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 was the first for any hip-hop artist.
Kevin Brereton, better known by his stage name k-os, is a Canadian alternative rapper, singer, songwriter and producer. His given name may also be cited as Kheaven, a spelling he later adopted.
Swollen Members is a four-time JUNO Award-winning Canadian hip hop group from Vancouver, British Columbia, consisting mainly of Madchild and Prevail. Frequent collaborators include vocalist Moka Only along with the other former members Easy Roc & Zodak who were only in the group for a few years and producer Rob the Viking, an official group member since 2002. Swollen Members has released nine studio albums, one greatest hits album and 2 compilations, as well as numerous other singles. From 1996 to 2016, Swollen Members were the second best-selling Canadian hip hop artist in Canada and were the best-selling Canadian hip hop group in Canada.
Dubmatique is a French Canadian hip hop group formed in the 1990s in Montreal, Quebec. Groupmates Dj Choice, OTMC, and Jérôme-Philippe are the first French-language hip-hop group from Canada to have a number one hit single on the francophone pop charts. Dubmatique is often regarded as one of the groups that launched French Canadian Hip Hop, and within this category they are the only group to have an album certified Platinum.
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.
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.
Kareem Blake, better known by his stage name Choclair, is a Canadian rapper. He was one of the most successful Canadian rappers in Canada in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Choclair has been nominated for six Juno Awards, winning four.
Rascalz are a Canadian hip-hop group from Vancouver, British Columbia. The group played a crucial role in the artistic and commercial development of Canadian hip hop as well as specifically for the Westcoast scene in Vancouver popularizing the term “Van City”. The group consists of emcees Red1 and Misfit, and record producer DJ Kemo. Breakdancers Zebroc and Dedos were also part of the group.
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.
Ahmad Balshe, known professionally as Belly, is a Palestinian-Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born in Jenin, Balshe was raised in Ottawa. His debut mixtape, Death Before Dishonor: Vol. 1 (2005) was followed eight additional projects until the release of his debut studio album, The Revolution (2007). After an eight-year hiatus in favor of songwriting for fellow Canadian singer the Weeknd, Balshe signed with his record label, XO, as a recording artist in 2015.
"Dangerous" is a song by Canadian rapper Kardinal Offishall featuring American singer 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 offered as a free download. The song won the award for Single of the Year at the 2009 Juno Awards. In January 2023, the single was certified 4× platinum by Music Canada and 3× platinum by the RIAA.
Baby Blue Soundcrew was a Canadian DJ group from Toronto, Ontario, specializing in hip-hop and R&B music. The group was composed of Kid Kut, KLC, C-Boogie, and Singlefoot. They are notable for releasing two commercially successful compilation albums in 2000 and 2001.
David Myles is a Canadian songwriter and musician born in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Myles lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick, as of September 2020, moving from Halifax, Nova Scotia. His music has often been labeled folk jazz, although he prefers simply to call it "roots" music. An independent artist who self-releases his albums, Myles has been able to gain an increasingly large audience, in part because of his active touring schedule and in part because of his cross-genre musical collaborations, which include a single made with the rapper Classified that became the biggest-selling rap single in the history of Canadian music.
Aaron Hoffman, better known by his stage name SonReal, is a Canadian singer, rapper, and songwriter signed to the Black Box Recordings record label.
Classified is the third major release studio album by Canadian rapper Classified released on January 22, 2013, on Universal Music Canada. This is his fourteenth studio album overall. The album had debuted at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart, earning Classified his first number one album in the country. The first official single; "Inner Ninja" reached #5 on the Canadian Hot 100, making it Classified's first top-ten hit on the chart; the song has earned a 2013 Juno Award for "Rap Recording of the Year" and has been certified 4× Platinum in digital downloads by Music Canada, it Classified's second song to receive platinum status, the first being "Oh...Canada". The second official single off the album is "3 Foot Tall" which was also certified Platinum. The third single off the album is "Pay Day". Other promotional singles from the album include "Anything Goes" and "Familiar", both of which had accompanying music videos. As of March 2014, the album was certified Gold by Music Canada and was also re-released on March 11, 2014, adding the hit single "Higher" featuring B.o.B. In September 2017, the album was certified Platinum by Music Canada.
Mark Pellizzer, better known by his stage name Mark Pelli, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known for being a guitarist and vocalist for the pop-reggae group Magic!. In addition to performing Mark has produced and written songs for several artists including: Chris Brown, Trey Songz, Shakira, Anthony Hamilton, Classified and Vita Chambers. Pelli currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
This is the discography for Canadian hip hop artist Classified.
Navraj Singh Goraya, known professionally as Nav, is a Canadian rapper and record producer. Nav originally began his career as a producer, co-producing fellow Canadian rapper Drake's single, "Back to Back", in 2015. He then gained mainstream attention in 2016 when his song "Myself" went viral on SoundCloud. Nav is signed to Canadian singer the Weeknd's record label XO and its parent label, Republic Records, and is managed by XO managers Amir "Cash" Esmailian and Wassim "Sal" Slaiby.
Tomorrow Could Be... is an EP by Canadian rapper Classified released on June 29, 2018 on Halflife Records. It is the prequel to his album Tomorrow Could Be the Day Things Change.
Jaiden Anthony Watson, better known by his stage name NorthSideBenji, is a Canadian rapper and musician from Brampton, Ontario. Benji gained recognition from his Certified Gold single "Levels", which featured Toronto rapper Houdini. The single was released in December 2018, and was the only supporting single of his debut extended play, Caviar Dreams, which was released on January 18, 2019. He released his second EP Frienemy on September 6, 2019.
