Toronto’s Music Scene
Top Stars
With the 8th annual OVO Fest right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to shout out the successes, and review some of the failures, of the T-Dot Hip Hop Scene.
Toronto, (and all of Canada, really), has never been major in the rap game. Yeah we’ve produced some heavy hitters – Drizzy, Majid Jordan, Weekend, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Tory Lanez, and Kardinal Offishal – but OVO is only an example of how crucial the US market is to getting any artist to real fame.
Even with King of the Dot and other rap initiatives, Toronto has yet to really be put on the map. Our local talent and community remains stuck in the shady alley ways of Kensington Market and basements in Scarborough.
Websites like HipHopCanada and WhatThe Hype host local artists, or at least try to. We’re not dissing, we want to do the same thing, but the reality is TO just hasn’t made it to the world stage.
All of Atlanta is blowing up – they got names like Gucci Mane to help cultivate the talent and promote the up and comers. The Dirty South is capitalizing on the Trap wave, with Southside and MikeWillMadeit as just an example of some of producers banging out weekly, well, bangers!
What can we take from that? Toronto needs a Hip Hop Stripclub. Seriously, check out this video (lol).
On the reals though. We have many Toronto artists like K-Sizzle, Shad, C4, Gangeezy, that have been doing it for time, with no A&Rs, no labels, no deals, no big marketing budgets, just independent hustlers.
OVO fest is hitting Toronto August 7 – Tickets are already on sale!
Shout out to the real Toronto artists grinding out on the streets of the GTA and all over the Can (? or The Da?). Inertia Media supports the Dot ya heeeaaaaaaaaaaard.