Canadian hip hop

The Canadian hip hop scene was first established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, however, it developed much more slowly than Canada's popular rock music scene, and did not reach its full commercial potential until the early 2000s.

Although Canada had hip hop artists right from the early days of the scene, the infrastructure simply wasn't there to get their music to the record-buying public. Even Torontondash Canada's largest city and one of its most multiculturalndash had difficulty getting an urban music station on the radio airwaves until 2000. As a result, if a Canadian hip-hop artist could get signed, it was very difficult for them to get exposure — even if their music videos were played on MuchMusic, many artists simply couldn't get their records into stores or played on the radio. However, a sequence of significant events in the latter half of the 1990s finally brought hip hop fully into the mainstream of Canadian music.

Besides Toronto, there are other hip-hop scenes in Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, and many more.

History

Late 1980s/early 1990s: The rise of Canadian hip hop

Toronto artists Devon, 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 hit single, "Let Your Backbone Slide", was the first Canadian hip-hop single to break into the Top 40, and remained the bestselling Canadian hip hop single of all time as of early 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 & 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. However, this did not result in significant chart success for her — she has asserted in interviews that the reggae influences on her 1991 debut album "" met with resistance from American label executives and radio programmers. [ [http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/canadianhiphop.html Border Block - Canadian Hip Hop vs. America] , cbc.ca, March 22, 2005.]

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 undisputed 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 Céline 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".

Early to Mid-1990s: Fallow years

In 1990, Milestone Radio 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. [ [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/1990/DB90-693.HTM CRTC Decision 90-993] ]

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 1991, Michie Mee was the only Canadian rapper to make an appearance on the national pop charts until 1998 — and even she only managed it by partnering with the hard rock band Raggadeath for 1995's "One Life".

Ottawa-based hip-hop group Organized Rhyme, which featured the early 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 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.

It should be noted that many American hip hop artists were popular in Canada, and that Black Canadian musicians such as Infidels, Deborah Cox and The Philosopher Kings had notable successes in the R&B, pop and rock genres. But for Canadian hip hoppers, by and large the door was closed.

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 a 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, CBL, from the AM band — and, ominously, this was believed at the time to be the last available FM frequency in the city.

1998: Coming down with the Northern Touch

1998 would prove to be a pivotal year in the development of Canadian hip hop. The Vancouver 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. [ [http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/17/40/Ent/music.html Canadian hip hop gets the Northern Touch] , "NOW", June 4, 1998] Although the song just barely missed the national Top 40 charts, peaking at #41 in "RPM", it was the first Canadian hip hop song to reach the Top 100, 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". However, 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 ceremony. Upon the announcement, the band took the stage, alleged that racism was a factor in the award's scheduling, and defiantly refused the award.

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. Artists such as Choclair, Kardinal Offishall 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", the only time in the history of the award that an individual song won instead of a complete album.

2000s: Canada's first urban music station

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 cabinet 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 [ [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/eng/Notices/2000/PB2000-144.htm CRTC Public Notice 2000-144] ] , 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. [ [http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2000/DB2000-203.htm CRTC Decision 2000-203] ] 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, The Dope Poet Society, Classified, k-os, K'naan, Swollen Members, Sweatshop Union, Buck 65, Belly, Moka Only 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 distributes as a free download from its website.

Apart from a few major stars, however, 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 have 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. Further, the relatively small size of the Black community in Canada has meant that unlike in the United States, a hip hop artist in Canada cannot rely solely on a hip hop audience, but must cross over to a mainstream pop audience to sustain a viable career. [ [http://www.eyeweekly.com/music/features/article/39637 "Step in the arena: The second annual Manifesto showcases the enormous range of hip-hop talent we have in Toronto. But where’s the industry?"] , "Eye Weekly", September 17, 2008.]

Canadian hip hop musicians have also continued to face obstacles when attempting to break into the American market. Music critics and journalists have sometimes attributed this to the perception, real or imagined, that American stereotypes of Canada as a land of igloos and hosers get in the way of Canadian rappers being taken seriously. [ [http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/canadianhiphop.html Border Block - Canadian Hip Hop vs. America] , cbc.ca, March 22, 2005.] It was not until 2008, when Kardinal Offishall reached #5 on the American charts with "Dangerous", that a Canadian rapper had a major chart hit in the United States.

French Canadian hip hop

Montreal, 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. This was 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.

The movement flourished and even crossed over to France, with acts such as Muzion, Dubmatique and Prince Ayman. Other acts now include Manu Militari, Yvon Krevé, Damien, Anodajay, Catburglaz, Atach Tatuq, Taktika, Sir Pathétik, Ghislain Poirier, Omnikrom and Treizième Etage.

In 2005, The Dope Poet Society released a multilingual single and video entitled, "All of Us", [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hviq2opnJmA Youtube.com, All of Us (music video)] ] off the album ProIntelpro: Promote Intelligence Program. [ [http://www.exclaim.ca/musicreviews/generalreview.aspx?csid1=68&csid2=865&fid1=17765 Exclaim Magazine, ProIntelPro review] ] 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.

First Nations hip hop

Hip hop is also a rapidly growing influence on contemporary First Nations youth culture, spearheaded by prominent artists such as Kinnie Starr, War Party, Eekwol, Inez Jasper and Tribal Wizdom. 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. [ [http://www.wawataynews.ca/archive/all/2003/5/1/Hiphop-activism-for-First-Nations-youth_10965 "Hip-hop activism for First Nations youth"] , "Wawatay Online", May 1, 2003.] An organized First Nations Hip Hop Festival was held for the first time at Pasqua, Saskatchewan in 2004. [ [http://www.ayn.ca/ViewNews.aspx?id=286 "Hip-hop Hits the Rez"] , Aboriginal Youth Network, September 4, 2004.]

Influences

Although American East Coast hip hop 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 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 and Jesse Dangerously, but can also be seen in artists such as Ridley Bent, mcenroe and Graph Nobel. Electronic music is also a significant influence, notably seen in artists such as Cadence Weapon, No Luck Club and Ghislain Poirier.

ee also

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*American hip hop
*Mexican hip hop
*British hip hop

References

External links

* [http://www.hiphopcanada.com HipHopCanada.com]
* [http://www.StolenFromAfrica.TV STOLEN FROM AFRICA - Canadian Hip-Hop Media]