THE SCALE

Even with the challenges that black artists in Toronto face, the music that’s come out of the city has seen considerable success, both nationally and globally. David ‘Click’ Cox has had first hand experience with the popularity of Toronto’s sound.

In the 90s, Cox was a member of The Maximum Definitive, a Canadian rap trio. The group would go on to be nominated for a Juno in 1993 for Best Rap Recording for their single The Jungle Man. The track features synth piano chords and some vaguely tribal chanting and though Cox is in the video, he isn’t featured on the track. He played a more administrative role for the group.

“I wasn’t the rapper. I wasn’t even the producer. I was like a hype man-dancer in the group, but I also was the business guy,” says Cox. “I was the guy who would ask a lot of questions … and the other guys in the group weren’t really those guys. I kind of found the business was my thing and as I got older. I’ve realized this is kind of second nature to me.”

Cox took that budding business acumen and made use of it long after he left the group. For 15 years he worked as an A&R scout for Universal Records, finding talent in Toronto.

And now he owns CLK Creative Works, an artist managing and consulting agency he founded 10 years ago in the city.

He says he’s “worn all the hats” in the music industry, from concert promotion to radio hosting, and he uses his experience to develop the talent he finds. Cox says he tends to work more often with artists of colour.

“I think it’s just kind of what’s resonated with me or what is connected to me or what values I have. I’m a black man, myself. Maybe that’s part of it,” he says. “I’m not into taking on an artist who’s trying to appropriate our music either. I look for artists who … I feel are coming from a real, organic space.”

Being in the music industry for more than 20 years has given him a nuanced view of the city’s black music scene. He says that it was the work done by black artists in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s — like Saukrates, Kardinal Offishall, Maestro Fresh-Wes, the Dream Warriors and Michie Mee — that paved the way for Toronto’s artists who’ve gone global.

“Now you have the Drakes, The Weeknds, the Tory Lanzes, the PARTYNEXTDOORs, the list is growing and growing. And there’s even more artists even in our own city who are getting a lot of love on the ground as well. The patriotic love in our own backyard is super huge,” says Cox.

A lot of it comes down to the people like Jordon Manswell who work in production.

“We have a lot of strong producers from Toronto, black producers at that, too, in the hip hop and R&B world. The Boi-1das, the WondaGurls, T-Minuses. There’s a lot of guys who have gone on to produce number one hits,” says Cox.

Ebony Naomi Oshunrinde, aka WondaGurl, is one of them. The Nigerian-Canadian producer has worked with some of hip hop and R&B’s biggest names, producing tracks like Teen Spirit for SZA and co-producing Bitch Better Have My Money by Rihanna, both American artists. But the Brampton native has also worked with black Canadian talent as well, producing Used To and co-producing Company on Drake’s hit 2015 mixtape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. Canadian R&B singer Jahkoy also worked with Oshunrinde on Odd Future.

Boi-1da, whose real name is Matthew Jehu Samuels, is another Toronto-based producer who’s worked closely with Drake on several singles and projects, as well as hip hop heavyweights like Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Jay-Z.

Cox says there’s been a distinct shift in the conversation around black Canadian artists since his days as an A&R representative over a decade ago. Now, globally, they’re in higher demand.

“I was knocking on doors trying to get guys signed. I was knocking on doors, actually, trying to get Drake interest because I wanted to sign Drake at one time. That was not easy. I didn’t have people returning my phone calls. I had other A&Rs in America telling me straight to my face that ‘There’ll never be a Canadian rap star. It won’t happen’,” he says. “That is totally upside down now to the point where I have individuals in America contacting me asking me who’s hot.”

Despite the success of black Canadian music makers abroad, there have been questions when it comes to the reception within our borders. There’s been tension at one particular point in Canada’s cultural landscape: The Juno Awards.

“If you get invited to the Junos, that means you’re doing something well, right?” says Mark Campbell. “But the Junos is also a problem.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Because they don’t like black people.”

While the Junos have celebrated those at the nexus of artistic and technical talent in Canada, some have noticed an unflattering side. Campbell is referring to the show’s history that’s been marked by a lack of recognition for genres of black music.

He wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail in 2017 about how some black artists in the country are treated as they come up against a floundering music industry. “For many young hip-hop artists in Canada, it may appear that a co-sign from Lil Wayne and Cash Money Records is the only way to successfully build a career. Sadly, the Canadian music industry has serious issues with developing and supporting Canadian hip-hop and R&B music,” he wrote. Campbell says he believes that an absence of appreciation within the awards have dulled their lustre to the hip hop community.

“Drake doesn’t go anymore. It doesn’t do anything for your career. Kaytranada doesn’t need them, Daniel Cesar doesn’t need them, [The Junos] need those artists,” he says. An “anti-black” sentiment, as he describes it, is at the foundation of the awards themselves.

Erin Ashley agrees. She’s also written about the Junos’ somewhat trying relationship with black genres of music. In a piece she wrote for Noisey in 2018, she recounted the tale of The Rascalz, a Vancouver-based hip hop group that was nominated for Rap Recording of the Year in 1998 for their album, Cash Crop. The ceremony for that particular award was not televised and the group joked that should they win, they would not take the Juno. The group did go on to win and did not accept the award — a Juno first.

Ashley said she found herself at the intersection of two generations of music when she wrote the piece. “The generation that was with [Kardinal Offishall] and Rascalz at the time when they were not given the award originally years ago. And then there’s the second wave generation that I’m more so in where Drake wasn’t given his praise due and none of this has changed over the past 20 odd years,” she said. “Nothing has changed in terms of how the music industry at large treats hip hop and R&B and black music in general.”

There is a mistrust of the Junos that Ashley said still shrouds Canada’s hip hop and rap communities. As she mentioned, Drake was also snubbed at the awards. In 2011 his debut album, Thank Me Later, was nominated in six different Juno categories, including Album of the Year. He was also the first rapper to host the show. Drake, whose debut received critical acclaim and commercial success, lost in every category. His music has since seen more success at the Awards but he hasn’t made another appearance.

While hip hop and R&B have captured the attention of a new generation of listeners, the relevance of the award itself is still in question. “You can ask somebody and ask them if it’s relevant and a lot of rappers will tell you no,” said Ashley. “They have a new generation coming up and as great as a Juno Award is when it comes to corporate dollars and being able to say ‘I’m a Juno Award winning artist so you need to pay me X amount of money,’ is it going to launch an artist into this Drake dream?” she asks. “It probably won’t.”

The conversation about black Canadian artists and recognition is a layered one. There are those that hold steadfastly that more needs to be done to support black music in Toronto, but others are more focused on where the music has a wider breadth of influence.

“I always say to people ‘Why do you care if you’re literally running shit?’” says Vivian Barclay.

Barclay, 46, is the general manager at Warner/Chappell Music Canada and she’s been a prolific presence in Toronto’s music scene. Born in Kitchener, she spent her youth in Jamaica, raised by a Greek mother and a Jamaican father. She returned to Canada and completed a degree in radio and television at Ryerson University and would go onto become the program director at the Ryerson radio station and host of her own show.

From there, she worked for Jones & Jones, a management and production company, when the opportunity to work with Warner/Chappell came up in 2001. At the time, Barclay said Warner/Chappell was at the forefront of black music in Toronto, having signed names like Saukrates and Kardinal Offishall in the early stages their careers.

Barclay, like Cox, is more concerned with the global reach of the music. She said that Toronto’s influence in the conversation about black music is irrefutable.

“Our producers and our artists are at the top of the game so obviously we are a part of it. Whether or not people acknowledge we’re a part of it is a whole different story but by the sheer, actual reality, we are,” she says.

She says that no, when it comes to black music, people aren’t talking about the Canadian influence (being next to the “the big bully to the south” has a lot do with it) but in reality, it’s hard to get away from the Toronto Sound.

“American A&Rs from both labels and record companies, big and small, managers, people who work with producers, et cetera, are all spending a lot more time in Toronto and they’re all coming to Toronto to work with our artists or our producers or our songwriters,” she says. “They know where the sound comes from. They know that whether it’s black music in the traditional sense or even what is urban music-adjacent …, like pop-urban, even that music is also very influenced by Canadians.”

Barclay says that the conversation is largely being clouded by people who are concerned mainly with radio and the fact that there’s been an historic imbalance in Canada between rock and black genres of music. She agrees that radio in Canada is a rock space, and has been for quite some time, but it was that same lack of radio support that allowed for Toronto’s black music makers to grow elsewhere.

“I would argue that the influence that we’re having now in urban music and black music out of the city of Toronto is because we didn’t necessarily have that traditional radio station. People had to go do this shit themselves and we’re a very D.I.Y. city. We’ve always been.That’s why the Drakes and the OVOs and the XOs even exist,” she said. “They did it themselves.”

The U.S. has the benefit of regionality, she says. Its sheer size in comparison allows for niches to exist and flourish on radio, something that Canada lacks. There’s also an absence of recognition in media.

“I don’t think people are out there writing multiple stories about how the sound of American black music right now is really very Canadian in a lot of ways,” she says. But in her view, radio isn’t where artists should be focusing, especially when it’s apparent that platforms like YouTube, Spotify and SoundCloud are drawing in a new era of music listers.

“The tentacles are long and the influence is long and that’s reality. I guess we can look at it and say ‘Do we care more about the hype and being acknowledged a certain way? Or do we care more about the reality?’” she says. “At the end of the day, I don’t know if it really matters if people know what you’re actually doing.”

“Just go about our business and know that we’re making more money than them.”

But right now, Barclay said it is an exciting time for the city’s black music

“I think that Toronto is still not at the brink of where it could be.”