, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground
Underground hip hop
Underground hip hop is an umbrella term for hip hop music outside the general commercial canon. It is typically associated with independent artists, signed toindependent labels or no label at all....
phenomenon until the early 2000s.
Canada had hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
artists right from the early days of the scene — the first known Canadian rap single, Singing Fools
Singing Fools
Singing Fools was a short-lived non-performing music group established in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in November 1982 by musicians Tim Dunlop and Kevin Murphy....
' "The Bum Rap", was released in 1982. Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
's CKLN-FM
CKLN-FM
CKLN.fm is a domain owned by Chris Scully which streams an internet radio station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada which follows in the tradition of the former CKLN-FM.From 1983 to 2011, CKLN Radio Inc...
was also an early supporter of the genre, launching Canada's first hip hop program, The Fantastic Voyage, in 1983. For the most part, however, the infrastructure simply wasn't there to get most artists' music to the record-buying public.
Even if a Canadian hip hop artist could get signed to a record label at all, it was very difficult for them to get widespread exposure — even if their music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
s were played on MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
, many artists still couldn't get their records into stores or played on the radio. Although a few Canadian hip hop artists did break through to mainstream success around 1990, through much of the following decade Canadian hip hop experienced a slowdown without any significant artists breaking through to the mainstream — although many hip hop musicians continued to record and tour, not one Canadian hip hop song reached even the Top 100 on a Canadian pop chart between 1992 and 1998. Beginning in 1998, however, a sequence of events spurred by the anthemic collaborative single "Northern Touch
Northern Touch
"Northern Touch" is a Canadian hip hop single, which was released in 1998 by Rascalz in collaboration with Checkmate, Kardinal Offishall, Thrust and Choclair...
" finally brought hip hop back into the mainstream of Canadian music.
Canada's propensity to create quality artists who rarely achieved public recognition prompted Allmusic to state that Canadian hip hop is the "best-kept secret in hip-hop." However, with the entrance of Drake
Drake (entertainer)
Aubrey Drake Graham , who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian recording artist and actor. He originally became known for playing Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation....
, R2MORO, K'naan
K'naan
K'naan , born Keinan Abdi Warsame in 1978, is a Somali Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist.-Biography:Born in Somalia, K'naan spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there during the Somali Civil War, which began in 1991. His aunt, Magool, was one of Somalia's most...
and the burgeoning success of Kardinal Offishall
Kardinal Offishall
Jason D. Harrow , better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall , is a Canadian rapper and record producer. He is often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip-hop.-Life and career:Harrow was born in...
after the turn of the millennium, Canadian hip hop artists have finally achieved worldwide mainstream international recognition.
Late 1980s/early 1990s: The rise of Canadian hip hop
Artists such as DevonDevon (rapper)
Devon Martin, better known as Devon, is a Canadian rapper.He released his first solo album, It's My Nature in 1992. He won the Juno Award for Best Rap Recording in 1993....
, Maestro Fresh-Wes
Maestro (rapper)
Wesley Williams , better known as Maestro and formerly Maestro Fresh-Wes, is a Canadian rapper, record producer, and actor. His pioneering status and outstanding achievements have led to him being referred to as the "Godfather of Canadian hip hop".In 1989 he became the first Canadian rapper to have...
and Dream Warriors
Dream Warriors
Dream Warriors were a Canadian hip hop duo from Toronto, Ontario, comprising King Lou and Capital Q. Described as "a pair of deft, intelligent rappers" by Allmusic, they were major contributors to the jazz rap movement of the early 1990s. Their 1991 debut album, And Now the Legacy Begins, is...
did manage, for a brief time in the late '80s and early '90s, to break into the mainstream. In 1989, Maestro's first single, "Let Your Backbone Slide
Let Your Backbone Slide
"Let Your Backbone Slide" is the debut single of Maestro Fresh-Wes, released in 1989, from his debut album Symphony in Effect. In Canada, over 50,000 copies of the single were sold, making Maestro the first Canadian rapper to have a gold single. It also reached #1 on The Record Singles Chart, in...
", was the first Canadian hip-hop single to break the national Top 40 and U.S. Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
charts. It remained the bestselling Canadian hip hop single of all time until 2008. Other notable rap singles of this era include Maestro's "Drop the Needle", Devon's "Mr. Metro", Dream Warriors' "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" and "Wash Your Face in My Sink", Ground Control's "Another Dope Jam", MCJ and Cool G
MCJ and Cool G
MCJ and Cool G were a four-time Juno Award–nominated Canadian hip hop duo from Halifax, Nova Scotia.The duo were James McQuaid , originally part of the Halifax hip hop group New Beginning, and Richard Gray . They relocated to Montreal in 1988 to get in to the music business...
's "No Sex With My Sister" and "So Listen", and Kish
Andrew Kishino
Andrew Kishino is a Japanese-Canadian voice actor in video games, animation and voice-over narration.-Animation:*The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy - Additional Voices...
's "I Rhyme the World in 80 Days".
Michie Mee
Michie Mee
Michelle McCullock , better known by her stage name Michie Mee, is a Canadian rapper and actor. As Canada's first notable female MC, she is considered a national hip-hop pioneer.-Early life and career:...
became, in 1988, the first Canadian rapper to sign a deal with an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
record label. This action did not result in significant chart success for her — she has asserted in interviews that the reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
influences on her 1991 debut album Jamaican Funk: Canadian Style
Jamaican Funk: Canadian Style
Jamaican Funk—Canadian Style is the debut album of Canadian emcee Michie Mee, in collaboration with DJ L.A. Luv, released May 14, 1991. It was released on First Priority Music/Atlantic Records in the United States, where 60,000 copies were sold. The album, which also featured dancehall reggae...
met with resistance from American label executives and radio programmers.
The Get Loose Crew
Get Loose Crew
- See also :MC Shadow- Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaCanadian hip hop- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia...
released an independent mini LP in March 1988 from their own record label East Park Productions with global distribution, thus becoming the first Canadian rap group with international record sales. The group featured the first recorded white rapper (MC Shadow
MC Shadow
Kory Neely, better known as MC Shadow is a Canadian rapper, producer and author, who achieved fame for being the first white rapper in Canadian musical history . His group The Get Loose Crew was the first Canadian rap group to produce a mini LP and the the first to effect international sales...
) in Canada, second in the world only to American Def Jam artists Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys
Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....
. The group disbanded in 1990 forming notable groups JUST Me, B-Kool (a Juno Award
Juno Award
The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music...
nominee), and Self-Defence.
In addition, DJs K-Cut and Sir Scratch of the Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
/New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based hip-hop group Main Source
Main Source
Main Source was an innovative, acclaimed Toronto and New York-based hip hop group comprising Toronto natives Sir Scratch, K-Cut, and Queens native Large Professor...
were Toronto natives. In 1991, Main Source released the hip-hop classic Breaking Atoms
Breaking Atoms
Breaking Atoms is the debut album of American hip hop group Main Source, released July 23, 1991 on Wild Pitch Records. Production for was handled by the group and took place during 1990 to 1991 at Homeboy Studio, Power Play Studios, and Libra Digital in New York City...
, which featured the debut of a young Nas
Nas
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...
before his rise in popularity. Rap also began to surface in Canadian mainstream pop in the early 1990s. Rapper Frankie Fudge performed a rap break in Celine Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
's 1990 single "Unison" and appeared in her video. Female R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
duo Love and Sas
Love and Sas
Love and Sas were a Canadian r&b-, funk-, and rap-influenced pop duo who scored several Top 40 hits on Canadian pop charts. Lovena 'Love' Fox had worked as a back-up singer for Bon Jovi, The Payolas, and Colin James...
performed rap in their 1991 single "I Don't Need Yo' Kiss".
Early to mid-1990s: Fallow years
In 1990, Milestone RadioMilestone Radio
Milestone Radio Incorporated was a Canadian radio broadcasting company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. They were the only broadcasting company in Canada that was owned and operated by Black Canadians. The company's president was Denham Jolly....
applied to the CRTC for an urban music station in Toronto, which would have been the first such station in Canada, but that application was denied in favour of a country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
station — which Toronto already had on its radio dial.
The decision was controversial, and hurt the Canadian hip hop scene considerably. Hip-hop and R&B fans in Toronto relied on Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
's WBLK
WBLK
WBLK is an Urban contemporary FM radio station licensed to Depew that serves Buffalo. WBLK plays the musical genres of hip hop, R&B, urban contemporary gospel, and soul. WBLK celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2005, making WBLK the oldest urban FM radio station in the United States of America. Its...
, an American station with no Canadian content
Canadian content
Canadian content refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from...
responsibilities, while other Canadian cities often had no access to any urban music radio stations at all. After 1992, Michie Mee was the only Canadian rapper to make an appearance on the national pop charts until 1998 — and even she didn't accomplish the feat with a hip hop song, but by partnering with the alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Raggadeath
Raggadeath
Raggadeath was a Canadian alternative rock–hip hop band in the 1990s that fused hard rock with dancehall reggae-style rhythms and vocals. The band featured a number of vocalists, including emcee Michie Mee...
for 1995's "One Life".
Sol Guy, a hip hop promoter with Figure IV Entertainment
Figure IV Entertainment
Figure IV Entertainment was a Canadian independent record label, specializing in hip hop music.Based in Vancouver , the label was co-founded in 1994 by Sol Guy, to manage his group Rascalz. In 1998, the label released the groundbreaking Rascalz single "Northern Touch", which won a Juno Award for...
, said in 1999 that
Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
-based hip-hop group Organized Rhyme
Organized Rhyme
Organized Rhyme was a short-lived Canadian hip hop group based in Ottawa, known primarily for the fame later achieved by one of its members, comedian Tom Green....
, which featured a young Tom Green
Tom Green
Michael Thomas "Tom" Green is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, talk show host and media personality. Best known for his shock humour brand of comedy, Green found mainstream prominence via his MTV television show The Tom Green Show...
before his rise to fame, had some success on MuchMusic
MuchMusic
MuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
with "Check the O.R." in 1993, but did not receive widespread radio airplay or reach the RPM
RPM (magazine)
RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...
charts. Maestro Fresh-Wes, who moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1992 and attempted to break into the American market with the albums Maestro Zone
Maestro Zone
Maestro Zone is the third studio album by Canadian rapper Maestro Fresh-Wes, released April 21, 1992 on Polydor/PolyGram Records. It is a re-packaged version of his previous album, The Black Tie Affair, featuring four new songs. The only single was "Another Funky Break "...
and Naaah, Dis Kid Can't Be from Canada?!!
Naaah, Dis Kid Can't Be from Canada?!!
Naaah, Dis Kid Can't Be from Canada?!! is the fourth studio album by Canadian rapper Maestro Fresh-Wes, released in 1994 on Attic/LMR Records. Singles from the album include "Fine Tune da Mic" and "Certs wid Out da Retsyn". Most of the production was handled by Maestro, with contributions from...
, found his career faltering in this era. Snow
Snow (musician)
Darrin O'Brien , better known by his stage name Snow, is a Juno Award-winning Canadian rap and reggae musician. He is best known for his 1992 single "Informer", which reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.-Life and work:...
, who had a number one Billboard hit in 1993 with "Informer", is sometimes mistakenly labelled a rapper, but in fact his style was more accurately described as dancehall
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...
, a style of reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, than as hip hop.
Many American hip hop artists were popular in Canada, and Black Canadian
Black Canadian
'Black Canadians is a designation used for people of Black African descent, who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The term specifically refers to Canadians with Sub-Saharan African ancestry. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin...
musicians such as Infidels
Infidels (band)
Infidels were a Canadian funk-rock band in the 1990s.The band formed in 1990 when Molly Johnson reunited with Norman Orenstein, her partner in the short-lived 1980s band Alta Moda. They added Washington Savage, Jeff Jones and Owen Tennyson to the lineup, and released a self-titled album in 1991 on...
, Deborah Cox
Deborah Cox
Deborah Cox is a Canadian R&B singer-songwriter and actress. Her 1998 song "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here" held the record for longest-running number one single on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart , a record held for nearly eight years. She has achieved ten number-one hits on...
and The Philosopher Kings
The Philosopher Kings
The Philosopher Kings are a Canadian rhythm and blues band who were most commercially successful in the late 1990s. The name of the band is derived from Plato's Republic, in which he outlines the design of an idealistic government, ruled by philosopher-kings...
had notable successes in the R&B, pop and rock genres; however, even the most prominent Canadian hip hop acts during this era, including Ghetto Concept
Ghetto Concept
Ghetto Concept is a Canadian hip-hop duo from Toronto, Ontario, composed of Kwajo Cinqo and Dolo. Infinite, who is currently a solo artist, is a former member of Ghetto Concept.-History:...
, Rascalz
Rascalz
The Rascalz are a Canadian hip-hop group from Vancouver, British Columbia, who played a crucial role in the artistic and commercial development of Canadian hip hop. The group consists of MCs Red1 and Misfit, and DJ Kemo. Breakdancers, Zebroc and Dedos were also part of the group.Formed in 1991, the...
, Farm Fresh
Farm Fresh
Farm Fresh is a hip hop group from Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Made up of mcenroe, Pip Skid and DJ Hunnicutt, they released their first recording The Space EP in 1994 followed by a full length album named Crazy Friction in 1995....
and Hip Club Groove
Hip Club Groove
Hip Club Groove was a Canadian hip hop band, active in the 1990s. Originally from Truro, Nova Scotia and later based in Halifax, the band consisted of rappers Derek "MC" Mackenzie and Cory "Cheklove Shakil" Bowles, and DJ Brian "DJ Moves" Higgins....
, struggled to gain any kind of attention outside the campus radio
Campus radio
Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...
underground.
That began to change in 1996, when the Urban Music Association of Canada was formed to build the domestic and international profile of Canadian urban music. The following year, Dubmatique
Dubmatique
Dubmatique are a Canadian hip hop group from Montreal. They were the first French language hip hop crew from Canada to break through to Canada's francophone pop charts...
broke through as the first Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
rap band to top Canada's francophone pop charts, and some controversy erupted in Toronto when Milestone was again passed over for an urban radio station on its second application. Instead, the CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
was awarded 99.1 to move its existing Radio One
CBC Radio One
CBC Radio One is the English language news and information radio network of the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial free and offers both local and national programming...
station, CBLA
CBLA-FM
CBLA-FM is a Canadian radio station. It is the flagship station of the CBC Radio One network, broadcasting at 99.1 FM in Toronto, Ontario.- History :...
, from the AM band — and, ominously, this was believed at the time to be the last available FM frequency in the city. The CRTC decision was not met with as much uproar as there had been in 1990, because the ruling was not seen as much of a shock; indeed, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the CBC would receive the frequency.
The most notable Canadian hip hop album during this era, Rap Essentials Volume One
Rap Essentials Volume One
Rap Essentials Volume One is a Canadian hip hop compilation album, released in 1996 on Beat Factory Music. Its considered a landmark hip-hop album, and it was very influential....
, was a compilation which featured the debut singles of both Kardinal Offishall
Kardinal Offishall
Jason D. Harrow , better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall , is a Canadian rapper and record producer. He is often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip-hop.-Life and career:Harrow was born in...
and Choclair
Choclair
Kareem Blake, better known by his stage name Choclair, is a Canadian rapper. He helped develop Canadian hip hop in the 1990s, as a member of the Circle.-Career:...
.
1998: Northern Touch
However, 1998 proved to be a transformative year in the development of Canadian hip hop. The VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
hip hop band Rascalz
Rascalz
The Rascalz are a Canadian hip-hop group from Vancouver, British Columbia, who played a crucial role in the artistic and commercial development of Canadian hip hop. The group consists of MCs Red1 and Misfit, and DJ Kemo. Breakdancers, Zebroc and Dedos were also part of the group.Formed in 1991, the...
quite unexpectedly found themselves at the centre of a sequence of events which gave Canadian hip hop an unprecedented level of media attention, leading the Canadian music and broadcasting industries to make a number of structural changes which would ultimately give hip hop musicians a more stable and commercially visible platform going into the 21st century.
First, Rascalz collaborated with emerging rappers Checkmate
Checkmate (rapper)
Checkmate is a Canadian hip hop artist from Vancouver. He is most known for guesting on the Rascalz' 1998 single "Northern Touch", which also which featured Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, and Thrust. He has also done work with Rascalz outside "Northern Touch". His 2002 album R.A.W...
, Kardinal Offishall
Kardinal Offishall
Jason D. Harrow , better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall , is a Canadian rapper and record producer. He is often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip-hop.-Life and career:Harrow was born in...
, Thrust
Thrust (rapper)
Chris France , better known by his stage name Thrust, is a Canadian rapper from Toronto, Ontario. He is most known for his appearance on the Rascalz' 1998 single "Northern Touch" which also features Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, and Checkmate...
and Choclair
Choclair
Kareem Blake, better known by his stage name Choclair, is a Canadian rapper. He helped develop Canadian hip hop in the 1990s, as a member of the Circle.-Career:...
to record "Northern Touch
Northern Touch
"Northern Touch" is a Canadian hip hop single, which was released in 1998 by Rascalz in collaboration with Checkmate, Kardinal Offishall, Thrust and Choclair...
", a galvanizing statement of purpose for Canadian hip hoppers which was released as a single in 1998 — and which beat the odds to become the first Canadian hip hop hit since 1991. Although the song just barely missed the national Top 40 charts, peaking at #41 in RPM
RPM (magazine)
RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...
, it reached the Top 10 in most major markets, and was the first Canadian hip hop song to reach the Top 100 at all, and the first to garner widespread radio airplay both in Canada and internationally, since "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style".
Later that year, Rascalz won the Juno Award
Juno Award
The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music...
for Best Rap Recording
Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year
The Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year has been awarded since 1991, and is awarded for the best rap album in Canada. It was awarded under the title Best Rap Recording from 1993 to 2002....
for their 1997 album Cash Crop
Cash Crop (album)
Cash Crop is an album by Canadian hip hop group Rascalz, released in 1997 on ViK. Recordings. The album is the group's most successful record to date and was certified gold by CRIA with sales of over 50,000 copies across Canada.- Northern Touch :...
. Because of Canadian hip hop's lack of commercial visibility, the award was presented during the non-televised portion of the ceremony, along with the technical awards, rather than at the televised main gala. The band had not yet arrived at the ceremony when the award was announced — when they did arrive, they were simply pulled aside and told that they had won the award.
Alleging that racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
was a factor in the award's scheduling, the band refused to accept the award. Speaking to the press afterward, the group and their co-manager said that
For several weeks cultural critics and hip hop musicians debated the issue in the press — some suggested, in fact, that the hip hop award's lack of visibility could be seen as not just a result of Canadian hip hop's poor commercial performance, but also a contributing factor.
Maestro Fresh-Wes, now known simply as Maestro, also broke his own hit jinx in 1998, with "Stick to Your Vision
Stick to Your Vision
"Stick to Your Vision" is the first single from Maestro's fifth album, Built to Last, released in 1998. Produced by 2 Rude, the song contains a sample of "These Eyes" by The Guess Who. It became his first song to appear on Canadian charts since "Conductin' Thangs" in 1991.-Music video:The music...
" — buoyed, in part, by a Guess Who
The Guess Who
The Guess Who are a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Initially gaining recognition in Canada, they also found international success from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s with numerous hit singles, including "American Woman", "These Eyes" and "Share the Land"...
sample — becoming his first chart hit in seven years. Although he would not actually reach the Top 40 for another few years, Kardinal Offishall also made his first appearance as a solo artist in RPMs Top 100 in 1998, peaking at #91 with "On wit da Show
On wit da Show
"On wit da Show" is a hip-hop song by Kardinal Offishall. It was the only single from his debut album Eye & I. The song also appears on his second album, Quest for Fire: Firestarter, Vol. 1. The original version of the song was released in 1996 as a B-side of "Naughty Dread"...
". Artists such as Choclair and Saukrates
Saukrates
Karl Amani Wailoo , better known by his stage name Saukrates , is a Canadian rapper, singer, and record producer of Guyanese descent. He is the co-founder of Capitol Hill Music, and lead singer of hip-hop/R&B group Big Black Lincoln...
were also beginning to make waves in the press, as the year's more dramatic events renewed attention on Canadian hip hop.
As a result of the Rascalz controversy, the Junos moved the Rap award to the main ceremony the following year. It was won, inevitably enough, by "Northern Touch".
2000s: The breakthrough
On June 18, 1999, the CBC's Toronto station completed its move to FM. Because the FM frequency offered better broadcast coverage of the region, the CBC found that it was able to surrender two FM repeater transmitters serving communities outside of the city — thus opening two new frequencies for license applications. In response, the federal cabinetCabinet of Canada
The Cabinet of Canada is a body of ministers of the Crown that, along with the Canadian monarch, and within the tenets of the Westminster system, forms the government of Canada...
issued an Order in Council to the CRTC directing it to give precedence to applications that took into account Toronto's cultural and racial diversity, effectively guaranteeing that Milestone would get a license in the new round of hearings.
On June 16, 2000, the CRTC awarded one of the frequencies to Milestone, on the company's third attempt. The other frequency was awarded to Aboriginal Voices
Aboriginal Voices
Aboriginal Voices Radio Network is a Canadian national radio network with licensed radio stations in nine Canadian metropolitan areas, all which are licensed under the calls of Toronto flagship station CKAV-FM...
for a station to serve First Nations
First Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
communities. At the beginning of this same year, the internet became home to Canada's largest rap/hip-hop website publication and community, HipHopCanada.com. Also in 2000, the CBC created and aired Drop the Beat
Drop the Beat
Drop the Beat was a Canadian television series produced by Back Alley Films, which aired on CBC Television in 2000. A short run dramatic series, the show was one of the first television series ever built around hip hop music and culture....
, a television series about hip hop music and culture which was billed as one of the first such series in the world. The show starred Merwin Mondesir
Merwin Mondesir
Merwin Mondesir is a Canadian actor. His ancestry is Saint Lucian. Now he is living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.- Movies :*2000: Seventeen Again as Todd*2001: Bones as Bill Peetas*2004: Godsend as Maurice...
and Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor (actor)
Mark Taylor is a Canadian actor. Taylor is predominately known for his roles as Romeo in Student Bodies, and Kwest in Instant Star...
as the hosts of a hip hop show on a campus radio
Campus radio
Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...
station; the cast also included Michie Mee, DJ Shamann and Kardinal Offishall.
Finally, in 2001, CFXJ
CFXJ-FM
CFXJ-FM is a Canadian radio station in Toronto, Ontario, which uses the on-air brand FLOW 93.5. It first aired in 2001 as Canada's first urban music station...
(Flow 93.5) debuted as Canada's first urban music station. Urban stations quickly followed in several other Canadian cities, as well, and for the first time, Canadian hip hop artists had a network of radio outlets for their music — as well as numerous record labels committed to rectifying their past lack of interest in the genre. In the 2000s, numerous Canadian hip hop artists, including Kardinal Offishall
Kardinal Offishall
Jason D. Harrow , better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall , is a Canadian rapper and record producer. He is often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip-hop.-Life and career:Harrow was born in...
, Drake
Drake (entertainer)
Aubrey Drake Graham , who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian recording artist and actor. He originally became known for playing Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation....
, Classified
Classified (rapper)
Luke Boyd , professionally known as Classified, is a Canadian rapper and producer from Enfield, Nova Scotia.-Career:...
, k-os
K-os
Kevin Brereton , better known by his stage name k-os , is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer...
, K'naan
K'naan
K'naan , born Keinan Abdi Warsame in 1978, is a Somali Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist.-Biography:Born in Somalia, K'naan spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there during the Somali Civil War, which began in 1991. His aunt, Magool, was one of Somalia's most...
, Swollen Members
Swollen Members
Swollen Members is a Canadian hip hop group from Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada consisting mainly of the duo Mad Child, and Prevail. Frequent collaborators include vocalist Moka Only and producer Rob the Viking, an official group member since 2002...
, Sweatshop Union
Sweatshop Union
Sweatshop Union is a Canadian hip hop collective formed in 2000 when four politically minded rap acts—Dirty Circus, Pigeon Hole, Kyprios and Innocent Bystander —came together "to create a powerful, distinctive voice", and to produce their first album, which was published in 2001.Known for an...
, Buck 65
Buck 65
Richard Terfry , who uses the stage name Buck 65, is a Canadian experimental artist, MC and turntablist. Underpinned by an extensive background in abstract hip hop, his more recent music has extensively incorporated blues, country, rock, folk and avant garde influences.Terfry is also a radio host,...
, Belly
Belly (rapper)
Ahmed Balshe , better known by his stage name Belly, is a Palestinian-Canadian Juno Award-winning rapper....
, Moka Only
Moka Only
Daniel Denton , known professionally as Moka Only, is a Canadian hip hop artist. Originally from Langford, British Columbia, near Victoria, he is now based in Vancouver. He was previously part of the hip hop group Swollen Members, and briefly a part of Len. His albums are released by Legendary...
, Shad
Shad (rapper)
Shadrach Kabango , credited as Shad or Shad K., is a Canadian hip hop artist.-Early life:Born in Kenya, of Rwandan parents, Shad was raised in London, Ontario. His mother worked in London as a hospital lab technician; his father, as a machinist...
and Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon is the stage name of Rollie Pemberton, a Canadian rapper.-Biography:Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, his father was Teddy Pemberton, a pioneering hip hop DJ on CJSR-FM, and his grandfather was Rollie Miles, a football player for the Edmonton Eskimos...
, as well as many R&B artists, have emerged as mainstream stars.
In addition to terrestrial radio, the national satellite radio
Satellite radio
Satellite radio is an analogue or digital radio signal that is relayed through one or more satellites and thus can be received in a much wider geographical area than terrestrial FM radio stations...
networks CBC Radio 3
CBC Radio 3
CBC Radio 3 is a radio station that consists of two parts devoted to Canadian arts and music: a radio service which is available on Sirius Satellite Radio and streaming audio, and several daily and weekly podcasts from the CBC Radio 3 website...
and Bande à part
Bande à part (radio)
Bande à part is the name of a website and a Sirius Satellite Radio station in Canada that are devoted primarily to French Canadian arts and music....
, which are both dedicated to Canadian independent music of any genre, also include numerous emerging hip hop artists in their playlists. Bande à part has produced a compilation album of unsigned Quebec hip hop artists, 93 tours, which it distributed as a free download from its website. Several prominent contemporary hip hop artists, including Shad, Cadence Weapon, K'naan, Sweatshop Union and Omnikrom, have in fact risen to prominence through these channels instead of through terrestrial radio.
Apart from a few major stars the hip hop scene has largely continued to struggle in obscurity. Virtually all of the urban-format radio stations which debuted in the early 2000s, including Flow 93.5, have since shifted from a pure urban format to a rhythmic contemporary
Rhythmic Contemporary
Rhythmic contemporary, also known as rhythmic top 40, rhythmic contemporary hit radio or rhythmic crossover, is a music radio format that includes a mix of EDM, upbeat rhythmic pop, hip-hop and R&B hits. Rhythmic contemporary rarely uses rock music or country music in its airplay, but it may...
format. While the stations still play some hip hop, they now focus far more on artists who have already established crossover Top 40 appeal — meaning that emerging artists can no longer rely on the stations to help them build their audience. In 2010, further, Milestone announced a deal to sell Flow 93.5 to CHUM Radio, a division of the mainstream media conglomerate CTVglobemedia
CTVglobemedia
CTVglobemedia , was one of Canada's largest private media companies. Its operations include newspaper publishing , television broadcasting and production , radio broadcasting , and their respective Internet properties.Originally established by BCE and the Thomson family in 2001 combining CTV Inc.,...
. However, a new radio station, CKFG-FM
CKFG-FM
CKFG-FM is a new radio station which broadcasts an Urban Adult Contemporary format on the frequency 98.7 MHz in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.The station will be targeted to the local Caribbean and African communities and began broadcasting on October 3, 2011....
, was licensed to Toronto in 2011 as a community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
station authorized to broadcast a broad spectrum of African and Caribbean
Black Canadian
'Black Canadians is a designation used for people of Black African descent, who are citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The term specifically refers to Canadians with Sub-Saharan African ancestry. The majority of Black Canadians are of Caribbean origin...
musical genres, including hip hop, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, soca
Soca music
Soca is a style of music from Trinidad and Tobago. Soca is a musical development of traditional Trinidadian calypso, through loans from the 1960s onwards from predominantly black popular music....
and rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
.
Canadian hip hop musicians have also continued to face obstacles when attempting to break into the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and international markets. Music critics and journalists have sometimes attributed this to the perception, real or imagined, that stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s of Canada as a land of igloo
Igloo
An igloo or snowhouse is a type of shelter built of snow, originally built by the Inuit....
s and hoser
Hoser
Hoser is both a slang term and a stereotype, originating from and used primarily in Canada. It is not often used by Canadians, but it is sometimes used as "typical" Canadian slang by those imitating Canadians, similar to the expression "eh?" The term "hoser" gained popularity from the comedic skits...
s get in the way of Canadian rappers being taken seriously. It was not until 2008, when Kardinal Offishall
Kardinal Offishall
Jason D. Harrow , better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall , is a Canadian rapper and record producer. He is often credited as Canada's "hip-hop ambassador", and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip-hop.-Life and career:Harrow was born in...
reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart with a collaboration with established American star Akon
Akon
Aliaune Damala Badara Thiam, better known as simply Akon , is a Senegalese American R&B recording artist and songwriter.According to Forbes, Akon grossed $21 million in 2010, $20 million in 2009 and $12 million in 2008. He rose to prominence in 2004 following the release of "Locked Up", the first...
, "Dangerous
Dangerous (Kardinal Offishall song)
"Dangerous" is a hip-hop/R&B song by Kardinal Offishall featuring Akon. Produced by DJ Kemo and hAZEL, it was the first single from his fourth album Not 4 Sale. It was released to radio in March 2008, and on iTunes on April 1. On the week of May 13, at the American iTunes store, the song was...
", that a Canadian rapper had a major chart hit in the United States. He was shortly followed by Drake
Drake (entertainer)
Aubrey Drake Graham , who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian recording artist and actor. He originally became known for playing Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation....
, whose 2009 single "Best I Ever Had
Best I Ever Had (Drake song)
"Best I Ever Had" is the first single from Canadian rapper Drake's first EP So Far Gone. It first became prominent from the release of Drake's third mixtape of the same name. In 2009, the song was named the "Hot Rap Song" of the year by Billboard. The song's popularity helped Drake decide to...
" reached #2 on the Hot 100, making it the most successful Canadian hip hop single in the U.S. to date. Another major international breakthrough came in 2009 when a remixed version of K'naan's single "Wavin' Flag
Wavin' Flag
"Wavin' Flag" is a song by Somali-Canadian artist K'naan from his album Troubadour. The song was a global hit, reaching the top ten in 19 charts around the world and was chosen as Coca-Cola's promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, hosted by South Africa. The English version was released as...
" was announced as the official Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
theme song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup
2010 FIFA World Cup
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010...
. The song has since become a chart hit in at least 16 countries worldwide.
In 2011, Mike D (Michael de Jong born feb 1984) along with other vancouver rappers took to the internet. Phukt.ca was the initial site of rap music which spread quickly. Next polished tracks we constructed they appeared on bowdown.org (this site use to contain pictures of undercover police cars aswel as other illegal material . Mike de Jong took the real life stories and has made them into an audio diary. Also slimshifty.com is another one of the new rap type genre that Canadian rappers seem to be using more commonly.
French Canadian hip hop
MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, being Canada's second largest city and one of the world's largest French-speaking cities, has developed its own niche of French language hip hop, which later spread to Quebec City and throughout the province of Quebec. Although a few French rap singles broke through to mainstream success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Les French B's "Je m'en souviens", Kool Rock and Jay Tree's "M.R.F. est arrivé", Le Boyfriend's "Rapper chic (Je rap en français)" and Dédé Tracké's "T'es qui toé", as in English Canada this early success was not sustained, and francophone hip hop remained largely an underground phenomenon until the emergence of Dubmatique
Dubmatique
Dubmatique are a Canadian hip hop group from Montreal. They were the first French language hip hop crew from Canada to break through to Canada's francophone pop charts...
, who became in 1997 the first francophone Canadian hip hop group to reach Canada's francophone Top 40 charts. Dubmatique were followed by acts including Muzion
Muzion
Muzion is a rap group based in Quebec, Canada made up of rap artists of Haitian origin. Members of the band came from Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension in Montreal. The band is made up of Dramatik, Imposs and his sister J-Kyll...
, Manu Militari, Yvon Krevé
Yvon Krevé
Yvon Krevé, also known as Von Von, is a French Canadian hip hop artist of Haitian origin.Krevé was rose to notice following collaborations with the duo Sans Pression....
, Loco Locass
Loco Locass
Loco Locass are a hip hop group from Quebec formed in 1995. The group often defends the role of the French language in Canada, and champions Quebec sovereignty.Loco Locass' lyrics often deal with the role of the French language, and Quebec's role in Canada...
, Catburglaz, Atach Tatuq
Atach Tatuq
Atach Tatuq is a Canadian hip hop group from Montreal, consisting of musicians DJ Naes, Egypto, 1-2 d'Piq, L'Intrus, Virus, Dee, Khyro, R.U., Casco, Arnak and Haikai....
, Taktika, Sir Pathétik
Sir Pathétik
Raphaël Bérubé known by his stage name Sir Pathétik is a Quebec, Canada rapper originating from Trois-Rivières that has released a number of albums and collborated with many artists earning several best rapper awards from ADISQ....
, Sans Pression
Sans Pression
Sans Pression is a Québécois hip hop group. It once had two members, SP and Ti-Kid aka Kamokain. After the release of their first album Ti-Kid left. SP is Congolese and Ti-Kid is a Haitian. Sans Pression is one of the top groups in the Québecois hip hop scene...
, Omnikrom
Omnikrom
Omnikrom is a rap, crunk, and electro group formed in Montréal, Québec, Canada.- Members :Omnikrom is composed of two MCs, Jeanbart and Linso Gabbo, and their producer Figure8.They are also produced by Tepr, Kid Rolex and Ghislain Poirier....
, Anodajay
Anodajay
Steve Jolin, better known as Anodajay is a rapper from Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec in Canada.Discovering hip hop at the age of twelve, and from the age of sixteen became more involved in it, along with his other main interest, basketball...
, Gatineau
Gatineau (band)
Gatineau is a Canadian francophone hip hop band from Montreal. Their self-titled debut album, released in 2007, won the 2008 Félix Award for Best Hip Hop Album, and was a longlisted nominee for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize....
, Radio Radio
Radio Radio (band)
Radio Radio is a Canadian electro hip-hop band formed in 2007 from Clare, Nova Scotia, Canada. The trio rap in Acadian French.-History:Radio Radio released their first EP entitled Télé-Télé in 2007...
and Treizième Etage.
In 2005, The Dope Poet Society
The Dope Poet Society
The Dope Poet Society is a politically charged hip hop group from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Their music is characterized by clever and sometimes controversial lyrics. ProfessorD.us is the lead vocalist of the group, known for his tongue twisting, “rapid fire” rap style. The group has been active...
released a multilingual single and video entitled, "All of Us" off the album ProIntelpro: Promote Intelligence Program. Lead vocalist ProfessorD.us raps in both English and French on the track, accompanied by a posse of six other rappers rhyming in a total of five different languages. The most internationally successful hip hop musician from Quebec is Ghislain Poirier
Ghislain Poirier
Poirier is a DJ/producer from Montreal who is signed to the Ninja Tune record label. He has, however, also worked with other labels such as Chocolate Industries, Rebondir, Shockout, Musique Large, Intr_version and 12k. His work mainly consists of original instrumental mixes and mixes featuring...
, a producer whose own albums primarily feature francophone rappers from Quebec and France, but who is also now an influential remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
er equally sought after by anglophone rappers and dance musicians from Canada and the United States. Roi Heenok
Roi Heenok
Heenok Beauséjour , better known by his stage name Roi Heenok is a Canadian rapper of Haitian descent, from Montreal, Quebec....
, a rapper from Montreal, has become an Internet phenomenon in France, and has performed in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
three times since 2004.
First Nations hip hop
Hip hop is also a rapidly growing influence on contemporary First NationsFirst Nations
First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...
youth culture, spearheaded by prominent artists such as Kinnie Starr
Kinnie Starr
Alida Kinnie Starr Pierre is a Canadian singer-songwriter from Calgary, Alberta. Her music, which blends hip hop and alternative rock, has been described as "hip hop aggro groove". Her songs have been included on the soundtracks for the TV series The L Word and the movie Thirteen...
, War Party
War Party (band)
War Party is an award-winning Cree hip-hop group from Hobbema, Alberta.Founded in 1995 by Rex Smallboy, the group won the Canadian Aboriginal Music Award for Best Rap Album in 2001, and was nominated again in 2002 and 2003...
, Eekwol, Inez Jasper, Joey Stylez
Joey Stylez
Joey Stylez is an aboriginal Canadian hip hop artist based in Vancouver.A member of Moosomin First Nation, Stylez was moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan at an early age and raised by his single mother. His life in poverty and the oppression he faced plays a major role in his lyrics. He remains an...
, Lil Pappie
Lil Pappie
Nicholaus John Michael Gordon , better known by his stage name Lil Pappie, is a Canadian singer, rapper and songwriter of Dakota and European descent.-Career:In 2008, Lil Pappie appeared on the sixth season of Canadian Idol....
, Plex, Anish, Tru Rez Crew, Samian
Samian (rapper)
Samuel Tremblay, better known by his stage name Samian , is a Canadian rapper who performs in both French and Algonquin....
and Team Rezofficial
Team Rezofficial
Team Rezofficial are a Canadian aboriginal hip hop group . Founded by former members of War Party, the group includes musicians Hellnback, Drezus, Jay Mak, Big Stomp and Tomaslav Miradovic, and was formed in 2003.Their first album The Foundation won the Canadian Aboriginal Music Award for Best...
. First Nations hip hop artists typically perform a style which blends hip hop with traditional First Nations music
First Nations music
Aboriginal music of Canada encompasses a wide variety of musical genres created by Canada's Aboriginal people. Before European settlers came to what is now Canada, the region was occupied by a large number of aboriginal peoples, including the West Coast Salish and Haida, the centrally located...
.
David Dacoine, a member of Tribal Wizdom, has hosted workshops across Canada encouraging aboriginal youth to take up hip hop as a method of creative expression and self-empowerment. Anish created the first ever First Nations Hip Hop Festival; subsequently, the event was held at Pasqua, Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
in 2004. The Aboriginal Voices
Aboriginal Voices
Aboriginal Voices Radio Network is a Canadian national radio network with licensed radio stations in nine Canadian metropolitan areas, all which are licensed under the calls of Toronto flagship station CKAV-FM...
radio network also airs a weekly program, hosted by Plex, devoted to First Nations hip hop.
In 2009, Team Rezofficial became the first aboriginal hip hop group with a song on the RapCity Top Ten. The song "Lonely" went to number one. In the same year, Manitoba's Native Communications radio network launched Streetz FM
CIUR-FM
CIUR-FM, branded as Streetz FM, is a radio station in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which broadcasts a rhythmic contemporary format aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at First Nations youth...
, a hip hop station in Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
which was Canada's first radio station marketed primarily to aboriginal youth.
Influences
Although American East Coast hip hopEast Coast hip hop
East Coast hip hop is a regional subgenre of hip hop music that originated in New York City, USA during the 1970s. Hip hop is recognized to have originated and evolved first in the East Coast...
and West Coast hip hop
West Coast hip hop
West Coast hip hop is a hip hop music subgenre that encompasses any artists or music that originates in the westernmost region of the United States, as opposed to East Coast hip hop, based originally in New York alone...
are major influences on Canadian artists in the genre, Canadian hip hop also incorporates a number of other influences not commonly seen in the mainstream of the American genre. The Black Canadian community is much more dominated by people of Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
heritage than is the African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
community in the United States. As a result, Canadian hip hop is significantly influenced by the rhythms and styles of Caribbean music. English Canadian hip hop tends to be influenced by Jamaican
Music of Jamaica
The music of Jamaica includes Jamaican folk music and many popular genres, such as mento, ska, rocksteady, reggae, dub music, dancehall, reggae fusion and related styles. Jamaica's music culture is a fusion of elements from the United States , Africa, and neighboring Caribbean islands such as...
, Trinidadian
Music of Trinidad and Tobago
Calypso music and steelpan is what Trinidad and Tobago is best known for, including internationally in the 1950s through artists like Lord Kitchener and Mighty Sparrow; the art form was most popularised at that time by Harry Belafonte...
and Bahamian
Music of the Bahamas
The music of the Bahamas is associated primarily with junkanoo, a celebration which occurs on Boxing Day and again on New Year's Day. Parades and other celebrations mark the ceremony...
styles, while francophone hip hop from Quebec is commonly influenced by Haitian music. Artists such as Michie Mee, Dream Warriors, Ghetto Concept, and Kardinal Offishall have incorporated dancehall
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...
or reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
into their music.
The genre-hopping "Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
with a beatbox" style of Buck 65
Buck 65
Richard Terfry , who uses the stage name Buck 65, is a Canadian experimental artist, MC and turntablist. Underpinned by an extensive background in abstract hip hop, his more recent music has extensively incorporated blues, country, rock, folk and avant garde influences.Terfry is also a radio host,...
, who integrates country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
influences into his music, has also become a major influence on Canadian hip hop in the 2000s. His influence is especially strong on hip hop artists from the Maritime provinces, such as Classified
Classified (rapper)
Luke Boyd , professionally known as Classified, is a Canadian rapper and producer from Enfield, Nova Scotia.-Career:...
, but can also be seen in artists such as Ridley Bent
Ridley Bent
Ridley Bent is a Canadian country singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bent was raised throughout Canada in a military family. He formally launched his musical career in 2000....
and mcenroe
Mcenroe
mcenroe, also known as Rod Bailey, is a Canadian hip hop musician, and entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, he is the founder of his record label Peanuts & Corn Recordings, an independent hip hop distributor, as well as a company specializing in the marketing and promotion of independent music in...
.
Electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
is also a significant influence, notably seen in artists such as Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon is the stage name of Rollie Pemberton, a Canadian rapper.-Biography:Born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, his father was Teddy Pemberton, a pioneering hip hop DJ on CJSR-FM, and his grandfather was Rollie Miles, a football player for the Edmonton Eskimos...
, No Luck Club and Ghislain Poirier
Ghislain Poirier
Poirier is a DJ/producer from Montreal who is signed to the Ninja Tune record label. He has, however, also worked with other labels such as Chocolate Industries, Rebondir, Shockout, Musique Large, Intr_version and 12k. His work mainly consists of original instrumental mixes and mixes featuring...
, and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
music has been incorporated since the early 1990s, particularly in the work of Dream Warriors
Dream Warriors
Dream Warriors were a Canadian hip hop duo from Toronto, Ontario, comprising King Lou and Capital Q. Described as "a pair of deft, intelligent rappers" by Allmusic, they were major contributors to the jazz rap movement of the early 1990s. Their 1991 debut album, And Now the Legacy Begins, is...
, Social Deviantz
Social Deviantz
Social Deviantz are a Canadian rap trio based in Vancouver, British Columbia.First formed in early 1992, the group consists of lyricists A-Train and Fatbone, and DJ/producer Junya...
, Mood Ruff
Mood Ruff
Mood Ruff was a conscious hip-hop group hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The group consisted of Odario, Spitz, Breakz, and ICQRI. Their final album I Do My Own Stunts, which was released in 2005, contained their first hit, "Rocketship".-History:...
and Da Grassroots
Da Grassroots
Da Grassroots are a Canadian hip-hop production team from Toronto, Ontario, composed of Mr. Attic, Mr. Murray, and Swiff. The Juno Award-winning group contributed to the development of Toronto hip hop throughout the 1990s, highlighted by the release of their debut album Passage Through Time in...
. Artists such as K'naan
K'naan
K'naan , born Keinan Abdi Warsame in 1978, is a Somali Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist.-Biography:Born in Somalia, K'naan spent his childhood in Mogadishu and lived there during the Somali Civil War, which began in 1991. His aunt, Magool, was one of Somalia's most...
, k-os
K-os
Kevin Brereton , better known by his stage name k-os , is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer...
, Grand Analog
Grand Analog
Grand Analog is a Canadian hip hop band, formed in 2006 and fronted by Odario Williams. The group was conceived as a project combining R&B, jazz, reggae and rock influences into a hip hop style performed mainly on live instruments instead of digital electronics....
, Touch and Nato
Touch and Nato
Touch and Nato are a hip hop duo from Edmonton, Canada. The members are Touch , and Nato .The group's debut album, ...Are The Representatives in Intelligent Design, was released in June 2007 to rave reviews from outlets like CD Baby, HeroHill.com, Now Magazine and HipHopCanada.com...
, Dragon Fli Empire
Dragon Fli Empire
Dragon Fli Empire is a hip hop duo from Calgary, Canada, comprising Tarik Robinson, also known as Teekay , and Adam Hicks, also known as DJ Cosm ....
, DL Incognito
DL Incognito
Oliver Nestor, better known as DL Incognito is an underground Canadian hip hop producer and rapper from Ottawa, Ontario who started his career in 1998. The name 'DL Incognito' means Deliverying Lyrics on the Low. His 2004 album, Life's a Collection of Experiences, received a 2005 Juno nomination...
and Graph Nobel
Graph Nobel
Graph Nobel is a Canadian indie/alternative/pop musician and songwriter. Her music is "hip-hop inspired with punk rock abandon".Born and raised in Toronto, Ontario to Trinidadian parents, Graph Nobel began writing music early, at the age of 14, then performing studio recordings at 17...
have pursued styles which blend a diverse mix of hip hop, rock, jazz, world music, and R&B influences.
See also
- Music of CanadaMusic of CanadaThe music of Canada has influences that have shaped the country. Aboriginals, the British, and the French have all made unique contributions to the musical heritage of Canada. The music has subsequently been heavily influenced by American culture because of its proximity and migration between...
- Canadian music genresCanadian music genresCanadian music genres identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music made by Canadians. The music of Canada has reflected the multi-cultural influences that have shaped the country...
- Music of Canadian culturesMusic of Canadian culturesMusic of Canadian Cultures is a wide and divers accumulation of music from many different individual communities all across Canada. With Canada being vast in size, the country throughout its history has had regional music scenes. The music of Canada has reflected the multi-cultural influences...