While it’s hard to deny the dominance of Black music across airwaves and streaming services around the world, it wasn’t long ago that many genres had a tough time gaining a foothold in Canada.
With storied histories across the country in genres like soul, reggae, and hip-hop, putting them on the deserved stages proved difficult beyond niche platforms.
In the 1960s, artists like the late Jackie Shane, Eddie Spencer, and Johnnie Osborne made their way to Canada to invigorate burgeoning soul scenes in Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax.
By the 1970s, Toronto’s Little Jamaica became a meeting ground for an international reggae scene, boasting Jamaican and Canadian-born artists like Frankie Paul and Jay Douglas, thanks to the city’s then-growing.
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