“Doug Ford should listen to my album Parallel World ”: A Q&A with multi-hyphenate Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a. Cadence Weapon

Edmonton-born, Toronto-based multi-hyphenate Rollie Pemberton—better known to many as rapper Cadence Weapon—went to journalism school in Virginia in the early aughts. When he told classmates he was a Canadian rapper, they laughed. At the time, Canada was thought of as a remote dad-rock preserve. Two decades later, the joke’s on them. Pemberton has built a singular career as a critic, memoirist and former poet laureate of Edmonton who makes brainy, city-minded rap records full of socially attuned commentary.

His 2021 album, Parallel World, won the Polaris Music Prize. In 2022, McClelland and Stewart published his memoir, Bedroom Rapper. This week, his latest book, Ways of Listening: Building a Deeper Relationship with Music in the Streaming Era, hits the shelves. We caught up with Pemberton to talk about CanCon streaming culture, his top listening recommendations and, of course, Ontario’s very own: Drake.

Your second book, Ways of Listening, came out today. Give me your elevator pitch.
Ways of Listening is a book of essays tracing the rise of the streaming era—primarily with Spotify and Apple Music—and how those platforms limit personal discovery when it comes to music. It’s about how we can be more intentional about listening to music without the algorithm.

What made you want to explore that? After Bedroom Rapper was published, I got a lot of feedback about how the sections where I talk about different genres resonated with people, and it made me want to get back into pure music journalism. I also wanted to shoehorn music criticism in through moments of active poetry and lyrical flourish. Music can be such a mystical and spiritual experience, and I wanted to experiment with translating those moments for people.

What’s your overall take on the streaming revolution? If you don’t pay for Spotify, the user experience is designed to be painful. You can’t change the song; you can only choose so many songs; you’re subjected to ads. Spotify launched a new version of Wrapped that shows all of the music you’ve ever listened to on the platform. It may seem fun on the surface, but that’s about 10 years of data the company has on its users, which it can use in all sorts of ways. These are things I don’t want to confront when I sit down to listen to some music.

A big part of my book is reminding people how much agency a physical music library and personal archive can bring—you can engage with it in whatever way you want. A record is a direct communion between you and sound. My dad was a DJ, and when I was young, I worked at the HMV in West Edmonton Mall. There are few experiences now where we listen to music actively. Instead, music is pushed further and further into the background, especially on TikTok, where music is reduced to a short soundbite that accompanies a video. We’re losing a lot of magic.

Related: “Musicians like me can no longer afford to tour. Live music won’t survive unless the industry changes”

There was a time when CanCon rules seemed to work as a way to help listeners discover Canadian artists on the radio. Do Canadian artists stand a chance on streaming services? The best thing a streaming platform could do is put up a front page with a bunch of suggested Canadian artists. But I don’t think anyone actually clicks on those. CanCon was very effective in the ’90s, when I was growing up. Alanis Morissette, the Barenaked Ladies, Nelly Furtado and Kardinal Offishall might not have been as big without it.

The challenge now is that Canada’s music system feels split in two. There’s the Canada I see at clubs, community shows and small venues, and then there’s the more manufactured version, where major labels and industry gatekeepers deem who Canadian stars are. It seems like a common Canadian experience to have never heard of a Juno-winning artist. They’re often not suggested to us by streaming services, which have little interest in uplifting CanCon.

In the book, you argue that the creator economy has pushed artists toward being apolitical. How does that work? A lot of musicians today fear what a political stance may mean for their career. Certain topics on social media get blocked or are pointedly less visible. There was a brief moment, around the pandemic and the widespread Black Lives Matter protests, when there was a real boost of social consciousness, but right now, young artists are reluctant to touch the third rail of politics. That doesn’t mean they’re not provocative—inflaming their audience can stir up engagement—but being political can really damage their bottom lines.

Does that hinder the art form? Yes. If you look back at the history of political music in North America, artists like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone and Gil Scott-Heron sacrificed a lot to speak for the voiceless—and it had a noticeable effect. That’s really what being an artist is all about.

Today, artists like Kneecap and Fontaines D.C. are speaking out about Palestine, so it’s not that politically engaged musicians don’t exist. But they feel fewer and farther between. There’s a huge wave of artists who are here today and will be forgotten years or decades later because they didn’t stand for anything during their time in the spotlight.

Drake’s name appears over 100 times in your book. How come? Drake is the reason Toronto and Canada were ever seen as a cool place to make hip hop. Before Drake, being a Canadian rapper was a punchline. Of course we had a rich history of hip hop growing, but it wasn’t until Drake broke through to superstardom that Canadian rap was taken seriously across the globe.

We have an inferiority complex in Canada when it comes to music. Generally, we assume that if a Canadian artist is committed to staying in Canada, they must not be good enough to make it in the States. We don’t think much of our struggling Canadian artists, and our entire media architecture is like a humiliating initiation process. But, then, when Canadian musicians do gain traction in the States, we love them and proudly claim them as our own.

How did his beef with Kendrick Lamar change things? It was the ultimate barbershop argument that went widescreen. I have a whole essay about it in the book, which I adapted from a piece for Hazlitt. Beefs and battles are foundational elements of rap culture, and it was exciting to see these two giants, both of whom many people would call their favourite MC, duke it out in real time. But it got ugly. Reducing pedophilia, domestic violence and homophobia to punchlines for bars was low.

Drake started to lose me when he shifted from this romantic and vulnerable character toward more incel-leaning lyrics. The music he released right before Iceman gives me Andrew Tate vibes. It probably started with the album Her Loss, when he dissed Megan Thee Stallion. It intensified with the album For All the Dogs. Then there was the moment when Drake gave $50,000 to a male fan who was supposed to attend a Drake show with his girlfriend but she dumped him. Something was off with that.

What are your thoughts on the Iceman trilogy rollout? It’s been memorable—and the stakes are high. Drake needed a rollout that could heal his image and break through to listeners. It’s working. He’s been really canny with how he’s leveraged streaming. The night of the album release, I went on TikTok, and he had taken over CP24’s account so that it played music videos from the album before the album officially launched. It was exciting because it was unexpected.

Related: A new lawsuit claims Drake has benefited from billions of fraudulent Spotify streams

So the splashy approach doesn’t bug you? He’s doing what works for him and in a way that only he could pull off. No other artist could drop a triple album. Do I think the music is artful? No. But, as a strategy for regaining cultural relevance, he couldn’t have done any better.

Drake proves to be a great student of human nature. His strength is understanding how people interact with music. He always comes up with lyrics that are tailor-made for an Instagram caption or designed to be integrated into listeners’ lives. The way he goes to city council, sits in the mayor’s office—that’s brilliant. He knows how crucial it is to build a narrative surrounding a record to get people to engage with it.

Where’s the best place to find great music in Toronto? For records, Invisible City. They have tons of 12-inch vinyl, and I’m always surprised. For serious diggers, the Toronto Record Show happens twice a year and will fill your shelves with rare and special songs. In terms of venues, History really has the best acoustics. I played there with Hot Chip, and it was four-dimensional.

You’ve called yourself a human recommendation engine. We’d love to get your personal album recommendations for certain Torontonians. What album would you recommend to Doug Ford? He should listen to my album Parallel World, where I diss him on “Skyline.” He needs to experience citizens’ anger sonically.

What about Raptors power-forward Scottie Barnes? I want to give him a high-energy recommendation to get him ready for the court. He should listen to the new Isaiah Rashad album, It’s Been Awful.

Now, me, a writer you just met. What do you think I’d like? Lana Del Rey, specifically the album Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. I know she’s polarizing, but she’s amazing, and her songs are poetic epics. “Venice Bitch” from Norman Fucking Rockwell is weird and nine minutes long—that seems like it could be up your alley.

Consider Madame Rey in my queue. Last one: with your new book and recent album, Forager, out now, what’s next? Sleep? Downtime is definitely on the horizon, but I’ve been working on another album. I’m also playing Folk on the Rocks in Yellowknife, which will be a nice chance to visit the Northwest Territories. But, mostly, I’m spreading the gospel about Ways of Listening. I’m on a mission to remind people to open their ears and tune into what they genuinely enjoy—not just what’s well-rated.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.