If streaming statistics are any indication, Canadian music is booming.
According to recent Spotify data, first-time listeners discovered Canadian artists nearly four billion times last year, and royalties generated by Canadian artists more than doubled between 2018 and 2023.
But what is Canadian music? How is it defined? And how is it being supported so that it can go to the next level?
In a conversation presented by POP Symposium, Nantali Indongo, host of CBC’s The Bridge sat down with Oji-Cree musician Anachnid, Montreal rapper SLM and rapper and CBC Music host Odario Williams, to explore those questions and find out more about the Canadian music industry from artists on the ground.
The Bridge54:00What’s Canadian music, anyway? (Part 1)
Here’s the first part of our live recording of The Bridge at La Bibliothèque Mordecai-Richler during the symposium at this year’s edition of POP Montreal music and art festival. The conversation was framed around the question: What’s Canadian music, anyway? It might be impossible to answer the question of how we define Canadian music. And we know the answer might lean closer to ‘there’s no such thing.’ But, we wanted to know ‘why not?’ Especially that, since 1971, there are federally mandated regulations in place regarding the mandatory broadcasting of what is called Canadian music, a policy meant to contribute in part to the advancement of published Canadian musicians. To give a sense of how things are on the ground for artists making music in this place we call Canada, we turned to electronic artist Anachnid, rapper SLM and CBC Music host of the program After Dark, Odario Williams, a longtime rapper who happened to also be performing at POP Montreal.
The conversation was recorded on Friday, Sept. 27 in front of a live audience for an episode of The Bridge.
Here are some highlights from that conversation.
The following excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.
Indongo: If you could think of one word that describes whatever it is we’re trying to call Canadian music or maybe Canadian music culture, what would it be?
SLM: I would probably use the French word mêlée. Yeah, It’s like a mix of cultures and influences that come from every which way. It could be your culture, it could be the cultures that you’re experiencing within the city that you’re from. And so I feel like you can pull inspiration from all of these different things that you’re experiencing, whether it’s music, literature, poetry.
Anachnid: I would use a French word as well, actually: accueillir, or to host. Let’s take Winnipeg, for example. People there met amazing artists that would travel through Winnipeg. Maybe, through word of mouth, the music from Winnipeg was left with other travellers who were musicians. And who knows? Maybe a piece of that culture ended up in Japan. For that, you have to be a good host.
Williams: I’d say “subculture” would be my word for Canada. Because in America, there’s your genres. It’s like rock, rap, jazz, country, you know? Then these things become popular and then not so popular. But in Canada, we always found these subcultures to kind of live under.
Indongo: In 1992, Bryan Adams took offense to the CanCon regulations, which mandate that 35 per cent of the popular music that’s broadcast between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday on private radio is Canadian content. Do you agree with him?
Williams: At that time, there was concern that Canadians weren’t good enough to be on commercial radio, for whatever reason. In the first place, it was a shame that they had to implement these laws. Today though, for my show in particular, we’re playing 65 per cent Canadian now, just because I have so many submissions. Back in those days, you had to scrap for a song or an album. But today it’s actually a beautiful thing. We don’t need to stop at 35 per cent or 50 per cent, we’re at 65 per cent.
Indongo: What kind of support exists for Indigenous artists in Canada?
Anachnid: Right now, I work with Musique Nomade, a non-profit label run by people that care about the Indigenous community and that want to help them navigate that. Music is political at this point and organizations like Musique Nomade help Indigenous people navigate these things and just focus on their art.
Indongo: What are some important first steps for Canadian artists to make in order to grow their careers?
SLM: I take pride in putting out quality in terms of my music, in terms of my visuals, in terms of my everything. And I think that you kind of just have to put yourself out there so that people can experience you. Whether you think that it’s good or bad or professional or unprofessional, you’ll never really know until you do that litmus test, but you definitely do the work way ahead.
Anachnid: Since there’s not a lot of budget and you do have to make sacrifices in the music industry and your friends are going to help you, be patient with them. When you work as a team, it’s not easy. I went to a Canadian Roots Exchange event for a youth reconciliation initiative. I was with people my age that were interested in working as a team in planning events, but we had a six-month training to do these things. So if your friends are helping you, be patient with them. It’s okay if they’re not perfect. What’s important is they want to be there and they believe in you.
When it comes to TikTok and social media, we have to up our game. Because it’s going to reach people across the world and that’s how we’re going to get our music heard and get bookings and all these things.
Warning | The music video below contains vulgar language:
Williams: Communities. Find your community and build with it. I think a lot of us are sitting on our phones and iPads and laptops dreaming of far-away places, when you can just start right where you are. I’m an advocate for live performance. Don’t be discouraged when 10 people show up to your first show. You’ve got to have your first show, but grow the show from there. You’ll get practice. When you finally get invited somewhere, you’re ready to go instead of getting popular on social media, getting flown out to a show in Los Angeles and just not being ready.
The Bridge44:31What’s Canadian music, anyway? (Part 2)
This is the second part to our rich conversation about Canadian music that we recorded during this year’s edition of POP Montreal music and arts festival. You’ll hear more from rapper SLM, electronic artist Anachnid and Odario Williams — who before becoming a host at CBC Music, is also a rapper. They offer more ideas about what needs to change in the Canadian music industry and especially how that music is made available to the public. Anachnid and SLM give some sound advice to emerging artists in this era where social media plays a crucial part in the discovery of new artists. While Odario shared some insight from his 20 years of figuring out the music game. We also saved time for our audience members to weigh in.