Canadian hip hop has always been my secret weapon. When your hobby is collecting and making music there’s nothing better than showing someone a new jam that just makes them lose their mind. You can see their eyes light up and you know they’re going to ask you the question you were waiting to hear: “Who is this?!” …and my response almost always ended with “…and they’re Canadian!”
With a culture so rich in every kind of music from almost every ethnic background, it confuses me so much that our entertainment comes from the States. Even the underground or independent hip hop that we hear on our own university and college stations is predominantly American unless it’s Canadian content week. Really though?! Should the FCC really have to step in to make sure that we display our own talents? The phrase up-lift the culture never meant much to me until I took a look at Canadian hip hop.
I first started opening my mind to Canadian hip hop in 1997 when I heard Dan-e-o’s “Dear Hip Hop”: an ode to his profession, a sentiment that was reflected in me and my friends. Growing up in Ottawa I was mostly open to hip hop from Toronto which at the time had sick jams coming out. Ghetto Concept put out “Krazy World” and Choclair dropped “21 years” and got recognition from DJ Premier with the track ending up on a compilation titled “New York Reality Check”. Once I exhausted Ontario’s hip hop, I started looking for some more Canadian hip hop to satisfy my hunger for crate digging as I had just started my radio show on CKCU at Carleton University and needed the next hit.
I stumbled on a $6 rap show at Babylon, a club that was once the center of any decent hip hop that came to Ottawa. The headliners were Pip Skid and McEnroe from the Peanuts and Corn Fam. I was sceptical at first because a $6 show usually didn’t get you that much, especially from an out of town act. I voiced my concern to the friend that had convinced me to go but he told me not to worry, anticipating the “who is this?!” look that drives us to drag our friends out on a Wednesday night to get smashed and listen to some good music.
I was hooked; from then I couldn’t stop. Almost every day I would try and put some time away to dig through the internet and local music shops. I wasn’t satisfied with the Rascalz and Kardinal, I had to find the obscure, like Josh Martinez, or I would just have to dig through information in order to like something more. When I would play any of the first Saukrates songs, I would drop the knowledge that he was writing beats for Common as if to convince someone that the States needs us to stay relevant in hip hop … which they do, because we are one of the larger consumers of their hip hop, but it’s time to put Canadian hip hop back on the radar.
Don’t stop switching dials on your radio. Find that local station; find that $5 to $10 show that will blow your mind. Canadian hip hop is flourishing, but if an MC drops a rhyme in the woods and no one is there to hear it, it’ll never make a sound.
