KARDINAL
OFFISHALL
legitimate businesses to where we were selling thousands and thousands of pieces of vinyl in Japan and the U . K . and America and so forth . And that ’ s really what gave us all our global start outside of the country ,” he remembers . “ It was fun because we didn ’ t come from a time where people are like , ‘ Yeah , put me on ’ or there wasn ’ t a whole lot of MCs that were signing other MCs . And I ’ m not taking a knock at it , because obviously part of my story is that I signed with Akon later on in my career , but it just gave us a whole different way of viewing the industry . It also put the power back in our own laps at that time . Our success rate basically depended on how hard we worked .”
Listening to Offishall tell his story , what ’ s maybe most impressive ( or surprising ) to me is the sheer confidence he and his crew had , at least in his telling of it . Though it ’ s changed in the 2000s as Canadian artists have found worldwide success across most genres , really establishing a fresh confidence that there is nothing less-than about Canadian music , we all know that wasn ’ t always the case . Canadians ’ cultural inferiority complex , the assumption that the Canadian version must be inferior to the American version , was previously accepted as an established fact in our entertainment industries .
“ At the time that I went down [ to the U . S .], we might have been delusional . I say that because I didn ’ t do it on my own . Think about it like this ; we were smack dab in the middle of high school and Saukrates gets signed to Warner Brothers in America ,” he says , explaining the years leading up to his own major label deal with MCA Records . That said , Saukrates got signed to Warner in 1996 and was dropped in 1998 before releasing his influential debut , The Underground Tapes , on his own Canada-based label , Capitol Hill . That indie label also released Offishall ’ s debut , Eye & I , in 1997 . But he continues : “ Choclair gets a deal up here with Virgin but then , basically , he was also on Priority Records in the U . S . So , as an up-andcoming MC and somebody who was , you know , second or third tier within the crew , I got to witness that happen before I got my deal .”
Also interesting in retrospect is how overt Offishall was in fronting for Toronto . His breakout hit single , “ BaKardi Slang ” off of his acclaimed major label debut , Quest for Fire : Firestarter , Vol . 1 ., is all about Toronto slang and popularized calling the city “ the T-dot .” Fifteen years before Drake sang of “ runnin ’ through The Six ” ( and changed Toronto ’ s nickname once more ), Offishall had the first ever Canadian rap song in the Billboard 100 , and it was explicitly about Toronto .
As he sees it though , there wasn ’ t anything unique about it . He was repping his hometown , same as NWA did for Compton , Too Short did for the Bay Area , KRS-One did for the South Bronx , and so on .
“ I just think at that time , where my mind was , I didn ’ t care what anybody else had to think . I was like , “ Yo , you ’ re gonna love my city , and you ’ re gonna respect us , and you ’ re gonna scream this stuff out the same way that you scream out other cities and other countries and whatever else .’ That was my dream . I was like , “ What I want is for Toronto to be looked at in a certain type of way and on the same level ,’ and it was at that time ,” he says . “ That was the first time that we saw it , and it was dope to be around at that time to see the videos be played on BET and MTV , at a time when those were still a thing . It was an incredible time .”
Canadian hip-hop fans under 30 may not know or appreciate the importance of Quest for Fire : Firestarter , Vol . 1 , but its international success really marked the beginning of a new era in this country ’ s music industry . The album , which included the singles “ Money Jane ” and “ Ol ’ Time Killin ’” in addition to “ BaKardi Slang ,” was also co-produced by Offishall himself and introduced a uniquely multinational sound to rap , with Offishall ’ s Jamaican roots clearly incorporated .
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KARDI WATCHING HIS TEENAGE SELF WHILE ON GEORGE STROUMBOULOPOULOS TONIGHT
But it ’ s not just the commercial success of Firestarter , Vol . 1 that remains important , but it was the respect it garnered . Offishall remembers being introduced to Lil ’ Wayne in 2006 . At that time , the diminutive rapper was at the height of his powers , having just released the first two volumes of the now-classic Tha Carter tribology . “ He was such a dope guy and I remember he rapped my verse to me when I met him . I was like , What the …? That was bananas ,” Offishall recalls . A couple years later , Lil ’ Wayne and Pusha T featured on Offishall ’ s song “ Swag .”
Unfortunately , the next couple years showed the convoluted and frustrating nature of the record label business . His high-anticipated follow-up album , Firestarter , Vol . 2 : The F-Word Theory , got derailed when MCA was absorbed by Geffen Records . The album was preceded by the Neptunes-produced single , “ Belly Dancer ,” featuring Pharrell Williams , but then got shelved . As a result , 2005 ’ s Fire and Glory was only released in Canada via EMI / Virgin Records .
It wasn ’ t until 2008 ’ s Not 4 Sale that Offishall returned to the American market thanks to a deal with R & B singer Akon ’ s own label , Kon Live , and Geffen Records . The album entered the Billboard charts at number 40 , and most importantly featured Offishall ’ s most famous song , “ Dangerous .” A dozen years later , that song sprung back into pop culture in a way that couldn ’ t be predicted in 2008 — via TikTok virality .
“ These kids that are saying to their parents , ‘ Oh my god , this is my new favourite song !’ and their parents are laugh-
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