Everything you missed at the 2024 Juno Awards opening night

The 2024 Juno Opening Night Awards was a celebratory evening filled with incredible music and great speeches. In total, 42 awards were given out on Saturday night, including big wins for Aysanabee, Tate McRae, the Beaches and New West. There were also performances by Jah'Mila, Lili-Ann De Francesco and Begonia. Below, CBC Music breaks down everything you missed, from the unforgettable acceptance speeches to exclusive backstage moments. 

Dancer Sarah Prosper and her brother, drummer Aaron Prosper, both from Eskasoni First Nation, opened the gala with a beautiful welcome to Mi'kma'ki. Local artists continued to take over the stage after the Prospers' land acknowledgement and welcome, as 2024 Juno nominees Jah'Mila and Morgan Toney joined forces with rappers Wolf Castle and Owen O'Sound Lee and fiddler Wendy MacIsaac for a heartwarming version of Jah'Mila's song "East Coast Family."

Tobi won a Juno early on in the evening, for rap single of the year for "Someone I Knew." His speech was short, and inspirational: "Last but not least, I want to give a big shoutout to all rap artists in Canada, because hip-hop in Canada — we're going to keep it moving, we're going to keep taking it to higher heights."

Tobi later picked up a second Juno for rap album/EP of the year — his fourth ever — and seamlessly continued his speech: "We made this album with a lot of love for humanity, and for the marginalized people of the world. I want to say thank you to my producer, Alex Goose, and I actually want to dedicate this award to his father, who transitioned while we were making the album." He ended on an optimistic message for the marginalized: "As we liberate the least of us, we liberate all of us. So we gotta keep that in mind. Thank you so much, love."

Later on in the media room, Tobi reflected on rap in Canada today: "I think more rappers in Canada should be celebrated, personally…. The genre of rap has always carried this stigma to it, but I think it's one of the most important art forms as poetry in motion. I would even compare it to being a sculptor, or an architect." 

Bambii won electronic album of the year and had a pointed message for the mainstream Canadian music industry:

"I need to say first of all that Toronto's underground is so special, I've been all around the world and there's nothing that compares to my city, the real city. Queer, Caribbean immigrants, there's so many women making music that you don't know about, you need to know about them … the Canadian music industry needs the future, you need to do your research." 

In the media room, Bambii expanded on her acceptance speech, which she said was cut short, explaining how second-generation Caribbean people, young people and queer people have inspired her sound. "They're in my music," she said, "their stories are in my music." When asked about her thoughts on the progress of inclusivity in the electronic music scene, she was honest about the lack of it. "We're fixated on representation, but not very critical of it," she pointed out. "We're celebrating progress a little bit too early. We're not there yet." 

Orchestre classique de Montréal, conducted by Jacques Lacombe, won its first Juno Award this year after 85 years in existence, winning for Maxime Goulet: Symphonie de la tempete de verglas in the classical album of the year (large ensemble) category.

Backstage, Jah'Mila discussed her star-studded performance, confidently telling reporters, "I think we killed it!" Nominated for reggae recording of the year, she reflected on the future of the genre, saying, "It's alive here in Canada and it will continue to be alive thanks to artists like Omega Mighty, Ammoye, Exco Levi." 

She also teased a track on her upcoming album with 15-year-old former Juno winner Kairo McLean, her father, Earl Smith, and Sly of Sly & Robbie. "The concept is to bring the future of reggae, with someone like Kairo, who has an incredibly strong voice, with the roots, the people who made this music and put it on the map," she explains. 

Feist walked onstage to introduce the recipient of the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award: Halifax lawyer Chip Sutherland. "I swear every word of this is true," she began. "I think those of us who have had a chance to sit across the table from Chip Sutherland would have this in common: that whenever the power of his singular attention is pointed in your direction, it can't help but empower you to feel that your career is in fact yours. A thing that can happen when you have any amount of success, is that there'll likely be plenty of people willing to plan for that success. But not many would be as willing to make a plan with you at the centre of it, and with your stability and happiness as the metric of that success."

"When Chip and I first met, I was a 20-something, living gig to gig, who couldn't pay her rent, trying to make a new life in France with a record deal in a language I couldn't even speak," she continued. "And one of the first positive disruptions he made in my thinking, was to say, 'Yeah, it's gonna be hard, but your 40-year-old self is going to thank you. And you're working for her, not for the music business.' And that was a paradigm shift, right? He put a young musician in conversation with her own possible future, a place I hadn't even considered."

Aysanabee won his first-ever Juno Award for songwriter of the year. Presenter, Vancouver singer-songwriter Lauren Spencer Smith, mispronounced Aysanabee's name, to which he responded: "That's a new one." He opened his speech by telling the room, "I grew up in a trailer in Northern Ontario, without running water and electricity, and now I'm here." While he wrote out an entire speech, he noted that the given time limit wouldn't allow him to read it out in full: "I don't have time so you don't get it." He was able to thank Ishkōdé Records' ShoShona Kish and Amanda Rheaume and producer Hill Kourkoutis, whom he says "helped tell my grandfather's story" on his 2022 debut album, Watin. 

He later also won alternative album of the year, and was able to continue his speech: "One thing I want to recognize is that this is the most Indigenous artists that have ever been nominated, so if you guys can just stand up and be seen. It was Indigenous women who opened the door for me, so I'm going to try and take those hinges off and bring you all with me. So thank you so much, miigwech."

After watching plenty of artists get played off the stage all night, Joel Wood, winner of the Juno for traditional Indigenous artist or group, had a succinct speech: "I don't have a speech, I just came for the food."

While Shawn Everett was in the media room after winning his first Juno of the evening for producer of the year, his attention was drawn to the TV in the room as he was announced as the winner of a second Juno — this time for recording engineer of the year. "This is a surreal moment for me," he said, laughing with the room, as he watched gala host Damhnait Doyle make fun of him for not showing up to receive his award. 

Everett was later able to go onstage and accept his second award in real time. "It's cool to win this award twice in one evening," he said, laughing. 

Begonia gave a stunning performance for the gala's In Memoriam segment, where she sang her track "Butterfly." "It's my most reflective song on life," she later said in the media room. "Whenever I sing it, I see my life flash before my eyes." 

Elisapie also won her first Juno under her own name tonight, for her 2023 album Inuktitut. "I dedicate this album to my uncles, to my family in Salluit, Nunavik," she said in her acceptance speech. "Inuktitut, the album, is not just a cover album, it tells a story of three decades in such a short, short, short time. We were nomads, and we had to settle into communities, and I think music was very important … I'm not just an artist — actually, artist in Inuktitut doesn't even have a name, because we're all creators, we're all meant to be free."

"I was really voting for Aysanabee, Shawnee Kish, these really amazing artists ," Elisapie later said in the media room. "I was just really happy to be there. I'm in a good place where my art is in the right place. Maybe also my confidence as an artist. I was ready to go up just to acknowledge and celebrate the people before me, that's what I want to do now, take all these people, my uncles, take all these people with me."

'I do believe art can shift and shape culture'

"Am I going to be the first tears of the night?" asked Feist in a quick speech after winning adult alternative album of the year. She thanked her collaborators and fans who came out to the early shows, where the concept of her Juno-winning album Multitudes, came to fruition. She later joked in the media Q&A that "there's been a lack of tears tonight so it was feeling kind of dry" and that it "needed tears to juice it all up." 

Dominique Fils-Aimé, who won vocal jazz album of the year for Our Roots Run Deep, had some fitting followup thoughts about being an artist: "I do believe art can shift and shape culture. And as we come together tonight, and the world is quite divided, I would like to invite you to choose, as a purpose and as an intention in your art, to unite and share love, because we need more of it."

Allison Russell accepted the Juno Award for Ethan Tobman, who won for directing Russell's music video for her song "Demons." "I am obviously not the visual genius filmmaker that Ethan Tobman is," she began. "I'm accepting this on his behalf because he was slumming it with me and he is currently doing some incredible work for Taylor Swift as we speak. So I am so proud of my brother Ethan, and I want to just give a shoutout to all the '90s kids, growing up in Canada, learning about experimental filmmaking from MuchMusic. And Ethan talks about that a lot in what he does, so it was a joy — cross-pollination, cross-collaboration, he's my birthday twin, he's a fellow Montréalais, and I'm so proud of him, and I'm proud to be an actor in his movie. I love you Ethan, congratulations, this is for you! We'll mail it!"

Host Nelly Furtado is bringing the party to the 2024 Juno Awards on Sunday, March 24, at 8 p.m ET. Tune in on CBC-TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music and CBC Listen, and stream globally on cbcmusic.ca/junos.