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Around the world · Canada · since 1989

1989
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Toronto

Canada
Caribbean patois · cold synths · sung-rapped
Ride the roster1:00
Story, bloodline and 6 names

Maestro Fresh Wes had the first Canadian rap hit in 1989, and Kardinal Offishall wired the city's Jamaican and Trinidadian inheritance into the beat. Then in 2009 a former teen-soap actor released So Far Gone and made Toronto's melancholy, half-sung register the global default.

Bloodline · 1 stop from The Bronx
  1. 1973The Bronx
  2. 1989Toronto

TransferBrooklyn

New York radio bleeds across the lake, and Toronto's Jamaican and Trinidadian communities supplied the patois. Kardinal Offishall was the first to stop hiding the second half.

OVO SoundHalal GangBlack Box
Roster
1989
Maestro Fresh Wesdeep cut

Let Your Backbone Slide — Canada's first rap hit, full stop.

YTW
1997
Kardinal Offishall

Made Toronto sound Caribbean on record before anyone else would.

YTW
2009
Drake

The most-streamed artist of the 2010s, in a register everyone borrowed.

YTW
2009
Noah "40" Shebibdeep cut

The muffled, submerged OVO production sound — as influential as the rapping.

YTW
2011
The Weeknd

Rap-adjacent, but the same Toronto night and the same collaborators.

YTW
2021
Mustafadeep cut

Regent Park folk songs about the same block Drake raps over.

YTW

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