That signature sound from some of music's best hits? Made in Canada
CBC
You know what they say: Behind every chart-topping hitmaker — Drake, The Weeknd, Rihanna or Ariana Grande — is a Canadian record producer.
At least, that's what it feels like ahead of the 2022 Juno Awards, where Canadian talents like Scarborough's WondaGurl is up for Producer of the Year, and Toronto's Mustafa is nominated twice for his album When Smoke Rises. At last year's awards, Fort Erie, Ont.-born Murda Beatz was nominated in the producer category.
These three producers alone have had an outsized impact on pop music around the world. But they aren't yet household names in Canada.
"I feel like coming from a different country in an American industry, you're coming in a couple of steps back," Murda Beatz, also known as Shane Lindstrom, told CBC News.
"So you have to work two times as hard as everyone just to kind of break into that industry."
For many Canadian producers, the fruits of that hard work come in the form of extensive musical catalogues, which they can then sell to publishers — a potentially lucrative payoff compared to the slow trickle of royalties from streaming services over years.
Publishing firms are eager for the rights to some of the most popular songs of the last 10 years, betting that we'll keep listening for a long time to come.
Murda Beatz got his start working with the ultra-popular rap group Migos. But before that, he was making beats in his bedroom at about 16 years old, inspired by his late father's passion for music.
"It's funny because whenever anybody brings up Canadian producers, everyone just thinks that there's something different in the water we're drinking," the 28-year-old producer said.
WATCH | Murda Beatz on his career as a Canadian music producer:
Lindstrom's producing credits are like a Rolodex filled with the biggest names in pop, R&B, hip-hop and rap. He produced the titular track from Ariana Grande's Positions; Drake's hugely popular Nice For What; and songs by Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Chance The Rapper and Lil Wayne.
The producer's 285-song music catalogue, comprising songs written up to 2020, was snatched up by the Toronto-based music publishing firm, Kilometre Music Group (KMG), in January.
"I've built my catalog up to a point where I was very comfortable with it and I did a partial sale," Lindstrom said, adding that he kept a lot of his music and is working on a second catalog.
Canada is in its most prosperous era of popular music culture output, says Rodney Murphy, the president of artists and repertoire/acquisition at KMG.
