Rod Bailey, stage name Mcenroe (stylized in all lowercase), is a Canadian rapper and music industry entrepreneur. [1] As an entrepreneur, he is the founder of his record label Peanuts & Corn Recordings, an independent hip hop distributor, [2] [3] as well as a company specializing in the marketing and promotion of independent music in Canada, Breadwinner Music Group. [4]
As mcenroe, Bailey was part of the hip hop band Farm Fresh. [5] He founded Peanuts & Corn in Brandon, Manitoba in 1994, [2] and through it produced the band's first recording. [4] He then moved his studio and label to Winnipeg, where he continued to write, perform and produce in the hip hop scene.
During the recording of Birdapres' album Nothing is Cool mcenroe took a musical as well as production part. [6] The pair toured around Canada in support of the album. [7] He also released several solo albums of his own raps, including Disenfranchised in 2006. [8]
He later moved to Vancouver, where his label is a part of the Farm Fresh collective. [9]
In 2013, mcenroe was interviewed about the hip hop music industry in Canada for the documentary film Hip Hop Eh. [10]
James Todd Smith, known professionally as LL Cool J, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is one of the earliest rappers to achieve commercial success, alongside fellow new school hip hop acts Beastie Boys and Run-DMC.
Sarath "Skiz" Fernando is a former music critic, who has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Source, Spin, and Vibe. Later, under the alias Spectre, he became a record producer, rapper, and electronica artist. He is the founder and the head of his own label WordSound, as well as the author of several books about hip hop music.
Leslie Edward Pridgen, better known by his stage name Freeway, is an American rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He first gained recognition after appearing on Jay-Z's fifth album, The Dynasty: Roc La Familia in 2000. The following year, he became a member of the Philadelphia-based hip hop collective State Property, which were signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, an imprint of Def Jam Recordings. After releasing their debut album, Pridgen would sign to Roc-A-Fella as a solo artist and subsequently begin work on his solo debut, Philadelphia Freeway (2003). Upon release, the album peaked at number five on the Billboard 200 and saw positive critical response. He would release a follow-up, Free at Last (2007) to moderate reception before him and fellow State Property cohorts were dropped from the label.
Cash Money Records is an American record label founded in 1991 by brothers Ronald "Slim" Williams and Bryan "Baby" Williams. In its early years, Cash Money Records released albums for Juvenile, B.G., and Hot Boys. Distributed by Republic Records, the label has since been home to a roster of mostly hip hop artists, including Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj, and Tyga. The company is regarded as one of the most successful record labels of the 2000s–2010s.
Farm Fresh was a Canadian hip hop group from Brandon, Manitoba made up of Mcenroe, Pip Skid and DJ Hunnicutt.
The Canadian hip hop scene was established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much slower 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.
First Words was a Canadian hip hop group, consisting of Halifax beatmaker Jorun Bombay, DJ STV and emcees Above and Sean One. The group released two albums and an EP, as well as contributing tracks to several hiphop compilations, and was active from 2004 to 2008.
Tuff Crew is a hip hop group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dubbed "Philly's first Rap Supergroup". Members include Ice Dog, L. A. Kid, Tone Love, Monty G, and DJ Too Tuff.
Patrick Skene, known professionally as Pip Skid and Wicked Nut, is a Canadian rapper and writer, and one of the most active creative artists at the Vancouver & Winnipeg-based independent hip hop label Peanuts & Corn. Skid is known for his distinctive gravel-throated vocals.
Peanuts & Corn is a Canadian independent record label, releasing hip hop recordings since 1994. They have also been a distributor of Canadian hip hop releases since 2002.
Luke Boyd, better known by his stage name Classified, is a Canadian rapper and record producer from Enfield, Nova Scotia.
Rob Wilson, better known by his stage name Fresh I.E., is a Christian rap artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Mood Ruff was a Canadian hip-hop group formed in 1994 in Winnipeg. 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".
Jeffrey James Logan, better known by his stage name Jel, is an American hip hop producer and rapper. He is co-founder of the record label Anticon. He has been a member of Presage, Themselves, Subtle, and 13 & God.
Grand Analog is a Canadian hip hop band, fronted by Odario Williams. The project combines R&B, jazz, reggae and rock influences into a hip hop style performed mainly on live instruments instead of digital electronics.
Donavan LaMond Johnson better known by his stage name XV is an American rapper, singer and songwriter from Wichita, Kansas. He first gained major attention after the release of his twelfth mixtape Everybody's Nobody, for which he received two awards from DJBooth.net. His name, XV, refers to the age (15) at which he began his musical career. On Monday July 26, 2010, XV announced that he had signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records via his Twitter page.
Pigeon Hole is a Canadian hip hop group from Vancouver. They were previously known as "Creative Minds". The duo consists of Colin "Dusty Melo" McCue and Lee "Marmalade" Napthine, who are also members of the band Sweatshop Union.
Dane Jordan Goulet, known professionally as Birdapres, is a rapper from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He has been called "Vancouver's most underrated rapper," and has been praised for his thoughtful rhymes. In 2006, Exclaim!'s Thomas Quinlan wrote that Birdapres' collaborative albums Alleged Legends and Nothing is Cool were "two of the best releases for Peanuts & Corn".
The influence and impact of hip hop was originally shaped from African American and Latino communities in the South Bronx. In the last several decades, the movement has become a worldwide phenomenon which transcends different cultural boundaries as it reaches several ethnic groups, including Asian Americans. Asian American hip-hop practitioners include: MC Jin, Lyrics Born, Dumbfoundead, Tokimonsta, and DJ Q-Bert.