Cadence Weapon wins the 2021 Polaris Music Prize
CBC
Cadence Weapon has won the 2021 Polaris Music Prize for his album Parallel World.
The record by the Edmonton-born rapper (real name Rollie Pemberton) was selected by an 11-member jury as the Canadian album of the year, based solely on artistic merit. The announcement was made on Sept. 27 during an online celebration hosted by CBC Music's Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe.
Across its 10 songs and 26 minutes, Parallel World makes distinct references to Black experiences and history in Canada and draws inspiration from a wide range of music, literature and art by Black creators to reflect our "dystopian present."
"It is dark," Pemberton told CBC Music, describing the album. "Have you looked outside lately?" He also explained how Parallel World resulted from a pandemic-induced period of self-reflection:
"During the pandemic, everyone in my life who is not Black [said], 'I'm noticing this stuff for the first time.' [But] I've been living with this shit forever. It felt like I used to be a conspiracy theorist. I [would say], 'I swear that was a microaggression.' Nobody believed me. And then, finally, everyone is seeing what I'm seeing. That made me emboldened to just go harder on this album."
This is Cadence Weapon's first Polaris Music Prize win. He had previously been shortlisted for Breaking Kayfabe (2006) and Hope in Dirt City (2012). There has never been a two-time winner of the prize, which has been awarded annually since 2006.
In addition to $50,000, the Polaris Music Prize brings international recognition to the winner's album.
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and CBC Saskatchewan.
More than 300 patients without housing have gone from Edmonton emergency rooms directly into transitional accommodation since the launch of a unique program in March 2023.
B.C. Ferries says it is replacing its principle model of community feedback, the ferry advisory committee (FAC), which has been the main way the ferry corporation has kept in touch with ferry-reliant communities for over three decades.
The inquest for six inmates at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre heard Tuesday that five of the men died overnight, one of several commonalities noted in testimony by a corrections consultant.
"Our bodies lie, but still we roam" is written on a wooden cross paying tribute to Paul Gilbert and Donna Whyte — the Windsor couple who were fatally hit by a vehicle on Walker Road last week.
In three years, the number of people who are homeless in Waterloo region has doubled a new report says.
P.E.I.'s minister of fisheries says the Maritime oyster industry has sustained another blow after evidence of a new disease was recently found in oysters from Spence Cove, about five kilometres west of the Confederation Bridge in New Brunswick.
WARNING: This story contains distressing details.
Canadian political leaders can't control the fact that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. Neither can they stop him from threatening to take illogical steps that could hurt American businesses and consumers almost as much as they would hurt Canadians.
A First Nation in southern Alberta is suing the federal government for $1 billion, the latest in a series of lawsuits which argue that annual payments promised in treaties should have been adjusted for inflation.
The oilpatch is reacting to Donald Trump's threats to impose a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods with a mix of concern and skepticism.