JOSPEH KLYMKIW

My name is Joe Klymkiw and I have been working on this project for the last 5 years compiling interviews and creating the story that is Canadian Hip Hop. The every day Canadian doesn't know much about the trials and tribulations of the Hip Hop scene in our great country of Canada. This documentary goes through the history of the Canadian Hip Hop scene, the pioneer's, the underground, radio and the state of the industry to give the viewer an understanding of the culture.

The Canadian hip hop scene was first established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much more slowly than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground phenomenon until the early 2000s. Canada had hip hop artists right from the early days of the scene ó the first known Canadian rap single, Singing Fools' "The Bum Rap", was released in 1982. For the most part the infrastructure simply wasn't there to get most artists' music to the record-buying public. Even Toronto Canada's largest city and one of its most multicultural had difficulty getting an urban music station on the radio airwaves until 2000. As a result, if a Canadian hip-hop artist could get signed, it was very difficult for them to get exposure even if their music videos were played on MuchMusic, many artists simply couldn't get their records into stores or played on the radio. As a result, through much of the 1990s, Canadian hip hop experienced a slowdown without any significant artists bursting into the scene.