Wesley "Wes" Williams is a Canadian rapper, singer, record producer, actor, and author. He is known professionally by his stage names Maestro Fresh Wes or Maestro as a musician, and is credited by his birth name as an actor. One of the earliest Canadian rappers to achieve mainstream success, he is credited as the "Godfather of Canadian hip hop". His debut album, Symphony in Effect (1989), was the first certified platinum album by a Black Canadian artist, and his 2023 induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and 2024 Governor General's Performing Arts Award were each the first for any hip-hop artist.
Exclaim! is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes seven issues per year, distributing over 103,000 copies to over 2,600 locations across Canada. The magazine has an average of 361,200 monthly readers and their website, exclaim.ca, has an average of 675,000 unique visitors a month.
CKLN-FM was a community radio station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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.
Hiplife is a Ghanaian musical style that fuses Ghanaian culture and hip hop. Recorded predominantly in the Ghanaian Akan language, hiplife is rapidly gaining popularity in the 2010s throughout West Africa and abroad, especially in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Germany.
Michelle Ann Camille McCullock, better known by her stage name Michie Mee, is a Canadian rapper and actress. Canada's first notable female MC, she is considered a national hip-hop pioneer.
Keinan Abdi Warsame, better known by his stage name K'naan, is a Somali-Canadian rapper, singer and filmmaker. He rose to prominence with the success of his single "Wavin' Flag", which was chosen as Coca-Cola's promotional anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Besides hip hop, K'naan's sound is influenced by elements of Somali music and world music. A Grammy Award-winning artist and FIPRESCI Prize-winning director, he is also involved in various philanthropic initiatives.
Jason Drew Harrow, better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall, is a Canadian rapper and record producer. Often credited as Canada's "hip hop ambassador", he has been regarded as one of the country's most prominent hip hop producers during the 2000s and is distinctive for his reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip hop.
Quest for Fire: Firestarter, Vol. 1 is the second studio album by Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall. It was released on MCA Records, his first album for a major label. It is a recompilation album, which includes older songs and demos that he used to get signed. The lead single, "BaKardi Slang", became his first single to appear on a Billboard chart. The second single, "Ol' Time Killin'", was a minor hit. The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics.
Caribbean music in Canada has existed since the early 1920s, becoming increasingly prominent after the 1960s as Caribbean immigration to Canada increased. Anglo-Caribbean genres such as reggae, soca and calypso are especially prominent in English Canada, while French Caribbean genres such as cadence-lypso, zouk and konpa are more prominent in Quebec.
Joanne Gairy, better known by her stage name Jemeni, is a singer, actress, writer, activist, broadcaster and community worker. She was born in Grenada and grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario and now lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She studied Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson University, Toronto.
Matthew Jehu Samuels, known professionally as Boi-1da is a Canadian record producer and songwriter based in Toronto, Ontario.
"Money Jane" is a song recorded by Canadian DJ group Baby Blue Soundcrew featuring Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall, Jamaican musician Sean Paul, and Canadian singer-songwriter Jully Black. It was released by Universal Music Canada in 2000, and was the first single from the group's debut studio compilation album Private Party Collectors Edition; a remix was included on Offishall's 2001 album Quest for Fire: Firestarter, Vol. 1. "Money Jane" is a Canadian hip hop and dancehall song with lyrics about a wealthy woman who provides financial and material support for her male companion. The song is noted for its influence on Toronto's hip hop music scene, and is credited with launching Paul's international music career.
Daniel Faraldo, known professionally as Dan-e-o, is a Canadian hip hop artist and actor of Jamaican and Spanish descent. In June 2015, Dan-e-o received the award for Best Hip Hop Artist at the Black Canadian Awards. He is a member of the groups Monolith and Perfeck Strangers, both based in Scarborough, Ontario.
CJTM, branded as Met Radio, is a low-powered AM campus and community radio station, owned and operated by Radio Ryerson Inc. at Toronto Metropolitan University, which was granted a broadcast license by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on December 11, 2014.
Kim Davis is a Canadian singer-songwriter. After starting her career as a background singer for artists such as John Legend, she began recording and self-releasing solo material in 2007. Davis' lyrics draw from real life experiences, and her music fuses R&B, soul, hip hop, and reggae. In 2010 her single Show Me The Way was nominated for the Juno Award for Reggae Recording of the Year, and at the Juno Awards of 2014 her second album There's Only One was nominated for the Juno Award for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year. She has collaborated with artists such as Sizzla and Beenie Man, and she continues to tour.
Hip-Hop Evolution is a Canadian music documentary television series that originally aired on HBO Canada in 2016. Hosted by Juno Award-winning artist Shad, the series profiles the history of hip-hop music through interviews with many of the genre's leading cultural figures. The series is produced by Darby Wheeler, Rodrigo Bascuñán, Russell Peters, Scot McFadyen, Sam Dunn and Nelson George. It won the 2016 Peabody Award, and the 2017 International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming.
Northside Hip Hop Archive (NSHHA) is a digital archive of Canadian hip hop culture from the 1980s and 1990s. NSHHA aims to preserve cultural artifacts from the pioneering years of the Canadian hip hop scene. This online archive digitizes oral histories, event flyers, posters, street magazines, album covers, newspaper articles, graffiti and analog recordings. Founded by Dr. Mark V. Campbell aka DJ Grumps, in 2010, NSHHA “take[s] seriously the accomplishments and hidden histories of Canadian hip hop and is interested in providing resources for future generations of hip hoppers.”
Mark V. Campbell is a Canadian academic, disc jockey and writer. He was raised in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, Canada. Currently, he is an assistant professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Arts, Culture and Media, University of Toronto Scarborough. Campbell's work focuses on new modalities of being human, sonic innovations within Black music, and the knowledge production of digital archives.
The Get Loose Crew is a hip-hop group that became the first Canadian rap group to independently finance, produce and secure distribution of an authentic Hip Hop mini-LP to sell outside Canada claimed by the Hart House at the University of Toronto. The group did not release a follow-up project and disbanded in 1990. One of the group members, Carl Badwa, MC B became the first Canadian emcee to win a Juno Award in 1990 for the category R&B/Soul Recording of the Year.
