Canadian hip hop
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.
Canada's multicultural and multilingual fabric has given rise to various subgenres, including Indigenous, French, and Punjabi Canadian hip hop. Also notable is the influence of Caribbean rhythms in creating a sound unique to Toronto.[1]
In the early 1990s, Canadian hip hop artists like Maestro Fresh-Wes, Main Source, and Dream Warriors were popular in the underground hip hop scene. In 1998, the collaborative single "Northern Touch" brought hip hop back into the Canadian mainstream. Since the 2000's, Canadian hip hop saw a rise to mainstream success led by Drake, and to a lesser extent Nav, Kardinal Offishall, and Tory Lanez.[2]
Punjabi Canadian hip hop[edit]
As of 2021, South Asians (7.1 percent) comprise the second largest pan-ethnic group in Canada after Europeans (69.8 percent).[43] One of the major cultural outputs of this community has been hip hop, performed in both Punjabi and English.[44]
South Asian rapper Ylook was a pioneering artist in Toronto's hip hop scene, working alongside Kardinal Offishall as part of the influential Circle crew.[45][46] Other South Asian hip hop artists such as Nav and AR Paisley have gained wide recognition while rapping in English.
In the 1990s, Jazzy B emerged as an early fusion artist - making Punjabi music with hip hop influences.[44] In the 2020s Punjabi language hip hop reached mainstream charts with the success of Canadian artists like Sidhu Moose Wala, AP Dhillon, Gurinder Gill, Karan Aujla, and Shubh, as well as producers such as Gminxr, Byg Byrd, and Ikky, marking the breakthrough of Punjabi-language hip hop, referred to in the Canadian music industry as Punjabi Wave.[44]
The breakthrough of the genre started with the charting of Sidhu Moose Wala's album PBX 1 on the Billboard Canadian Albums Chart in 2018.[47] In 2023, AP Dhillon became the first Punjabi artist to perform at the Juno Awards.[44] The same year, Warner Music Canada launched 91 North Records, a Canadian label designed to foster and promote emerging South Asian talent.[44] The label’s first release “Making Memories,” a collaboration between Karan Aujla and Ikky, debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Canadian Albums Chart.[48] The following year, Aujla made history by winning the Fan Choice Award at the 2024 Juno Awards, a prestigious award previously won by national icons such as Justin Bieber and Nelly Furtado.[49] Meanwhile, Sidhu Moose Wala's posthumous single "Drippy" featuring AR Paisley has made history by debuting at No. 9 on the Canadian Hot 100 as the highest charting Punjabi song in Canadian history.[50]
Observers of the genre's rise believe that Punjabi Canadian hip hop may emerge to see the same level of global influence that Reggaeton has had in decades prior.[44]
Influences[edit]
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.[9] English Canadian hip hop tends to be influenced by Jamaican, Trinidadian and Bahamian styles, while francophone hip hop from Quebec is commonly influenced by French Antillean, Dominican or Haitian music. Artists such as Drake, Michie Mee, Dream Warriors, Ghetto Concept, and Kardinal Offishall have incorporated dancehall or reggae into their music.
Even those artists who do not use an obvious Caribbean sounds are often influenced by Caribbean English and themes. A famous example is the Kardinal Offishall song "BaKardi Slang", which gives examples of Toronto black youth slang—many derived from Caribbean speech. As well, Rastafarian vocabulary, speaking of good as "Zion" and evil as "Babylon" for example, is quite common, even if the rappers are not themselves Rasta.
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, but can also be seen in artists such as Ridley Bent and Mcenroe.
Electronic music is also a significant influence, notably seen in artists such as Cadence Weapon, No Luck Club, Tre Mission, Kaytranada and Ghislain Poirier; jazz music has been incorporated since the early 1990s, particularly in the work of Dream Warriors, Social Deviantz, Mood Ruff and Da Grassroots. Artists such as K'naan, k-os, Grand Analog, Touch and Nato, Dragon Fli Empire, DL Incognito and Graph Nobel have pursued styles which blend a diverse mix of hip hop, rock, jazz, world music, and R&B influences.