Rascalz: Пионеры канадского хип-хопа

Canadian hip hop group

Rascalz are a Canadian hip hop group from Vancouver, British Columbia. The group played a crucial role in the artistic and commercial development of Canadian hip hop as well as specifically for the Westcoast scene in Vancouver popularizing the term “Van City”. The group consists of emcees Red1 and Misfit, and record producer DJ Kemo. Breakdancers Zebroc and Dedos were also part of the group.

Formed in 1991, the group released an independent album for Calabash Records in 1992. The album, Really Livin, was recorded under the name of Ragga Muffin Rascals, and a reworked major label recording was released the following year in 1993 by Sony Music Canada. Both versions of the album received Juno Award nominations for Best Rap Recording, the Calabash Records version at the Juno Awards of 1993 and the Sony version at the Juno Awards of 1995. In 1994, the group started Figure IV Records. The Rascalz are not Vancouver's first rap group, and have quoted acts such as EQ, Craig Crush and Mike D'Zire as influences. The group moved to BMG Canada in 1997 to record Cash Crop.

Cash Crop was nominated for Best Rap Recording at the Juno Awards of 1998. Due to Canadian hip hop's limited commercial visibility in the era, 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. The band won the award, but alleged that racism was a factor in the award's disadvantageous scheduling and explicitly declined the award on that basis. The band had not yet arrived at the ceremony when the award was announced—when they did arrive, they were simply pulled aside and told that they had won the award. cquote|In view of the lack of real inclusion of black music in this ceremony, this feels like a token gesture towards honoring the real impact of urban music in Canada. Urban music, reggae, R&B, and rap, that's all black music, and it's not represented [at the Junos]. We decided that until it is, we were going to take a stance. At the Juno Awards of 1999, the first time the rap award was presented during the televised ceremony, Rascalz won the award for "Northern Touch", This represented the first time that a hip hop band had ever performed on the Juno Awards stage.