Maestro Fresh Wes reflects on his journey to becoming the godfather of Canadian hip-hop
The Canadian rapper looks back on his early days as Melody MC and why he reinvented himself
This month marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, and you can't begin to talk about that history without talking about Maestro Fresh Wes.
Dubbed the godfather of Canadian hip-hop, Maestro became widely known in 1989 for his debut single, Let Your Backbone Slide, which was a game-changer for Canadian music.
"You got to understand, I'm the first Black artist in Canada — not first rap artist, the first Black artist in Canada to ever go platinum," Maestro says in an interview with Q's Tom Power.
"A lot of people gave me love, [but] a lot of people didn't know how to give love because [hip-hop was] a new genre of music. There's a lot of misconceptions, like I came out of nowhere, but all the MCs around my time, they knew I paid my dues."
While Let Your Backbone Slide was Maestro's big breakthrough hit, his rise began much earlier in 1982, when he was just a teenager in Toronto's Scarborough neighbourhood performing by the name of Melody MC.
"That was my rap name back in the day," Maestro tells Power. "That's why a lot of people mix up my timelines, Tom. They think I came out in the late '80s or they try to make me a '90s rapper. Meanwhile, I've been doing this for a minute and I was well-received and well-known in Toronto under the moniker of Melody MC."
WATCH | Maestro Fresh Wes in conversation with Tom Power:
When he was 15, Maestro was a guest on Ron Nelson's program Fantastic Voyage, which many believe to have been Canada's first hip-hop radio show.
"When I was on Fantastic Voyage, just to hear Ron Nelson say, 'Yo, that's Melody MC. He's 15 and damn, he's good.' After I heard that, I was like, 'OK, I could do this.' Everybody was tuning in…. Imagine going to school on Monday morning and your teachers say, 'Yo, we heard you on the radio man. That was dope!'"
But just five years later at age 20, Maestro remembers people saying he was already washed up.
"I'll be honest with you, man, 1987 was the first time I was ever called old," he recalls. "'You old. You old school man. You old. You finished.' Not 1997 — 1987 was the first time people started calling me old.
"They knew they were listening to me from '82, '83. And it was a changing of the guard. It's no longer just how cool you are opening up for U.S. acts who come to Toronto, or making your cute little demo tapes or cassettes — the next wave was actually putting out vinyl, getting a record deal, and that's where it was."
WATCH | Official video for Let Your Backbone Slide:
In 1988, the Canadian rapper changed his name from Melody MC to Maestro Fresh Wes (originally spelled Maestro Fresh-Wes).
"I had to reinvent myself," says Maestro. "So that's why I came with the black tuxedo, the [new name] … and then the rest is history right there."
The full interview with Maestro Fresh Wes is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Maestro Fresh Wes produced by Lise Hosein.
For more stories about the 50th anniversary of hip-hop — including Tom Power's conversations with some of the artists who witnessed and shaped the genre — check out Hip-Hop at 50 here.
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