Front Burner - Introducing This is Not a Drake Podcast

Episode Date: June 27, 2020

This is Not a Drake Podcast is a new series that uses seminal moments in Drake’s career to explore the history and evolution of hip-hop, R&B, and Black culture. It’s about the rapper who’s blurred genres and dominated the world stage, and the larger hip-hop movement that made him.The podcast dives deep into the evolution of gender dynamics in hip-hop, especially its relationship with Black women. More episodes are available at http://smarturl.it/notadrakepodcast

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey there. We have a special bonus episode for FrontBurners podcast subscribers. This Is Not A Drake Podcast is a new series from CBC Podcasts, We have a special bonus episode for FrontBurner's podcast subscribers. This Is Not a Drake Podcast is a new series from CBC Podcasts, and it uses seminal moments in Drake's career to explore the history and evolution of hip-hop, R&B, and black culture.

The series tracks the history of the mixtape. It explores how rap is responding to shifts in gender dynamics. It's also about the rapper the world sees as the face of the six and the Toronto hip-hop scene most people don't know about, the one that made him. That's the focus of the first episode, which we've got for you now. Full disclosure, I was one of the producers on the project. Have a listen.

It's May 23-possession game. It's May 23, 2019, and the Toronto Raptors have just taken Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Milwaukee Bucks. They are one win away from advancing to their first... It's a pivotal win in the Raptors' now historic run to becoming the 2019 NBA champions. And outside the Raptors' stadium, the press is out in full force. We are live from inside Jurassic Park. And at the center of all that post-game energy is Drake.

Drake is actually on the stage, talking to the fans. He has been here- Hip-hop icon and the Raptors' official global ambassador. It's about these people, it's about the city. Hey, listen, listen, we have the best player, we have the best fans in the whole NBA, in the whole world. Look around. Look around you.

Look at this. We created this. We did this. I love Toronto. I love this team. And we're going to the NBA finals. This is the Drake the world has come to know during these championship games. A top-tier pop star with a fierce, unwavering love for Toronto, the city that raised him.

And that city pride has been a key part of Drake's brand pretty much out the gate. From the playful braggadocio of his first single, City's Mine, to later classics like Westin Road Flows, and of course, Know Yourself. Know yourself. So yeah, Drake's been repping Toronto, which is why it isn't a stretch to think Drake's hometown love not only extends to Canada, but has always been reciprocated back to him. I mean, we the North and all that, right?

Except that's not exactly how the story goes. In fact, Canada's history with its homegrown hip-hop artists is a history that is as long as it is fraught. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome home Toronto's own and your host this evening, give it up for Dre! Good evening. I would like to welcome everybody here with us

and everybody watching at home to my hometown and the greatest city in the entire world, Toronto. That's Drake in 2011, welcoming a stadium packed with Canada's top musicians to our country's equivalent of the Grammys, the Juno Awards. Make some noise for my brother, Justin Bieber.

Drake hosted the Junos that year. And at that point in his career, he was already a bona fide rap star. His debut album, Thank Me Later, had sold almost half a million copies in its first week. And so, aside from being the host, Drake was up for for six Junos which was the most of any artist that year. I'm truly honored to be your host tonight. We have an amazing show. The stars came out. Chromio is here. Arcade Fire is here. My lovely Jewish mother is here. I'd love to get this thing started. He was hilarious. He was gracious. He was clever.

Mindbender is a Toronto hip-hop artist who attended the event. He is an impeccable host. He was being very kind, being a wonderful Canadian. You know my girl's here tonight, right? She's a Hall of Fame inductee this evening. Shania Twain. And then the Rap Artist Awards are coming. And various other people are winning. And we're like, why is Drake still without any hardware?

Like, there was this crescendo of, is he really not going to win? You have this artist who is working with the biggest artists and producers on the planet, puts out the biggest, most anticipated record out of this country. That's Mastermind, a veteran Toronto DJ and radio personality. You cop this guy to host your award show because you know he is on the verge of superstardom. And the winner is... And the Juno goes to... And the Juno goes to... And yet he doesn't

win a single award. Neil Young. Arcade Fire. Shania Twain. Not one. Off up in the air, Justin Beamer. Get the fuck out of here. This is not a Drake podcast. A limited run series about Drake, but not really. Because it's also about hip-hop and how its journey to mainstream dominance gave us Drake in the first place.

I'm your host, Ty Harper. In this episode, we use Drake as a way to look back at his hometown of Toronto, a hip-hop city trying to establish its identity in a Canadian music industry that's never seemed quite ready to embrace it. So let's begin by going back for a bit to what it was like to be a fan of homegrown hip hop in the 80s and 90s. Oh, man. I mean, if you wanted to hear Toronto hip hop, first of all, there was no platform that was dedicated to local talent. That's Toronto hip hop historian Mark Campbell. He's been preserving this history in the Northside Hip Hop Archives for over a decade.

We had college radio. So what's the region positive saying? Y'all listening? Y'all down? The likes of the Fantastic Voyage, Ron Nelson. Next for you on the Fantastic Voyage program still. We had Masterplan show. We're the super hip hop station on your Saturday night. We had the Power Move show. They would play Toronto hip hop, but for some of these stations, it's 50 watts.

So you are bending your antenna on your balcony in the snow if you have to. So yeah, hearing Toronto hip-hop back then was difficult, but there was one spot that became the launching pad for some of the city's earliest rap legends. The concert hall was the main stage where Toronto MCs would develop. By the end of the 1980s, out of this ecosystem of sound systems, radio shows, live concerts, comes Mishimi and Jamaican funk. Which features on backup vocals two future Grammy Award winners, Shabba Ranks and Patra. And it signals for us our first big star.

Maestro Fresh West with the legendary Let Your Backbone Slide. Changes the whole landscape of Canadian hip-hop. I remember being in the schoolyard trying to thread the needle, and we're in the snow trying to thread the needle. This is how important the track was. And then the Dream Warriors emerge. The Dream Warriors is a crew from Jane and Finch, and they come out on this imprint called Beat Factory Records.

They sample Count Basie on Wash Your Face In My Sink. imprint called Beat Factory Records. They sample Count Basie on Wash Your Face In My Sink. They're reflecting and refracting the Caribbean diaspora, jazz, more Caribbean music in really interesting ways. One of the glues of this early era was the former master of ceremony for Sunshine Sound Crew, K-Force, whose feature on a track called Deep Cover doesn't do justice to his massive influence as he coined the term the T-Dot. Yeah, it's going out to all my friends in the T-Dot O-Dot. A term that would allow future generations of hip hop artists to rep Toronto in a true fashion. One of those crews that ends up repping Toronto hardcore in the 1990s is The Circle, and it includes two really prominent members.

One Scarborough native named Socrates, the multi-talented, multi-instrumental artist. And he holds his own on tracks with Carmen and Farrow Montch really early in his career and launches the legendary Father Time. Father time ticks on through the early morning breaks of dawn. I'm an emperor whose empire crushes the pawn. Which is still in demand on vinyl in cities as far away as Copenhagen. When I travel, DJs are always asking me about Father Time. Another Scarborough MC that really, really puts Toronto on the map is Shot Clare with the help of Julie Black's lovely vocals on What It Takes in 97. This joint comes out featuring the Toronto skyline really prominently in the video helping us feel like this place is home but it really gives us a preview of the kind of impact

Chocolat would have later in the 90s when he comes out with an album called ice cold which is signed to a major label deal with Virgin Records so yeah that was just a very brief skimming of the top of the kinds of artists that and the kinds of successes of artists that was happening in Toronto in the late 80s and early 90s. When you're listening to Canadian commercial radio in the 80s and 90s and even the 70s, and you're not hearing a real articulation of your cultural music and artistic experience. Dalton Higgins is a hip-hop journalist and author. So when you turned on commercial radio largely, and it was, you know, from AM radio to FM, and I'm going, wait a second, I'm a black guy, you know, of African descent. My parents came here from Jamaica in the 60s, and I don't hear anything that remotely resembles,

you know, my desires, my wants, my needs vis-a-vis music. That's a real problem. Now, in 1988, five prominent figures within Toronto's Black community tried to change this. And with business entrepreneur Denim Jolly at the helm, they formed Milestone Radio Incorporated. Denim Jolly is attached to this thing called the Black Action Defense Committee. Now, they're Milestone Radio Incorporated. Denim Jolly is attached to this thing called the

Black Action Defense Committee. Now, they're there to make sure that black people are getting a fair shake, you know, while living in, you know, in Toronto and to fight things like, you know, police brutality and to protect the community's interests. You know, he's a guy that's going, wait a second, I can't hear anything that is sort of representing our demographic reality as black people of African descent. So he and his co-conspirators sort of representing our demographic reality as black people of African descent. So he and his co-conspirators sort of put together Milestone Radio. And the idea here was to basically, you know, apply for a radio station that represented and reflected our needs as black people in this country. Now, in Toronto, that's the needs of almost 10 percent of the population.

But two years and half a million dollars later, Milestone Radio's application for a radio license was denied. They were passed over for a country music station. And to add salt to the wound, a majority of the commissioners responsible for making that decision went on to state that in their opinion, a country music station would contribute the most to programming diversity in Toronto. Denim Jolly spoke with media when the news initially broke. We feel that there's something has been wrong there. We feel that our culture has not been accounted for and that we are not being taken into the cultural mosaic of Canada. Music and entertainment and commercial radio, to me, didn't exist on a separate island.

So I sort of looked at it as like, OK, this is just part of the sort of racist Canadian narrative. This is part of the reason why the application got rejected. So the community is now enraged. You know, it got so bad that we actually took to the streets. A group of Toronto musicians produced a protest song called Can't Repress the Cause. And demonstrators blasted the song on marches throughout the streets of Toronto, demanding that the licensing decision be reversed. Now in 1997, another FM station, 99.1, was up for grabs. Once again, Milestone submitted their application for a Toronto urban station.

And once again, the application was rejected. This time, they were beat out by the CBC, Canada's public broadcaster, and the institution responsible for making this very podcast. We were feeling like, was there another need for the CBC to further monopolize the Canadian airwaves? We were like, hell no, this doesn't make any sense. Then, over a decade after launching their campaign, Milestone Radio took a third kick at the can. And on June 16th, 2000, Milestone Radio Incorporated was finally granted a license for 93.5 FM and a station that would be a, quote, modern day reflection of the rich musical traditions of black musicians and black influenced music over at least the past century. The day we find out that the CRTC grants Milestone the radio license, we are filled with joy.

Like it's just absolute jubilation. It's literally a celebration in the streets. Now, it can't be stressed enough how big of a deal this push for a black owned commercial radio station was at the time, particularly for me. I mean, I still remember the day someone from Milestone Radio knocked on my family's front door asking us to sign a petition supporting a black owned radio station. I couldn't have been more than 18 or 19 and before that moment I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life. But there was something about being part of a company owned and run by people that look like me who cared about the music and the culture that I cared about, that

immediately convinced me that this would be my passion. Milestone's new radio station, Flow 93.5 FM, became the spark that many Black kids like myself needed, not just to follow our dreams, but to begin dreaming, period. Here's Mark Campbell's recollection of the moment. I remember the evening at which they were doing the very first show, and it was in February. And I remember being in, like, I'm on my way to pick up my girlfriend at the time. I'm in the car, and it's 7.30,

and I'm waiting to hear the first track they're going to play, and'm shivering and I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm not going to miss this moment. I'm not going to miss this moment. And then finally... The people gathered here are moments away from making history. Canada's first ever black-owned radio station is about to take over 93.5 on the FM dial in Toronto, appropriately at 9.35pm. The first song that they played was a Bob Marley song. Wow! Roots Rock Reggae. Play some music. Play some music. Play some music.

Play some music. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together.

To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. the impact and the importance of flow is that it provides infrastructure for a growing urban music industry so like they had these cds they would hand out on the street called the flow case and anyone that wasn't just a privileged DJ like myself would have access to all of the new artists coming up, whether or not they were signed, whether or not they had management. And two shows in particular that Flow allows for, one, The Real Frequency, which moves from CHRY at York University and moves to CKLN and takes over the coveted, you know, Saturday afternoon slot one to four, they arrive at Flo and they bring their authentic brand of boom bap underground hip hop to commercial radio. And then another show called OTA Live.

Tonight on OTA Live, our Black History Month specials begin with the unauthorized. The first kind of urban variety show. It provides analysis and commentary, really smart commentary on the music industry. And it's focused about on the local community in Toronto. And so this is where it gets a little awkward for me because my dreams end up being fulfilled. I get a job at Flow 93.5 FM and OTA Live is actually my show, which I co-hosted with my partner Rez Digital. We played the latest hip hop and R&B. We had a mix show segment called The Burn with a DJ called

who truth be told was actually just my alter ego. I know there's probably some longtime OTA Live fans whose minds have been completely blown with that revelation. But we also did these long-form, doc-styled, unauthorized biographies on the black musicians of the past and present. To this day, working at Flow and producing that program is the single most important moment of my career. program is the single most important moment of my career. But like Mark said, what made OTA Live important was our laser focus on the homegrown hip-hop and R&B artists coming out of Toronto. And of course, that included a young Drake, who had just started to buzz locally with songs like City Is Mine and Do What You Do. Now, hearing Drake for the first time, there was no question he had talent. But here's something worth emphasizing.

Drake was dope. But back then, Drake was just one of many, many dope artists buzzing in Toronto. There was Rochester, a.k.a. Juice. He had a song called Pull Up, which was one of our earliest introductions to Grammy Award winning producer Boy Wonder. There was rap crew Point Blank who dropped their single Born and Raised in the Ghetto with a poignant music video that helped make it one of the Toronto anthems of 2007. I mean, even Drake back then was feeling this one. I gotta shout out Point Blank for having, in my opinion, the greatest Canadian video of all time.

video of all time. Eternia dropped her debut album At Last with producer Moss that featured joints like Goodbye, which is a great example of the 90s East Coast boom bap sound Toronto continued to preserve well into the late 2000s. I still remember the buzz A-Game and Lou Breeze had when they collab-o'd for the song Money Made Me Do It. Which showed that Toronto could balance that early trap style with hard-hitting drums. And one of my favorite new cats was a kid named Tona Who would become one of Toronto's most consistent rap acts Even one of Juno years later

But he first lit up the scene with a song called Dial Tone So yeah, it was a pretty exciting time for anyone following Toronto's homegrown hip-hop scene And it wasn't simply because a new crop of artists were picking up the torch. It was the sheer volume of great music being released from new and already established Toronto acts. But while the buzz within the city was palpable, there was a lot of tension and frustration within the scene. The problem was that Flow was literally the only commercial radio station playing local hip-hop on a consistent basis. And while shows like The Real Frequency and my own show OTA Live were helping to shine light on the city's rap acts, it simply wasn't enough.

But these tensions within the local hip-hop scene weren't anything new. They'd been brewing for decades. And in fact, it was those same tensions that inspired one of Toronto's more infamous nicknames, the Screwface Capital. RC, host of The Real Frequency Show, explains. I think what was driving the whole Screwface attitude was like both a lack of resources and a lack of understanding. I think everyone had a crew and kind of felt deserving of a certain amount of attention and maybe the attention that another crew got. There were a ton of local artists, you know, who weren't getting approved for grants, weren't getting press and so on and so on. So they're not enough resources to go around.

Sort of gives away to this like envious sort of mentality where you kind of hate on one another or hate on another person's success just because you and your crew aren't getting the kind of attention or money that someone else is. What's up? My name is Theo, aka Theology3. Theo's a veteran MC in the Toronto hip-hop scene who actually coined the term screw face capital. Now, originally, Theo used it to describe the kind of pride but indifference he saw being expressed by his neighborhood friends. But later, as an emcee on the come up, he felt it was an apt description of Toronto's rap scene. A scene grappling with the issues RC just articulated. That underdog mentality bred a kind of stoicness in us and also an eat our own mentality. Though there was great pride in amazing Canadian hip hop, there was course was referring to the United States.

And screw-faced or not, if there was one thing most artists in Toronto could agree on, it was that if you really wanted to take this hip-hop thing seriously, you had to blow up south of the border first. And to that point, the Toronto artist who did just that in a major way in the early 2000s was Cardinalo Fischel. Let me hear you say T-Dot O. O! Yeah!

T-Dot O! Yeah! O! Yeah! O! O! O! O! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh in words, in music and in spirit, before Drake, Cardi was the man to beat. And I actually got three songs to help me make my case. The first one is called Bacardi Slang. Bacardi Slang was one of the first rap records to explicitly sum up a tiny bit of what it meant to be young, black and Torontonian in the early 2000s. And in the process, it became a bona fide banger in the local clubs. I mean, as a DJ back then, I clearly remember playing Bacardi Slang and it being the first time I found myself having to rewind a Toronto hip-hop record and play it again. But it wasn't just a local thing.

The Bacardi slang video got love in the U.S. thanks to BET's 106 & Park, which was a huge deal back then. And in a way, the song became the first local rap record to export Toronto slang slang to the world. Now the second song without a doubt would have to be Old Time Killin'. Old Time Killin' was special because it really embodied the jazzy east coast boom bap sound Toronto was known for in the 90s but also it was all about the music video done by Toronto's own director X, which was this fantastic ode to Jamaican dancehall culture, a culture that has always been a central part of Toronto's hip-hop DNA. And I rest my case with my third song, Dangerous. Being on the radio around the time Cardi released Dangerous back in 2008,

I can tell you, it was a time I won't soon forget. Because while Cardi was always kind of seen as this artist putting Toronto on his back, after he dropped Dangerous, it was hard not to see Cardinale official as the undisputed face of Toronto hip hop. And it was all thanks to a song that came to him at a pretty poignant moment in his career. It was a rough time, man. To be honest, when it was made, it was a rough time because like it to be honest, when it was made. It was a rough time because, like, it was in between deals, in between situation. So, you know, I remember calling home and, you know, saying to my girlfriend at the time, like, what am I doing? Like, yo, like, what is my life?

Like, I'm finished. Like, you know what I'm saying? But we were recording. We were actually touring using Timberland's tour bus and he had a studio on the back. And, you know, there was this beat that Kimo sent me that him, don't kill me, but I believe his name was Hazel. But I was like, oh, this is dope.

And I said to Exit, who was the engineer, I said, Exit, I need you to play this for Akon. So I went and I showered, came back down onto the bus, and Akon was sitting there in the studio, and he was just sitting there, and it was just him and Exit. They're just quiet, and they're just looking at me. And I said, yo, Exit, did you play him the joint? And Akon's like, what joint?

I was like, yo, Akon, watch when you hear this. So he presses play, and you know you hear the beat. And I'm looking at Akon, and he's like, hmm, not bad. And I'm looking at Karn and he's like, not bad. And then all of a sudden I heard. So while I was in the hotel showering, like he literally heard it, knew it was a smash from jump and just like did the hook. Like I wasn't gone longer than 30 minutes well and then right away I just pen my things like in 15 minutes Toronto DJ and host mastermind was working for a radio station in Calgary when Dangerous was released.

And I remember somebody in Calgary at my radio station, you know, said, oh, my God, that song is amazing. And it kind of clicked. It's like, holy, this might be bigger than just being a Canadian record. You know what I mean? And I remember hearing the song being played on American stations. I remember listening to a Las Vegas station and it was being played. I remember listening to a New York station and it was being played at an stations. I remember listening to a Las Vegas station, and it was being played. I remember listening to a New York station, and it was being played, an L.A. station. I'm like, oh, my God, it's finally happening. Dangerous was without question

Cardinal Oficial's breakthrough moment in the U.S. and around the world. But Cardi would quickly realize that the biggest moment of his career was being received in a completely different way back home. It wasn't a slow ascent. It was a massive thing that happened. And I think within a month, I was in top 40, not the hip hop category, like the hot 100. And I literally was exploding around the entire planet, except in my own country. And it's like I saw them have to play catch up.

except in my own country. And it's like I saw them have to play catch up. Seems to be doing very well everywhere else. So I suppose we should probably support him now. And that hurt because the first time I got signed to an American label, my first song, the hook said, everybody knows it's the T-Dot. My whole narrative has been one that has taken my city and my country and put it on my shoulders. And I endured ridicule for years. And then when we had this moment, we didn't even celebrate it here. My touring schedule didn't change because the booking agents, I guess, selling millions around the world didn't mean anything to them. Radio, like, you know, the call I got,

I remember I was home for a day. I still remember I was on this brown couch, one of my favorite couches. And I got a call of somebody saying, hey, is Dangerous CanCon? For all you non-Canadians, CanCon stands for Canadian content and radio stations in Canada are required to play 35% CanCon. I was like, why are you asking me if Dangerous is CanCon? It's literally a number one hit around the world. Are you telling me you're only going to play it if it's CanCon? Yeah. Cardi's frustration wasn't just a reaction to that one disappointing moment. It was a frustration rooted in much deeper tensions. Tensions that have existed between hip-hop and Canada's music industry for a long, long time.

I think that there was a commitment from the top, at least for me, to really break urban music. But I don't think that that always trickles down to everyone else. Kevin Barton was the head of urban music at Universal Music Group Canada from 1997 to 2004. You know, for the first record that we had, we already that, you know, was under Universal Umbrella and then doing Money Jane. My homegirl, Money Jane. It's the adventures of Miss Money Jane. You know, we walk into those meetings and people be like, you know,

can you remove the reggae guy from the hook? These are the radio promo people telling us that and being in that meeting and being like, no, we're not removing the reggae guy from the hook. And then two years later, that same reggae guy goes on to be Sean Paul. Guys like Hardy were destined to be stars. And we saw that. We watched him perform. We saw his records perform. We saw Money Jane perform.

We saw Bacardi Slang and some other stuff perform. But they always were like, well, let's just kind of see what happens on the other side of the border. And, oh, it's really happening over there. Well, now let's go. So for the Canadian stuff, it would never receive the same budgets that you would see the investments happen in a domestic artist. That would be rock and roll or alternative.

And they were just kind of like, well, if we don't get it, well, then the people out there aren't going to get it. And I think that was the mindset that held Canada back. I can tell you why at that time, why I signed an American deal. It's not because we didn't knock on the doors of the Canadian labels. We knocked on all the doors. But what they wanted to offer us for the entire deal was not even half of my in-pocket advance in America.

was not even half of my in-pocket advance in America. So they wanted you to get an advance, record an entire album, mix master, features, sample clearance, everything for crumbs. But journalist Dalton Higgins felt the problem was who was scouting the hip-hop talent for the record labels in the first place. It's interesting because, you know, the group Wu-Tang Clan? There was a track they put out called Protect Your Neck. I remember GZA has a lyric in it where he goes,

Who's your A&R? A mountain climber that plays the electric guitar? It really resonated with me because I'm thinking, you must be talking about the Canadian rap industry because the A&Rs here did not reflect or represent demographic realities. So if you're a mountain climber that plays electric guitar, are you going to be looking for the hottest articulations of rap music, of dancehall, of R&B, of soul, of funk, of house music? Probably not. I would say no.

And if Canada's talent scouts back then were rock climbers who liked guitars, it's not surprising that the hip-hop artists they did gravitate towards played a guitar too. That's MC Murder from KS, who is one of the most successful hip-hop artists in Canada and actually one of the only Black Canadian rappers to have that level of success almost exclusively within the Canadian music market.

Chaos presents us with a different kind of latitude around what Blackness can be like in Toronto. I'll be damned if I do, and damned if I don't. My soul won't allow me to fake on the phone. Rocking the chrome. He's, you know, raised in Trinidad. He's through and through Caribbean, but there's nothing in his performance that would suggest any kind of stereotypical reference to the Caribbean,

but he's authentic and true to his own identity. And that is a great contrast to sort of the dominance of how people imagine the Caribbean just to be Jamaican in a city like Toronto. Joyful Rebellion was an almost immediate commercial success and chaos would become a household name in Canada, touring extensively across the country. I mean, the impact of Joyful Rebellion was so massive that the very first song we played on my radio show OTA Live was a track off the album called Crucial because that album meant so much to us at the time. This is an emergency. They shot down in the dark. They did it because they paid a fee. Now there's nothing to die for. But the success of Joyful Rebellion also became the center of new tensions within the Canadian music industry.

Tensions that came to a head in August of 2005 at the Getting Up Festival in Toronto. This was a one-off, massive celebration of hip-hop, created by fashion designer and founder of Complex Magazine, Mark Echo. The outdoor concert featured performances from rap heavyweights like Nas, Busta Rhymes, Mos Def, a then-scorching-hot Kanye West, who was just about to drop his sophomore album late registration, but the event also featured a slew of local acts, But the event also featured a slew of local acts and a moment on stage from none other than Cardinalo Fischel that fans who were there won't soon forget. At that time, I'm just like, all right, what can I do for the Echo Fest, this big festival? And I just went out and I literally was like, yo, what's the cheapest guitar you have?

They're trying to tell me, well, this guitar does. I said, no, no, no, no. What is the cheapest guitar that you have in cost I don't care what the function is and they're like well this one cost X amount perfect I'll take it so cardi is rocking he's killing it I remember hearing hustlin that's mind-bender who we spoke to earlier and has probably been to every hip-hop show that's taken place in Toronto in the past 20 years. Like, he was just doing jams, and then he kind of, like, he slowed it down, and then he, like, pulled his guitar out, and he was just kind of chatting a bit. You think that he's gonna maybe do, like, maybe a Bob Marley medley? Like,

where is this going? And he just just goes people are telling me that to be successful in canada you have to play an instrument that's what the labels are saying and then man grabs the neck of the guitar and smashes it smashes it smashes it on the ground and we're like whoa oh wow didn't expect that cardi's guitar smash would be covered by the local music press. But while his statement was aimed squarely at the Canadian music industry, a review of Cardi's performance in iWeekly, a Toronto-based publication, was quick to construct Cardi's actions as a shot at, you guessed it, chaos.

Two weeks later, Card cardi would address the incident at another show he did in Toronto and you know what I was at that show and like the diligent producer I was trying to be even back then I recorded it it was no disrespect to chaos what it was when I mash up the guitar is a statement to radio because true chaos busts it was when I mash up the guitar is a statement to radio because true chaos busts. It doesn't mean that every rapper coming after him has to play the guitar to bust to and sell records. It was just, sometimes you have to take whatever opportunity you get. And that was a big opportunity at the time to make a little statement. It's interesting. Like

when you think of Canadian music, quote-unquote, like, you could close your eyes and you know what you're seeing. You're seeing Rush. You're seeing all the other rock greats that are great, that, you know, we do celebrate, but the thing is, that's all we would ever see. Here's Mindbender again.

Some people were like, yo, man, like, you know, Cardi has a point. Like, Cardi shouldn't have to switch up his flow or style or whatever to get the benefits that Chaos was getting or vice versa. You know, I gave Cardi some props for that because not too often do you see real controversial moments with artists taking stands against the problems of the Canadian industry. And as Mindbender said, Cardi's statement resonated with a lot of people in the local scene. But I was curious to know what Chaos thought about the whole thing. And even more importantly, whether he understood where Cardi's frustration was coming from. Yes, in some way, because anytime someone tells you you have to be like somebody else, you automatically feel subjugated.

You also feel less intelligent because you feel like what you're bringing to the table isn't good enough, especially when you're young and you're all about creating your own identity. So, yeah, I understand that. But also, this is the game we're in where it's like now you have to be more original than that because I had Maestro and Mishimi and like Socrates and all these people to kind of outdo like imagine being around Socrates so no one talks about that they just talk about the arrival of this record joy for rebellion but I actually had the same reaction that they had with the smashing of the guitar to being like why do I have to be like, why do I have to be like Socks?

Why do I have to be like Jellystone? Why do I have to be like Ghetto Concept? Why do I have to be like the Rascals? So it's like, I just dealt with it by being myself. But while the Canadian music industry embraced and rewarded Chaos for just being himself, Cardi's point was that those same sentiments weren't being extended to other artists.

And Mark Campbell agreed. Cardi's guitar smash was probably one of the most poignant reminders of the way in which anti-blackness works in the music industry. I mean, here's a kid who's grown up through and through just wanting to be an MC. And then he's met with these really rigid archetypes that suggest that the industry needs to avoid, quote unquote, risk, right? So what does Cardi present as an artist that comes out of hip hop that doesn't use a guitar? I mean, he really aligns himself with an African-American projection of hip hop

because the guitar symbolizes a certain kind of Eurocentrism and the kind of safe, knowableness of black life. So Chuck Berry's holding his guitar and he's sort of, quote unquote, safe and noble, but in some ways he's not safe. Bob Marley and his guitar becomes eventually when he's with the Wailers, he's not holding a guitar. But when he gets to Europe, he's holding a guitar. the wailers he's not holding a guitar but when he gets to europe he's holding a guitar um and then someone like jimi hendrix right who is a like a rock guitar genius legend those are safe and noble tropes that if a record industry is investing tons of money they want to feel comfortable but those tropes it's not just about a record label archetype. It's really about race and how blackness can be known and commodified and managed. And Cardi's smash of the guitar is literally saying,

F this industry, because I have to deal with all of these ways in which my blackness gets caught up and commodified and organized in ways in an industry that I have no power over. caught up and commodified and organized in ways in an industry that I have no power over. So the way in which they try to punish an artist for not performing a safe kind of knowable blackness with the guitar, it stunts the entire industry, which is the irony of it. So that, you know, when you go down the line, anyone that really gets big, anyone that blows in Toronto is not because of a record label. Now, if it was another industry, people would look at metrics and be like, well, how did you fail on The Weeknd?

And how did you fail on Drake? But that's not a conversation, ever. Live from Air Canada Centre in Toronto, it's the 40th anniversary of the Juno Awards. So we're back where we started this episode, with Drake at the 2011 Junos. We're now six years removed from Cardinalo Fischal's guitar smash. And as we now know, 2011 was just the start of Drake's journey to pop dominance. was just the start of Drake's journey to pop dominance.

And so hosting the Junos was kind of a homecoming celebration for Canada's soon-to-be biggest hip-hop and pop artist ever. So Drake at the time is, never mind Canada, never mind Toronto, Drake is one of the top rap stars on the planet. Despite all this, Drake went into the event with his eyes wide open. I mean, he's from Toronto. He's aware of the Canadian music industry's history with hip-hop. And so even though it might have felt like a great opportunity, and he was nominated for six awards,

he was still skeptical of an institution like the Junos. And so who did he turn to for advice? Chaos. At the time, I was, you know, kind of his older brother. So he hit me up. He's like, hey, they want me to host the Junos. Should I do it? I'm like, you should do it. He's like, why? I'm like, because you're an entertainer. And beyond doing music, it's people are just going to get to see your personality. Don't worry about the whole Juno thing. Don't worry if you're

going to win. Don't worry about all that. Just go there and do a good show. With all these incredible people here, I'm truly honored that you're letting hip hop take control of the evening. there and do a good show. When they did that to him, it wasn't something new. It was something that was known to happen, that they use you to get the viewers, but then they might not reward you. Now, I've seen The Weeknd with like arms and arms of Junos two, three years in a row because Canada is starting to catch on. Like you want to build these artists more than one year so you can keep making money. You want to create rock stars. That's the point. So how did I feel about him getting snubbed? I couldn't react to it emotionally because it happened to me. So I was like, this is what it is. But it definitely was the beginning

of a kind of riff in our friendship because he trusted me. So when I told him to do that and he didn't win, I think he was a little disappointed. And the Juno goes to... That was a tough night for me. Here's Drake in his only interview with the CBC back in 2013. Just because I put in a lot of work, you know,

and I didn't understand it really. I thought like, at least in the rap category, I gotta have this clinched if not anything. But I mean, I can't speak for the Junos. I don't know why they did that, you know? Did I respect it? No, not really. Put a pin in this, you know, did I respect it? No, not really. Put a pin in this, you know, we won't talk about who it is, but I said to the people, if you're selling blue jeans, right, you're a denim company and you're selling blue jeans. And then all of a sudden, red denim is a thing that you tried and it's outselling blue denim by miles.

But you don't want to make red denim. Two things. Either you're stupid or you have something against red denim. The same can be said with black music currently in this country. The numbers are there as proof. We are a viable commodity where something you can sell, where something that can be successful. So either you're not an astute businessman or you're inherently racist when it comes to black music in this country. Those are the unfortunate truths because there's no other explanation for it. for it. So there you have it, a slice of Toronto's hip hop story. And I say slice because literally every artist, guest and cultural moment we mentioned in this episode is a gateway to the even deeper, richer histories that make up Toronto's hip hop scene. Histories worthy of their own podcasts. Whether it's the pioneering rappers and broadcasters who first broke ground in this city way back in the 80s. Milestone Radio's 12-year

fight to see Black Toronto's musical tastes reflected on the commercial FM dial. Cardi's struggle to be seen and heard for the unique and vital Canadian musician he is. Or Drake simply not being valued at a pivotal moment that might have meant the world to him and so many of us. These are just a few of the stories that not only shaped the Drake and Toronto the world knows today, but the deeper tensions between hip-hop and Canada's music establishment. Tensions that existed back then, before then, and many argue to this day. We end on the thoughts of radio host and hip-hop artist RC, who I think sums up the sentiment of this episode pretty well.

I don't think the idea of the biggest rapper in the world being Canadian, or being from Toronto for that matter. I just don't even think that that seemed possible. It didn't seem logical. Whereas now when we're in that reality, I think it changes everything. But it's funny because I do follow some younger kind of industry types on Twitter. It's kind of funny to see them grumble about how out of touch like the industry is and how there's this complete lack of support by the powers that be and the whole Juno debacle. And it struck me that the one thing that has remained the same over the years

is that Canadian hip-hop artists have always had to be great in spite of the industry rather than because of it. had to be great in spite of the industry rather than because of it. You've been listening to the first episode of This Is Not A Drake Podcast, a new series about the rapper who's blurred genres and dominated the world stage, but really about the larger hip-hop movement that made him. You can subscribe for free on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can subscribe for free on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.