Canadian Hip Hop - Influences

Influences

Although American East Coast hip hop and West Coast hip hop are major influences on Canadian artists in the genre, Canadian hip hop also incorporates a number of other influences not commonly seen in the mainstream of the American genre. The Black Canadian community is much more dominated by people of Caribbean heritage than is the African American community in the United States. As a result, Canadian hip hop is significantly influenced by the rhythms and styles of Caribbean music. English Canadian hip hop tends to be influenced by Jamaican, Trinidadian and Bahamian styles, while francophone hip hop from Quebec is commonly influenced by Haitian music. Artists such as Michie Mee, Dream Warriors, Ghetto Concept, and Kardinal Offishall have incorporated dancehall or reggae into their music.

Even those artists that do not use an obvious Caribbean sounds are often influenced by Caribbean English and themes. A famous example is the Kardinal Offishall song "BaKardi Slang", which gives examples of Toronto black youth slang — many derived from Caribbean speech. As well Rastafarian vocabulary, speaking of good as "Zion" and evil as "Babylon" for example, is quite common, even if the rapper is not themselves a Rasta.

The genre-hopping "Tom Waits with a beatbox" style of Buck 65, who integrates country, rock, folk and blues influences into his music, has also become a major influence on Canadian hip hop in the 2000s. His influence is especially strong on hip hop artists from the Maritime provinces, such as Classified, but can also be seen in artists such as Ridley Bent and mcenroe.

Electronic music is also a significant influence, notably seen in artists such as Cadence Weapon, No Luck Club and Ghislain Poirier, and jazz music has been incorporated since the early 1990s, particularly in the work of Dream Warriors, Social Deviantz, Mood Ruff and Da Grassroots. Artists such as K'naan, k-os, Grand Analog, Touch and Nato, Dragon Fli Empire, DL Incognito and Graph Nobel have pursued styles which blend a diverse mix of hip hop, rock, jazz, world music, and R&B influences.