Kardinal Offishall, Def Jam’s Newest Exec, Says Canada’s Music Industry Needs ‘Radical Change’: ‘We’re Decades Behind Other Countries’

  • 📰 ETCanada
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 62 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 28%
  • Publisher: 51%

Brasil Notícia Notícia

Brasil Últimas Notícias,Brasil Manchetes

.KardinalO, DefJam's new global A&R, says it's a problem that Canadian artists 'have to go outside of the country to be really appreciated the way that we should.'

“Everybody turned me down: Gap, Foot Locker,” the Toronto-born rapper and music executive tells ET Canada. “The only thing I never applied for was McDonald’s, and that’s because there’s no way I was going to work at McDonald’s. But everybody fronted on me, so you know, it was music or bust.”

Offishall, who began releasing music in the mid-’90s, made a name for himself with his bombastic, uniquely Caribbean-Torontonian sound back when there wasn’t a blueprint for success for hip hop musicians in Canada. “Of course, we had Maestro and Michie [Mee], but it seemed like those were unicorn avenues, as opposed to like, if you follow these steps you would get to a certain place,” he says.

“I needed someplace where they had enough resources, they had a similar vision and a place where I could really go and kill it and not be limited by the infrastructure of the country,” he explains. “And unfortunately, our Canadian music industry is more like a cruise ship than a speedboat, where the changes happen very slowly…. We’re decades behind all these other countries.

Among those new Def Jam artists is Zambia-born, Winnipeg-raised singer-songwriter Lavi$h, and Jamaican dancehall star Masicka. Beyond that, Offishall says he’s currently looking at artists in South Africa, the U.K. and even Latvia. “It’s a really dope time because I think the face of Def Jam will literally be one that’s global right now as opposed to, you know, just being hyper focused on the United States,” Offishall says.

 

Obrigado pelo seu comentário. Seu comentário será publicado após ser revisado.
Resumimos esta notícia para que você possa lê-la rapidamente. Se você se interessou pela notícia, pode ler o texto completo aqui. Consulte Mais informação:

 /  🏆 67. in BR

Brasil Últimas Notícias, Brasil Manchetes