11/13/2023 0 Comments Famous late 90s hip hop songsThat would have major success for the artist. "The first thing would be, I take all this money and dump it into one artist and make them a global megastar. "It occurred to me I could do one of three things," says Berry. Then came the dilemma of how to launch artists on the label. (Tannis Toohey)Īfter meeting, Berry and Cameron brokered a deal with EMI for a label, extending the Beat Factory brand to the imprint and setting up an infrastructure where Berry got the support to hire staff and the access to marketing and distribution dollars for national campaigns. "And it's a really accurate snapshot."Ĭhoclair's song "Twenty One Year" appeared on the Rap Essentials Vol. "If you saw it in terms of a time capsule, you bury this record and dig it up in a time capsule or even now and you're like, 'this is a snapshot of Canadian rap at that time," says Ramos. Jonathan Ramos, a music industry veteran who is currently live music manager at INK Entertainment, was the head of marketing for Beat Factory when it released Rap Essentials, a record he feels is 'timeless.' The pioneers got us going, but these guys are the next to do it." If anything, it might have been the album that said there's more here than those names I just mentioned. But this album helped breathe new life into Canadian hip-hop. This isn't to say that it did that originally, because hip-hop in Canada was already put on the map by the Maestros of the world and the Michie Mees and the Dream Warriors. So I think it really did a lot to put Canadian hip-hop on the map. People really dug the album, and really appreciated it as a collection of dope hip-hop songs and it just so happened to be they were all Canadian. "The Canadian hip-hop scene had sort of almost a star-studded feel for it at that time. "The Canadian hip-hop scene was put on by this album," says Dan-e-o. 1was a record that had a tangible effect on the Canadian music industry. MC Dan-e-o, whose track "Dear Hip-Hop" was arguably the most popular track featured on the compilation, Rap Essentials Vol. "Everything was all about putting out 12-inches, so it definitely made an impact in Toronto playing on what outlets we had which were pretty much, you know 88.1FM, 89.5FM, 105.5, all of our regular go-to outlets, but Rap Essentials was definitely something I guess that was able to push it to a broader audience that might not have been plugged in to what literally was underground hip-hop at the time."įor Scarborough, Ont. "It says a lot about the impact that it had because definitely that time was very, very, very 12-inch based," says Kardinal. 1 gave him the opportunity to widen the reach of his very first single, "Naughty Dread," which he had already released on vinyl. For an artist like Kardinal Offishall, who now boasts a global reputation and a long career, Rap Essentials Vol. 1 arrived in the middle of this output, curating the cream of the crop for wider distribution. Despite the Canadian major label indifference, an independent vinyl scene was flourishing in Canadian cities like Toronto in the mid-to-late '90s. It came out at a time after the initial wave of success by Canadian hip-hop artists like Michie Mee, Dream Warriors and Maestro Fresh Wes, all of whom who were initially signed to label deals outside of Canada. Boasting 12 tracks, the compilation, released on Berry's Beat Factory records, was created to showcase the cream of Canadian hip-hop talent and featured the likes of Kardinal Offishall, Choclair and the Rascalz, exposing many of the featured groups to a national audience for the first time. The brainchild of Ivan Berry, known for shepherding the careers of Canadian hip-hop pioneers Michie Mee and the Dream Warriors to stardom through his Beat Factory management company, the Rap Essentials compilation was a critical release that helped to bring exposure to Canada's next generation of hip-hop stars in the '90s. 1's influence and impact is still relevant today. ![]() ![]() Despite being released 20 years ago, the Canadian hip-hop compilation Rap Essentials Vol.
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