Canadian Hip Hop - French Canadian Hip Hop

French Canadian Hip Hop

Montreal, being Canada's second largest city and one of the world's largest French-speaking cities, has developed its own niche of French language hip hop, which later spread to Quebec City and throughout the province of Quebec. Although a few French rap singles broke through to mainstream success in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Les French B's "Je m'en souviens", Kool Rock and Jay Tree's "M.R.F. est arrivé", Le Boyfriend's "Rapper chic (Je rap en français)" and Dédé Tracké's "T'es qui toé", as in English Canada this early success was not sustained, and francophone hip hop remained largely an underground phenomenon until the emergence of Dubmatique, who became in 1997 the first francophone Canadian hip hop group to have a number-one hit on Canada's francophone Top 40 charts. Dubmatique were followed by acts including Muzion, Manu Militari, Yvon Krevé, Loco Locass, Catburglaz, Atach Tatuq, Taktika, Sir Pathétik, Sans Pression, Omnikrom, Anodajay, Gatineau, Radio Radio and Treizième Etage.

In 2005, The Dope Poet Society released a multilingual single and video entitled, "All of Us" off the album ProIntelpro: Promote Intelligence Program. Lead vocalist ProfessorD.us raps in both English and French on the track, accompanied by a posse of six other rappers rhyming in a total of five different languages. The most internationally successful hip hop musician from Quebec is Ghislain Poirier, a producer whose own albums primarily feature francophone rappers from Quebec and France, but who is also now an influential remixer equally sought after by anglophone rappers and dance musicians from Canada and the United States. Roi Heenok, a rapper from Montreal, has become an Internet phenomenon in France, and has performed in Paris three times since 2004.