Fred Wesley is an American trombonist who worked with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s, and Parliament-Funkadelic in the second half of the 1970s.
Wesley "Wes" Williams is a Canadian rapper, 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.
Dragon Fli Empire is a Canadian hip hop duo formed in 2002 from Calgary, comprising Tarik Robinson, also known as Teekay (MC/producer), and Adam Hicks, also known as DJ Cosm (DJ/producer).
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.
Keinan Abdi Warsame, better known by his stage name K'naan, is a Somali-Canadian rapper. 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. He is also involved in various philanthropic initiatives.
Geoff Berner is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and musician from Vancouver.
Jason Drew Harrow, better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall, is a Canadian rapper, record producer, DJ, and record executive. Often credited as Canada's "hip hop ambassador", he is regarded as one of the country's best hip hop producers, and is best known for his distinctive reggae and dancehall-influenced style of hip hop.
Luke Boyd, better known by his stage name Classified, is a Canadian rapper and record producer from Enfield, Nova Scotia.
Sophie Solomon is a British violinist, songwriter and composer who fuses many different musical influences into her music. She was Artistic Director of the Jewish Music Institute, SOAS from 2012 to 2015 and is now Chief Marketing Officer at high-growth music technology start-up ROLI.
Shades of Culture was a Canadian hip hop trio from Montreal. Its members are known as DShade, Revolution, and DJ Storm. The group performs mainly in English. Shades of Culture was one of the first Quebec hip hop groups to become known outside of their province.
David Krakauer is an American clarinetist who performs klezmer, jazz, classical music, and avant-garde improvisation.
Shadrach Kabango, better known as Shad or Shad K, is a Canadian rapper and broadcaster. He has released 7 full-length albums and 3 EP's since his debut in 2005. He won a Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year in 2011 and 5 of his albums have been shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, the most short-list nominations of any artist since the prize's creation in 2006. In 2013, CBC Music named Shad the second-greatest Canadian rapper of all time. Shad hosted Q on CBC Radio One from 2015 to 2016 and hosts the International Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution on HBO Canada and Netflix.
Toby Ross is an American film director who made straight and gay pornographic films in the 1970s and 1980s and later on went to produce non sexual and cult films with a strong sense of comedic flare. Many film aficionados consider Ross the only missing link between Adult films and commercial independent films, as Ross calls it The Antarctica of the film business. He was born in Landsberg am Lech, Germany, to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. At the age of eight, his mother having remarried an Austrian Jew, he moved with his mother and stepfather to Israel. He served two years in the Israeli army. After studies in Los Angeles, attracted by stories of the freedom in San Francisco, he moved there in the 1970s.
Beyond the Pale is a Toronto-based Canadian world/roots fusion band. Their style is rooted in klezmer, Balkan and Romanian music but heavily accented with contemporary and North American styles including bluegrass, jazz, reggae, funk and classical chamber music. They are known for unique songcraft, virtuosic musicianship, meticulous dynamics, and exuberant live performances. They are widely regarded as one of Canada's most accomplished and innovative acoustic ensembles. Some have described their sound as being in the same spirit as "New Acoustic Music" and David Grisman's "Dawg" music, but tinged more heavily with an east European accent. The name of the band is a reference to the Eastern-European Jewish Pale of Settlement, from where their music is partially inspired.
Leslie Seaforth, better known by his stage name More Or Les, is a Canadian rapper, DJ and producer. He is a member of the Canadian hip hop crew Backburner. He currently resides in his hometown of Toronto, Ontario.
Thunderheist was an electronic music duo from Toronto, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec in Canada. Thunderheist was made up of producer Graham Bertie (Grahmzilla) and Omolola Isis Salam (Isis). The two began collaborating before they had ever met in person, sending MP3 files to each other over the Internet. They were signed to and released one album on Big Dada. Thunderheist was founded in 2005 by Graham as an anonymous dance music side-project to his more hip-hop leanings as Metrix. They became a duo in August 2006 when Graham inadvertently sent Omolola a remix he was working on for a Spank Rock remix competition and she recorded a rap over it. They've received moderate popularity for their track "Jerk It" featured in the 2008 film The Wrestler. Thunderheist was selected as the X3 Artist of the month by Aux.tv, CBC Radio 3 and Exclaim! Magazine for April 2009. Their self-titled full-length was released March 31, 2009. They were nominated for a 2010 Juno Award in the Dance Recording of the Year category.
Ritchie Acheampong, better known as Rich Kidd, is a Canadian hip hop recording artist, record producer and film/video director from Toronto, Ontario. He is a two-time nominee for the Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year as a solo artist, garnering nominations at the Juno Awards of 2013 for The Closers and at the Juno Awards of 2014 for In My Opinion. In 2013, he formed the project Naturally Born Strangers with collaborators Tona and Adam Bomb. That group's debut release, The Legends League Presents: Naturally Born Strangers, won the Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2015.
Jewish hip hop is a genre of hip hop music with thematic, stylistic, or cultural ties to Judaism and its musical traditions.
Haviah Mighty is a Canadian rapper from Brampton, Ontario. She rose to prominence in 2016 as a member of the hip hop group the Sorority, before releasing several EPs on her own, most notably Flower City, in 2017. Her first album, 13th Floor, was released in 2019 and won the Polaris Music Prize. After her debut, XXL named her one of the "15 Toronto rappers you should know" and CBC Music called her one of the "New Faces of Canadian Hip Hop".
Etmet Musa, also known by her alias Ayo Leilani and her stage name Witch Prophet, is an Ethiopian/Eritrean musician based in Toronto, Ontario. As Witch Prophet, she has released 3 albums: The Golden Octave (2018), DNA Activation (2020), and Gateway Experience (2023). She co-founded and is the co-director of 88 Days of Fortune, a collective based in Toronto since 2009 that rebranded as Heart Lake Records in 2018. She also is a member of Above Top Secret, an electro-hip hop group. Above Top Secret has released three studio albums since 2010. DNA Activation was shortlisted for the 2020 Polaris Music Prize. In 2021, she released a new song "Leilani", which appeared on the deluxe edition of DNA Activation. The deluxe edition was released July 23, 2021. Her third album as Witch Prophet, entitled Gateway Experience, was released May 1st, 2023. The first single from the album, "Energy Vampire", was released on February 23, 2023 and featured DillanPonders. Gateway Experience was longlisted for the 2023 Polaris Music Prize.
