Most Canadians can tell you how many years it has been since Lord Stanley's Cup came north of the border. Even people who are generally very pro-American will express some resentment at wealthy American teams taking the cup every year (and will remind you that most of their players are Canadian anyway.) What most people do not know is that while Americans have been 'stealing' hockey, Canada has been quietly stealing hip hop. This is not overly surprising. Canada's music scene is currently stronger than that of the US in virtually every genre (thanks in no small part to Canada's ongoing commitment to music education in schools). It is also not really the fault of the Americans. In the early 90s big American record companies latched on to Nirvanna and tried to turn every band they could find into a parody of Nirvanna - setting the indie music scene back a decade or so. When that well ran dry the same companies latched on to Hip Hop and have done even more damage to it. Most of what passes for Hip Hop in the states now is light bubble gum boy band crap, or "guns, bitches and bling" b.s. that has become a Weird Al like parody of hip hop.
Meanwhile in Canada where we have been comparatively unmolested by the anti-creativity, anti-change, anti-music forces of the big multinational labels Canadian hip hop has quietly turned into something very different than what is being produced in the States. It has none of the celebration of guns and murder, the degradation of women or the attacks on fellow artists and it doesn't claim that money and material possessions are the ultimate purpose of life. In other words, it is something more in keeping with what the originators of hip hop had in mind.
Artists have slowly been appearing over the last several years in just about every city in Canada, amoung them Toronto's K-OS and God Made Me Funky, Halifax's Buck 65, and Calgary's Dragon Fli Empire and Cadence Weapon.
The clincher though came at this year's NXNE. Grand Analog, fronted by Odario Williams is great to listen to at home but their live show would have your grandmother bouncing. The music mixes old school hip hop with ska, raggae, funk, and soul blending them seamlessly, as if they were all always the same thing anyway. With all due respect to those who have paved the way, Grand Analog is the band that has made hip-hop Canadian. After all the east coast vs. west coast feuds that have gone on in the states the new home of hip-hop is not L.A. or New York or even Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver - it is squarely in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
If you'd like some of this for your mp3 player download the CBC Radio 3 Sessions Podcast Featuring Grand Analog.
Grand Analog - Touch Your Toes
