Calgary rapper Sinzere has channeled the resiliency of her family into her music, and subsequently into a burgeoning career that’s landed her on the same stage as artists like Elephant Man, Obie Trice, and Mavado. The young artist originally began as a dancer, then naturally drifted into DJing and MCing. It’s a process that started […]

With a stage name like Junglepussy, it should come as no surprise that Brooklyn native Shayna McHayle holds nothing back when it comes to expressing her sexuality, her Blackness and her feminism. But the name and larger-than-life personality that comes with it isn’t just a case of sex for shock value. The multi-hyphenate rapper is […]

Nashlyn Lloyd confidently struts into 49th Parallel Coffee House on Main Street in Vancouver wearing black pants, ballet flats and a blue business-casual blouse that accentuates her long, brunette mermaid locks.  The lead keyboardist and songwriter for the Vancouver-based dream rock band, FRANKIIE, Lloyd has just come from her full time job at the art […]

As Phum Viphurit prepares to embark on his biggest North American tour of his career, the Thai singer-songwriter reflects on the “surreal” nature of being seen as a representative face for his nation. “It is a beautiful thing to see music is truly becoming borderless,” Viphurit says while on tour in Japan. “There’s been a […]

Rae Spoon is not one to take the easy way out. With a past occupied by depression, anxiety, and CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder), the Calgary-born musician marches tirelessly towards life’s lighter offerings. In their tenth full-length album, Mental Health, Spoon leans into the tough stuff with an unflinching frankness and a vital sense of […]

Hovering over your metropolis like a sleek black leviathan, Destroyer is but the latest vehicle of deliverance for Vancouver space rockers Black Mountain. Armed with digitized pop tentacles and pulsating with vintage video game vibes, the time-travelling album harvests riffs and rhythms from across decades and devices. Customarily nonchalant about their earth-quaking creations, founding guitarist/lead […]

It began with an email. Director Mike Mills (Beginners, 20th Century Women), ever the audiophile, slipped into Matt Berninger of The National’s inbox insisting they make a video together. Having wrapped up all the visual assets from the band’s 2017 offering, Sleep Well Beast, Berninger threw a bunch of unreleased songs back at Mills, planting […]

It’s 7am in Taiwan — a very un-rock-and-roll hour unless you’ve been up all night — but the three members of Taiwanese indie rock band Sorry Youth are wide awake, ready to talk about their upcoming visit to Canada.  The band’s drummer Afredred is fluent in English and leads the interview, consulting with his bandmates […]

Perched at a table in a bustling 24-hour bistro, Nite Sun is unassuming at first glance, scrolling through their phone. But, half a grilled chicken panini later, the non-binary Cree-queer-Métis emcee is reminiscing about the first rap they wrote at age 12. “Do you wanna hear it?” asks Nite Sun, traditionally known by their Cree […]