Juno Award Protest
Cash Crop was nominated for Best Rap Recording at the Juno Awards of 1998. Due to Canadian hip hop's limited commercial notability, however, the rap award had never been presented during the main Juno ceremony, instead being relegated to the untelevised technical awards ceremony during the previous evening.
This fact had previously been criticized for creating a barrier to the commercial visibility of Canadian hip hop. Rascalz, however, alleged that racism was a factor in the award's disadvantageous scheduling, and became the first Canadian hip hop group to explicitly decline the award on that basis.
Their move sparked considerable media debate about the state of Canadian hip hop. As a result of the controversy, the Juno Awards moved the rap category to the main ceremony the following year.
Read more about this topic: Rascalz
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