“My history is not viewed
on a pedestal”
—Haviah Mighty, “Thirteen”
—Haviah Mighty, “Thirteen”
In the previous 13 years of
the Polaris Music Prize, a rap record has never taken the top prize. It almost
happened at least three times before, to the best of my knowledge. (I’m not
allowed to tell you when.) In the year 2019, Haviah Mighty brought one home. Her
record is called 13th Floor. It’s about subjects people prefer to
avoid, about historical omissions. It broke a 13-year curse.
The first time I saw Haviah
Mighty perform, at the Hillside Festival earlier this summer, she was so
compelling on so many fronts—as a rapper, a singer, a wordsmith, a performer—I thought I was watching the second coming of Lauryn Hill. So it wasn’t at all
surprising that 20 years after Hill made history with the first rap record to
ever win Album of the Year at the Grammys, that Haviah Mighty would break the
glass ceiling at Polaris.
“I work / All the fucking
time,” proclaimed fellow shortlister Marie Davidson on stage earlier that
evening. But watching Haviah Mighty take the stage, it was clear who was going
to work their ass off that night to give the performance of a lifetime, a
five-song medley of tracks from 13th Floor. The Fanshawe
College grad roamed the stage like it was the Scotiabank Arena. She had
choreography, dancers, and a guest turn from her sister, Omega. Another sister
played jazzy piano in the band—apparently the first time Mighty had ever
performed her music with live musicians before. Opening her medley with “Thirteen,”
which packs the punch of a Malcolm X speech in the space of a few verses, she
echoed Kendrick Lamar’s “Blacker the Berry” at his legendary 2016 Grammy
performance. (This being Polaris, she didn’t have access to costumes, black
light, dozens of dancers, or a large bonfire as a backdrop. But she didn't need them.) This was a
performance by a woman who was not going to be ignored, as she rapped: “I’m
darker than my friends … I gotta do four times more to get two times less.”
Work it, she did.
My money for the prize was
actually on Snotty Nose Rez Kids, an Indigenous rap duo from Kitimaat, B.C., who
would also have been the first Western Canadian winners (hopefully that’s
rectified sooner than later—have you heard that new Begonia record?). Haviah Mighty was my second bet. I thought a rap record would win either way. But it’s
incredibly important that the first rap Polaris went to a black woman from the
Greater Toronto Area. After all—as Maestro and Chuck D and countless other will
tell you—the story of Canadian hip-hop begins with Michie Mee, from Toronto’s West
End, who cut her first single 32 years ago.
Much respect to Shad, who was
shortlisted this year and is also the host of HBO/Netflix show Hip-Hop
Evolution (season three just launched). He has a record four appearances on a
Polaris shortlist—all more than well deserved, but it also speaks to the
shallow pool from which Polaris often draws its shortlists.
Kaytranada won the Polaris in
2016, for a mostly instrumental album heavily informed by hip-hop. That was a
huge breakthrough. But until the Rez Kids, there were only three other rap
artists to shortlist more than once: Drake (3x), K’naan (2x) and Cadence Weapon
(2x). That’s four artists whose work comprises most of Polaris’s rap history. The
only other rap acts to ever shortlist were bilingual Acadian crew Radio Radio—which
was a head-scratcher for most hip-hop fans—and, uh, Ghostface Killah, for his
collaboration with BadBadNotGood.
On top of that, the only
other black women to ever be shortlisted are Cold Specks (2012) and Zaki
Ibrahim (2013). With Dominique Fils-Aimé also on this year’s shortlist, it was
the first year two black women were on a Polaris stage. (It should be noted
that Arcade Fire’s Régine Chassagne, like Fils-Aimé and Kaytranada, is
Haitian-Canadian; her band has won once and been shortlisted two other times.)
All that adds up to Haviah
Mighty’s win being a big breath of fresh air.
Her win is being widely
recognized for the breakthrough it is, but usually only as a throwaway line in a
news item. She won! Kendrick might have a Pulitzer, but has never won the Grammy for Album of the Year; neither has Beyoncé; that Grammy hasn't gone to a rap act since Outkast—a whopping 15 years ago.
The Polaris Prize itself is still a curiosity for much of Canadian
media, despite the fact that its jury is populated with music critics. Editors don’t
place much stock in the prize, hence Polaris articles don't get green-lit. Other than media sponsor CBC Music, this year’s
pre-Polaris coverage elsewhere amounted to crickets. Perhaps not that
surprising: other than Jessie Reyez and maybe Shad, there were no names that would
register for anyone but diehard music fans. I’ve long lamented that the
Polaris doesn’t get the same amount of coverage as the literary Giller Prize—another juried
prize where the shortlisted titles are often unknown to larger audiences—which speaks
to the marginalization of serious music coverage in this country.
At the gala I was talking to a
peer slightly older than I am, who started out in Toronto campus radio in 1985;
as a huge champion of homegrown hip-hop from almost day one, he was visibly
moved by Mighty’s win. But he’s no longer a writer. So when someone like Haviah
Mighty takes home the prize, and makes history doing so, what does it say about
Canadian media that no one bothered to put the win in context? The best we could do was this piece by Brad Wheeler in the Globe and Mail, which at least went slightly deeper than a line or two. Am I missing anything?
Who called
Michie Mee for a quote? Who called Zaki Ibrahim? Nana McLean? Lillian Allen? Sate, the daughter of Salome Bey? How about Ron Nelson—can we
assume anyone in a position of power even knows who Ron Nelson is? (Shout out
to Del Cowie, who’s currently writing a long-overdue history of Toronto hip-hop
for ECW Press.) Furthermore, did anyone even notice in 2016 when The Weeknd became
the first non-white artist ever to win Album of the Year at the Junos?
I’ve always known I live in a
country with terrible cultural amnesia, a country where art made by
marginalized communities has been historically ignored. I’ve been complicit,
tacitly and otherwise. I’m excited a new generation of artists is changing the game.
But is Canadian media even close to catching up? Or does everyone think just a
few tweets and a pat on the back will suffice? Is that the future of cultural history
in this country?
While I have your attention,
Haviah Mighty is rejoining her group The Sorority for
dates in B.C. and Ontario with Snotty Nose Rez Kids this November. That
will be one for the history books. See you there.
“Man, we have so much work
to do.” —Haviah Mighty, “Thirteen”