Drake. The Weeknd. Daniel Caesar.
What do all these artists have in common? (Besides being widely successful in their genre?)
They’re all Canadians.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but recently (okay not recently but from around 2010 onward) I’ve noticed an increased trend of more urban artist hailing from dear old Canada.
Hip Hop/Rap/R&B (Rhythm and Blues) as the music genre and Hip-hop as the subculture is largely considered an American thing. This is due to Hip Hop finding its origins in inner-city African American communities during the late 1970’s when social issues plaguing these communities created the need for this “protest” music.
Compared to America Canada doesn’t have much of an urban scene. Hip Hop in Canada began to manifest in the 1980’s, but it never had a mainstream appeal, unlike Canadian Rock. Up until the early 2000’s Canadian hip-hop was mostly considered an underground genre. Canadian urban artists didn’t gain much traction in mainstream music in neither Canada nor the United States until Aubrey Graham, better known as Drake came onto the scene.
During Drake’s formative years (mid to late 1990’s) the only way that he would be able to listen to any Urban Music was to tune into Buffalo’s contemporary urban radio station 93.7 WBLK. WBLK is one of the oldest urban radio stations in the nations (53 years strong!) As someone who grew up listening to this radio station, I can positively say that this radio station was also my introduction into urban music. Mimicking Drake claims, this radio station raised me. WBLK had such an impact on Drake’s life he even included Al Wood’s aircheck as the outro of his song “After Dark” on his most recent album Scorpio.
As much as I don’t want to be that person that falls into the hype that is Drake, I can not deny the path that he created to get more Canadian urban artists onto mainstream airwaves in the United States. Drake crawled so that these another artist could run.
Drake helped many Canadian artists get on American airwaves, the most notable being Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye. Drake was the one who discovered the Weeknd’s music on youtube and helped him get his start in American urban music.
I feel here that I should mention that The Weeknd is my all time favorite artist.
I think that this influx of Canadian artists is a good thing. It’s showing the globalization of urban music. Originally beginning in inner-city black communities, hip-hop has managed to find itself in suburban America, Canada, and now it even finds itself across the pond in London. There’s even a hip-hop movement going on in Nigeria.
Urban music is no longer being considered “ghetto black” music. It’s becoming more widely accepted and incorporated into other genres.
If you’re looking for some urban Canadian artists here they are in no particular order.
A very interesting read. I’ve never thought about how there are many Canadian rappers right now and that hip hop is so influential it’s spreading outside the U.S. I’ll be sure to check out the list of artists you’ve recommended.