THE PRAIRIES GOT SOMETHING TO SAY
How my hometown inspired
my rap career
THE PRAIRIES GOT SOMETHING TO SAY
April 25, 2021THE PRAIRIES GOT SOMETHING TO SAY
Sound Check
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This First Person column is written by Rollie Pemberton a.k.a Cadence Weapon, a rapper who was born and raised in Edmonton. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
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I often wondered, during countless days trudging through impossibly cold winters on my way to school as a child in Edmonton, why anyone would consciously decide to move to the Prairies.
That same cold weather would later become my secret weapon as a musician. When the temperature would reach –50 C, there wasn’t much you could do outside. Distractions were few and far between.
The resulting isolation provided my artistic friends and I with ample time to hunker down and be creative.
Back then, I would conjure up lyrics as I walked block after block of yawning downtown streets framed by neverending sky. I have the same sensation whenever I return home. As a kid, I felt like a sonic explorer uncovering a previously obscured map, like a character in a roleplaying game.
Sure, it gets pretty cold every now and then. But there’s no other place I’d rather call home.
Lyric Samples
Ramshackle estate, cold rivers
Kind of makes you wish that you got the old figures
Jess drove in bad conditions, just
To get me on the plane
She dodged the auto body husks
She spun on frozen rain
Listen to Conditioning 
by Cadence Weapon
Building A Dynasty
Those frigid childhood walks to school happened long before I learned that my cousins had ancestors who descended from Amber Valley, an unincorporated area north of Edmonton where hundreds of Black immigrants settled in the early 20th century. They came in search of freedom from the racial discrimination they found in Oklahoma. I reference this community on my song Africville’s Revenge .
Lyric Samples
Africville is back
Amber Valley back
Hogan’s Alley back
Back in Black, back in Black
Black is back, Black is back
Afrofuturist, Black urbanist
Black verbalist, Black journalist, revisionist
I resurrect through remembrance
Black communities, stay strong, resilience
Listen to Africville's Revenge by Cadence Weapon
My grandparents immigrated a few decades later from the U.S. Their story is a common one — they came to this part of Canada in search of gainful employment.
