Though not often recognized as a mecca of good hip-hop music, there was a recent boom during the past couple of years of highly proficient and recognizable Canadian hip hop artists. The hip hop scene first hit Canada in the 1980s. Rock music was the present genre at the time and hip-hop had a suppressed beginning. It remained an underground phenomenon until the 21st century. In two thousand, the CRTC awarded an FM station to Milestone Radio. This same year. HipHopCanada.com was also launched, becoming Canada's largest rap and hip-hop website publications. The CBC also made a television series called Drop the Beat. The entire series was devoted the hiphop music as well as the present cutlure. This spawned a whole pack of conventional hip hop artists from Canada like Drake, OK Cobra, Classified, Buck 65, Shad, Kardinal Offishall, and others. The satellite radio network Bande created a compilation album called 93 tours which featured unsigned hip hop artists from Quebec.
As years passed lots of the radio lead runners such as Flow 93.5 modified formats. They no longer bill themselves as pure urban stations but have branched out to more contemporary classes of music. The Canadian hip hop scene to this day is still fighting despite some widely known artists gaining notability. This in some measure has to do with the much smaller black community that is in Canada. A hip-hop artist cannot only rely on the black community for support but must branch out and find crossover appeal so as to launch a successful career.
There also are stereotypes at play that makes it hard for fighting hip hop artists. Canada, to several is regarded as the land of snow and igloos. Not exactly the tough, street hardened image many American hip hop artists enjoy.
The Canadian hip hop scene still has an up hill battle but has come a good distance in a relatively short period of time. Hopefully, with the ongoing success of artists like Drake and Kardinal Offishall, unsigned hip hop artists will have an improved chance of launching a successful career.
See our indie hip-hop group page.
As years passed lots of the radio lead runners such as Flow 93.5 modified formats. They no longer bill themselves as pure urban stations but have branched out to more contemporary classes of music. The Canadian hip hop scene to this day is still fighting despite some widely known artists gaining notability. This in some measure has to do with the much smaller black community that is in Canada. A hip-hop artist cannot only rely on the black community for support but must branch out and find crossover appeal so as to launch a successful career.
There also are stereotypes at play that makes it hard for fighting hip hop artists. Canada, to several is regarded as the land of snow and igloos. Not exactly the tough, street hardened image many American hip hop artists enjoy.
The Canadian hip hop scene still has an up hill battle but has come a good distance in a relatively short period of time. Hopefully, with the ongoing success of artists like Drake and Kardinal Offishall, unsigned hip hop artists will have an improved chance of launching a successful career.
See our indie hip-hop group page.
