Americans Don't Want You to Win

Saukrates talked to CBC, and this is what they wrote:

Canadian rappers have learned that the last hurdle to breaking into hip hop’s major leagues, landing an American deal, is just one step: and a long leap shy of becoming a foreign priority. When it comes to the question of which artist to push next, America always finds a reason to back one of its own.

“You know what my boys in Brooklyn tell me? ‘Americans don’t want you to win,’” says Saukrates, the Toronto MC and producer who, along with long-time friend Kardinal Offishall, leads Can-hop’s latest crop of ace MCs. “And they don’t. A lot of the artists will suck up all the energy at their labels because they don’t want nobody to come and take their position, especially not a Canadian who can do it better than them. You gotta fight for your shine.”

And then there’s the other problem facing our homegrown rap heroes: Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans is true. Too many U.S. labels assume this country is carpeted with ice rinks and igloos. Their urban artist-and-repertoire execs are known for signing hard-luck ghetto stories hand over fist – provided that the ghettos in question are located somewhere inside the United States.

Authenticity is the beating heart of hip-hop culture (even though most fans know that most MCs are fibbing), and Canadian artists typically find it close to impossible to export theirs to America. While the U.S. rap machine allows a middling rapper like the Game (Dre’s latest protégé, whose major-label debut just moved 587,000 U.S. copies in its first week of release) to tell and sell tall tales about thug life, it assumes that any Canuck talking tough must be lying – and is therefore useless.

Just another reason to be on the grind all the time!