90s Underground Hip Hop from Canada (feat. Choclair, Mathematik, Citizen Kane, Rascalz, Thrust...)

1. Ubad - The Legacy 0:00
2. Choclair - Twenty One Years 4:03
3. Mathematik - Everyday Movements 8:15
4. Citizen Kane - Blackrain 12:00
5. Rascalz - Soul Obligation 15:42
6. Thrust - Emcee 20:08
7. Thrust - Emcee (Part 2) 23:36
8. Da Grassroots - Drama (feat. Elemental) 28:41
9. Sic Sense - Positional Bypass 31:48
10. Sic Sense - Onemantality 35:20
11. Concrete Mob - Casino 41:13
12. Brass Tacks - Hidden In Sight 44:33
13. Branded Black - Props 48:18
14. Down to Erf - Learn To Earn 52:16
15. Dream Warriors - California Dreamin 55:41
16. Ghetto Concept - E-Z on the Motion 1:00:43
17. Kardinal Offishall - UR Ghetto 1:04:40
18. Maestro Fresh Wes - Pushin Wigs Back 1:09:02
19. Saukrates - Father time 1:12:30
20. Scales Empire - Bright Lights, Big City 1:16:35
21. Frankenstein - Strangers To The Eye 1:20:34
22. Diemen X - chosen are few 1:24:24
23. Redlife Who´s Talkin´ Weight (Remix) 1:27:07
24. Crooks Of Da Round Table - Passionate Stare 1:30:48

The Canadian hip hop scene was established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much slower than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground phenomenon until the early 2000s.

Canada's multicultural and multilingual fabric has given rise to various subgenres, including Indigenous, French, and Punjabi Canadian hip hop. Also notable is the influence of Caribbean rhythms in creating a sound unique to Toronto.

In the early 1990s, Canadian hip hop artists like Maestro Fresh-Wes, Main Source, and Dream Warriors were popular in the underground hip hop scene. In 1998, the collaborative single "Northern Touch" brought hip hop back into the Canadian mainstream. Since the 2000's, Canadian hip hop saw a rise to mainstream success led by Drake, and to a lesser extent Kardinal Offishall, Tory Lanez, and Nav.

Artists such as B-Kool, Devon, Maestro Fresh-Wes and Dream Warriors did briefly manage to break into the mainstream in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1989, Maestro's first single, "Let Your Backbone Slide", was the first Canadian hip-hop single to break into the national Top 40, and the first to make the Billboard charts in the United States. It remained the bestselling Canadian hip hop single of all time until 2008. Other notable rap singles of this era include Maestro's "Drop the Needle", Devon's "Mr. Metro", Dream Warriors' "My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style" and "Wash Your Face in My Sink", Ground Control's "Another Dope Jam", MCJ and Cool G's "No Sex With My Sister" and "So Listen", and Kish's "I Rhyme the World in 80 Days".

The group Get Loose Crew created their own independent hip-hop label, East Park Productions, in 1987 and are credited as generating visibility in and beyond Canada. Signing a distribution deal with Electric Distribution, they brought about the first Canadian rap group to record and release an authentic Hip-Hop mini-album distributed and sold internationally.

In 1988, Michie Mee became the first Canadian rapper to sign a deal with a US record label. This action did not result in significant chart success for her. She has asserted in interviews that the reggae influences on her 1991 debut album Jamaican Funk—Canadian Style were met with resistance from US label executives and radio programmers.

The Toronto/New York-based hip-hop group Main Source released their classic debut album Breaking Atoms in 1991, which featured the debut of a young Nas before his rise in popularity. Rap also began to surface in Canadian mainstream pop in the early 1990s, with rapper Frankie Fudge performing a rap break in Celine Dion's 1990 single "Unison" and female R&B duo Love and Sas rapping in their 1991 single "I Don't Need Yo' Kiss".

An important influence for the development of hip hop in Toronto was Ron Nelson and his Fantastic Voyage radio show which aired Saturday afternoons on CKLN-FM from 1983 to 1991. Fantastic Voyage was the first exposure many youths had to the hip hop genre and provided the first airplay for many Toronto artists including Maestro Fresh Wes, Michie Mee, Rumble & Strong, Get Loose Crew, Simply Majestic and the Dream Warriors. Nelson was also an early hip hop concert promoter, organizing the first major hip hop concert in Canada at Varsity Stadium in 1987 featuring Run DMC, Public Enemy and EPMD, and provided exposure for local artists at venues such as the Concert Hall, the Spectrum, and the Party Centre. In addition, Nelson helped set up events in Toronto that drew in well-known US hip hop acts, such as Big Daddy Kane and Run DMC.