Drake and The Weeknd may be the two biggest artists Canada’s ever birthed, but to find success they had to leave the country. There’s a reason for that: Making it as a Black artist within our borders can feel like a Sisyphean task, thanks to systemic barriers that have remained in place for decades.
For a glimpse of what we mean, look no further than the glaring lack of diversity in music industry boardrooms, or the fact that Black-owned spaces across Canada—from radio stations to festivals—are seemingly always under siege. Consider: it took 12 years of lobbying, protests, and fundraising for Toronto to get its first Black-owned commercial radio station, FLOW 93.5FM. Even after all that, the station was eventually bought out when it couldn’t compete with massive media conglomerates, and the city’s only remaining Black-owned station, G98.7FM went up for sale last year.
Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe, host of CBC Music’s new weekday radio show, The Block, is well aware of this. Having worked in broadcasting for the last 20 years, she’s witnessed the lack of opportunities for Black Canadian talent firsthand. “It just makes me extremely sad to know of so many artists who have so much potential that might be somewhere different if they had the support of radio in their own country,” she tells us.
While streaming may seem like the listening medium du jour, radio still remains an impactful platform for communication in Canada. The Block is leveraging national airwaves in order to raise marginalized voices, celebrating Black artists and genres of Black origin. Tetteh-Wayoe plans on playing music spanning all genres and eras, while introducing rising Black Canadian artists to listeners across the country—and, hopefully, to one another too. “I feel like this will be a real opportunity to unify a lot of [Canada’s] regions,” she says. “I hope it’s the magic dust that creates the perfect environment for artists to find each other easier. An artist in Edmonton might hear about an artist in Halifax and they can reach out to each other on social media and pass beats back and forth. Maybe something beautiful will happen.”
In hopes of encouraging the spread of said magic dust, we asked Tetteh-Wayoe to make us a list of 11 Rising Black Canadian Artists You Should Know.
Sinzere
Location: Calgary, Alberta
“Oh, I love this woman. Sinzere is a rapper’s rapper. She’s like bars, bars, pure bars. She can rap her ass off! She’s an impressive lyricist and poet. She’s socially very woke. She has a lot to say and I’m really looking forward to seeing her rise.
“A lot of people say this—I think even Drake said that real rap music is dying. And I’m just like, if you don’t really like rap music anymore that’s fine, Drake, but I don’t think it’s dying. I think it’s a real, beautiful space that’s free of the commercial construct of even having to have a chorus, you know? You have two-minute songs where you literally just rap from beginning to end, and I like the fact that that space is available.”
Junia-T
Location: Toronto, Ontario
“He’s formerly a rapper with Smash Brovaz. I wasn’t aware of his work back then, so I was introduced to Junia-T as the producer. I’m really digging these producer-fronted projects. I think they’re fun—for the listener, the artists, and the producer. There’s all sorts of different sounds, which keeps it really interesting. But the thing I love about Junia-T and his latest album Studio Monk is it shows what a lover of the music he is, as he traverses through all sorts of different styles with the different musicians he’s brought on.
“I read somewhere that he recorded a crazy amount of songs for the album and whittled it down to a nice sonic thread. So the songs he did choose belong together and he crafted one of those rare albums you can listen to from front to back. I tend to only buy pieces of wax that I can listen to all the way through, because I’m not going to get up and skip tracks. I want the LP to play its long ass out, and Studio Monk is one of those albums.”
Obuxum
K-Riz
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
“I actually discovered K-Riz while listening to one of my favorite college radio shows out of Calgary called Dirty Needles, with two wonderful friends of mine, Erwin and WyzeWon. That show stays loyal to grimy hip-hop music. I wouldn’t say that the first track I heard by K-Riz, “A Place Where Love Is,” would fit into the grimy hip-hop category, but I immediately loved it. That’s how you know that you like a song for a song, because I didn’t know a Canadian musician was behind it. When I went to go find out more about it, I was like, ‘Oh, dude is from Edmonton! Dude, that’s where I grew up!’
“I shamelessly show love to all E-town artists; there is a lot of talent there. But not being from Toronto makes it harder to get a foothold, so once again, The Block will help put other regions on blast and highlight the artists that are from there. And the song I heard actually features another Alberta artist, Yolanda Sargeant. So that’s two Prairie gems on one track together.”
DijahSB
Location: Toronto, Ontario
“I’m so excited about this one. They seem they’re smart as fuck; just so quick-witted. To have Dijah SB out there killing it and getting noticed by Kid Cudi, who posted something about them recently, like, what the hell? That’s dope! It’s just undeniable. The flow is impeccable. It’s lyrical, it’s melodic, and the music just speaks for itself, transcending any sort of ‘this is from Canada’ kind of stuff and just being standalone dope.
“I think hip-hop has a long legacy of having a braggadocious nature, and I do feel that a lot of the music out there is a little bit homogenized when it comes to the content. Unfortunately, it’s a vicious cycle because artists hear what’s being chosen by program directors at radio, maybe, and think, ‘I got to have something that kind of sounds like that.’ That’s why you get like 10 Rihanna soundalikes on a station. So that’s another thing that I hope to break free of with The Block and just really highlight songs like ‘I’ll Pay You Back On Friday.’ You’re broke, you got no money, and the song is still great and still relatable. How did you afford that beat? Who made the beat! Do you have to pay the producer back too? [Laughs.]”
Yolanda Sargeant of Sargeant X Comrade
Location: Calgary, Alberta
“I met Yolanda back when I was living in Calgary and doing a lot of live freestyle vocals with this hip-hop DJ crew out there. She told me she was working on music. She seemed really shy, but maybe that’s just because I have a really big energy and I don’t realize it. [Laughs.] But I’m hearing her all over stuff. I think she’s even doing some features with some cats from the States. She’s got her own project, Sargeant X Comrade, which just has a real unique, lo-fi, artistic, sort of hip-hop meets spoken word thing. Lots of layered beats. I really dig it because it’s interesting to listen to and it’s so unique to what she wants to do. Her voice is also really captivating. Just really unique stuff. I like different, which could be a symptom of the fact that I listen to so much music. So when I hear something that’s different, I’m like, “Huh! What’s this? This doesn’t have a really quick hi-hat in it!”
Backxwash
Location: Montreal, Quebec
“The 2020 Polaris Music Prize winner. Her style is like hardcore, dark emo-rap, with elements of metal, rap noir, and EDM. I am really here for that journey. It even makes me think of some of the hardcore metal projects that some rappers came out with, like Body Count. She’s like a metal rapper a bit, but also really atmospheric and really beautiful at the same time. Just a really interesting sonic palette. And all the songs on God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It, the Polaris-winning album, are really short, so I was constantly pressing rewind when listening to it.
“She’s just really forging her own path forward—not commercial in any way, shape, or form. And the music makes you feel something…. It’s magical. It has a sense of ritual. Summoning, conjuring, you know, all sorts of witchy words come to mind. I’ve got a witchy little spirit, too, so maybe that’s why it speaks to me. Dancing naked under the full moon!”
YSN Fab
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
“He’s got an album out called Winnipeg’s Anomaly, which basically sums it up. His numbers on Spotify are big. Like big, big. Millions and millions of streams. And so basically, the fact that this cat is getting millions of streams on Spotify is an anomaly. There’s probably nobody else from Winnipeg that’s putting up numbers like him. This is a pick of one of my producers, so I’ve been introduced to YSN Fab through this project—so I don’t know if he’s that much under the radar. [Laughs.] People out there, except me, might have heard of him already. But I’ve been a huge fan. He’s got a track called ‘Get Rich or Die Trying.’ I don’t know if that’s an homage to 50, but it’s a good track.”
Witch Prophet
Location: Toronto, Ontario
“What’s up, witchy woman? Witch Prophet also has that spirit of the conjuring. Her music makes me feel real dreamy and I really needed it through the pandemic. It’s sort of spellbinding and when I listen to her music, I’m taken back to the sounds of Portishead and Morcheeba. Her music is like a tendril of incense; it rises in this really mesmerizing way. She just comes off as truly powerful. I know she’s ambitious, and so I’m just really hoping that she gets everything she manifests. I bet she’s a manifester, just putting a lot of stuff out there in the universe, so I hope the universe delivers.”
Exmiranda
Location: Toronto, Ontario
“She’s one of those working artists. I’m sure everyone still has their day jobs, but I think she’s very much involved in social initiatives; she works with the community. She comes out with singles and she’s consistent. The songs always have great visuals to go along with them, so I think she’s got a cool team of artists she must be working with. I guess Exmiranda is really just an artist of the times, dropping singles not albums, so it allows her to just be in the moment, releasing what she’s feeling when she’s feeling it. And then the next thing is something different. She’s a poet-artist, for sure. Her latest single is called “OHEMAA,” and it’s got kind of like an Afropop flex to it.”
Milla Thyme
Location: Montreal, Quebec
“I discovered this one courtesy of Karla Moy a.k.a Hustlegrl, on her playlist Northern Rotation. I really fell in love with just the sound of it. And then when I did some research on Milla Thyme, I found out that he’s a bass player—like a hardcore, jazz-trained bassist—and he plays bass while rapping, which I had not seen before. So, I’m looking forward to seeing that band live. He’s got some serious players in his band—a drummer by the name of Thomas Sauvé-LaFrance, a keyboardist, David Osei-Afrifa Gutierrez, and a guitarist by the name of Elijah Mansevani. And they’re all just dangerous. I’m here for that. Milla Thyme, when you come through, I’ll come to Montreal and see you. I don’t care. I’ll drive out. I’m very interested to see musicians of that caliber on stage together.”
