Certified Fresh: Canada's Classified Shows You The Other Side Of 'The Great White North'

The Canadian Hip-Hop scene is deeper than Drake. It’s deeper than Kardinal. It’s so deep, it’s Classified.

Despite ten years in the game, the rapper out of Nova Scotia has had a name that rung bells throughout our neighbors to the north for a longtime. Now signed to Universal Canada, the rapper has moved more units in his hometown than a lot of your favorite rappers. He’s racked up numerous JUNO Awards and nominations and has become a fixture in the Hip-Hop scene up top.

He’s ready to make his splash in the states.

This week’s Certified Fresh takes a look at artist/producer, Classified.

Who: Classified is a rapper/producer out of Nova Scotia, Canada He is one of Canada’s top alternative hip hop artists with over 100,000 albums sold in ‘The Great White North” and a multi-time JUNO and MMVA award nominee and winner.

Fun Fact: Although he isn’t as known in the United States, he has collaborated with some of the biggest artist in the United States. He has released several albums independently which has all led to touring with Nas, Wu-Tang, Busta Rhymes, and more during his decade long career. “The first tour I did overseas was with Royce Da 5’9″ and D-12. These are guys’ music that I grew up listening to,” said Classified. “This was huge cause, coming all the way from where I’m from it set up a space for me to do my own tours. It was kind of eye-opening, especially living with them on the bus.”

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Credentials: With about ten years in the game, Classified has had just as much success behind the boards as he has had on the mic. His tenth album, Boy-Cott The Industry was a high point in his career, sporting appearance from Trent James, Royce Da 5’9″, Jay Bizzy, J-Bru, A-Wall, Spesh K, and Mic Boyd. The album reached #46 on SoundScan’s Canadian R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart. His video for “No Mistakes off of said album also took home a coveted Much Music Video Award for the MuchVibe Best Rap Video in 2006. In early 2010, Classified received three Juno Award nominations, which was for Rap Recording of the Year, Single of the Year, and Video of the Year.^[9] In early 2011, “Oh…Canada,” which went Platinum in Canada, received a Juno nomination for “Single of the Year”.

Hip-Hop Wired: You’ve gotten a lot of success independently, even though you’ve gone the major label route. Whats the best advice you can give somebody trying to follow your pattern?

Classified: The best thing I can tell them is to get out there and get on the road. There are a million independent acts out there that are doing it and are successful. I think the thing that separate the millions of guys you see on Twitter and on the internet are the ones that actually perform live. Just work on your live show and make sure you meet people face to face, there is still a lot of value in that. Just get out there and meet the people.

Hip-Hop Wired: What can we expect from your upcoming project?

Classified: I’m proud of the whole thing. It’s basically thirteen tracks with no interludes or nothing like that. It was me in the studio for seven months producing my own beats and writing the rhymes on there. I got a joint on there with Kardinal Offishall. Also have a joint with Kuniva from D-12 and Raekwon that i’m excited about. It’s my first ever self-titled album so I’m very excited about that and it’ll be out January 29th.

Hip-Hop Wired: It seems like a lot of the Canadian music scene all run in the same circles, like it is very tight knit. Is that a safe assumption?

Classified: Kind of. It’s moreso even in Toronto scene, there’s the east coast scene and the west coast scene. I feel like I known or worked with anybody who tried to do something on teh east coast. At the same time, guys like in Toronto guys like Drake, 40, Boi-1da they all work together. It’s more kind of broke up that way, but at the same time there is only so many rappers going out to the Juno Awards which are like the Canadian Grammys. So I’ll go there and I’ll see a Drake or Kardinal, maybe a Maestro Fresh, so it’s still a small circle that way, only because so few of us have really blown up on that national level.

The Essentials:
“Oh Canada”