Canada Post honors groundbreaking Canadian hip-hop artists with Jan. 28 issue

By David Hartwig

Canada Post continued its Black History Month series Jan. 28 with a set of three Hip-Hop in Canada stamps honoring the groundbreaking Canadian hip-hop artists Maestro Fresh Wes, Michie Mee and Muzion.

Hip-hop took root in Canada in the 1980s, shaped by United States influences but driven by local voices responding to race, language, and place. From Toronto to Montreal, Canadian artists built scenes that reflected the country’s Black communities, producing performers who helped define the genre nationally while earning recognition beyond its borders.

Each of the three stamps in the Jan. 28 issue has a “P” inside a symbolic maple leaf, indicating that it pays the permanent rate (currently $1.24).

The stamp designs show metallic silver and black duotone portraits of the artists with their names written in varied type sizes. The stamps were printed with layered matte and gloss varnishes as well as fluorescent inks that glow under black light.

Canada Post says these printing elements “evoke the bold, nostalgic aesthetic of the late 1980s and early 1990s.”

Maestro Fresh Wes (born Wesley Williams, 1968) is widely regarded as the godfather of Canadian hip-hop. With his 1989 debut album Symphony in Effect, Maestro became the first Canadian MC (rapper) to break into the mainstream.

The album’s lead single, “Let Your Backbone Slide,” made history as the first Canadian rap song to go gold, while the album itself went platinum, another first for a Canadian hip-hop artist. In 1991, the JUNO Awards (Canada’s music awards) introduced a new category, Best Rap Recording, and Symphony in Effect won the inaugural honor.

Over a career spanning more than three decades, Maestro released nine studio albums and expanded his work into writing, acting and motivational speaking. In 2024, his influence was formally recognized with induction into the Canadian music hall of fame and the Governor General’s performing arts award for lifetime artistic achievement, along with an honorary doctorate from St. Francis Xavier University for his community engagement.

Michie Mee (born Michelle McCullock, 1970) emerged in the late 1980s as Canada’s first hip-hop superstar and remains one of its most boundary-pushing figures. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Toronto, she was among the first Canadian artists to incorporate the Jamaican Patois language into her rhymes.

Her 1987 debut single, “Elements of Style,” became an immediate hit, and in 1988 she made history again as the first Canadian MC to sign with a major U.S. label. Her 1991 debut album, Jamaican Funk — Canadian Style, blended rap with dancehall and reggae, helping define her genre-crossing approach.

In the 1990s, she joined the band Raggadeath, which fused heavy metal and reggae, and she has continued recording into the 21st century, addressing personal and professional challenges in her later work. She is often described as the godmother of Canadian rap.

From Montreal, the trio Muzion brought a distinct, multilingual voice to Canadian hip-hop. Formed in 1996 by MCs J.Kyll (Jenny Salgado), Imposs (Stanley Salgado), and Dramatik (Jocelyn Bruno), all born to Haitian parents, the group layered French, English and Haitian Creole over sounds influenced by East Coast hip-hop, French rap and soul.

Their albums Mentalite moune morne… (Ils n’ont pas compris) (1999) and J’revolutionne (2002) earned multiple honors, including Felix awards (Quebec music awards) for hip-hop album of the year. Their best-known song, “La vi ti neg,” won a Canadian urban music award in 2004.

Beyond music, Muzion’s work helped assert the place of Haitians and other marginalized communities within Quebec and Canadian culture.

Lowe-Martin printed the stamps in a quantity of 130,000 booklets of six by lithography in 5 colors, matte aqueous and gloss varnish.

The stamps were designed by Noel Nanton and Nadia Molinari of typotherapy, a Toronto graphic design studio.

Nanton and Molinari also designed the first-day covers for this issue (one for each stamp). Each FDC was produced in a quantity of 6,000.

The FDCs were canceled in the locations where the careers began for all the stamp subjects: Toronto for Maestro Fresh Wes and Michie Mee, and Montreal for Muzion.

The ordering number for the booklet is 414308111, and the ordering numbers for the FDCs are 414308131 (Maestro Fresh Wes), 414309131 (Michie Mee) and 414310131 (Muzion).

At the time of publication, customers in the United States cannot purchase these or other products from Canada Post due to U.S. Customs changes.

For those outside of the United States, the new Hip-Hop stamps and FDCs are available from Canada Post at www.canadapost.ca/shop, and by mail order from Canada Post Customer Service, Box 90022, 2701 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, ON K1V 1J8 Canada; or by telephone from Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.

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