'I'm very proud of what I did back then': Maestro Fresh Wes on his Canadian Music Hall of Fame induction

The Block42:30Maestro Fresh Wes on The Block

Rapper Maestro Fresh Wes will make history on March 24, when he becomes the first hip-hop artist inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, at the 2024 Juno Awards. The Toronto-born MC, who won the first rap Juno in 1991 for his hit "Let Your Backbone Slide," will be taking the stage for a special performance at the ceremony.

Ahead of his induction, he joined The Block's Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe for a conversation about his first Juno Award, breaking barriers for other Canadian rap stars, and his legacy. You can read an excerpt below.

[That was] "Drop the needle," coming to you courtesy of Canadian hip-hop icon Maestro Fresh Wes, coming from the 1989 debut album Symphony in Effect. Maestro, congratulations. You're going to be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at this year's Juno Awards in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Yes.

Symphony in Effect [is] certified platinum [and] made you the first Black Canadian artist to achieve the feat. When you started writing and doing music, did you ever think that at this point in time you'd be receiving an award like this?

Nah, man, I was just saying, do you know what a Juno looks like? It's a little bigger than a water bottle, right?

They're pretty heavy. And they've changed over the years.

I was fortunate enough to get nominated one year for like five [Junos]. I won two of the five and I felt like, "Wow, this is dope." But then Leonard Cohen was getting a Lifetime Achievement Award. And [for] his award, they had to push out [the camera] on stage for him; it was a big thing. [There was a] standing ovation for Leonard Cohen, and here I am with my two little water bottles.

So that showed me at the same time, once you reach a certain destination, there are more expectations of you in this. There's still lots of things you can still do. So who would have thought back then? That's the memory that I had in my mind, you know. And now I'm here right now, doing something that he got [to do] years ago. 

Well, I think there's another Juno historical moment that you might be responsible for. It could be the rap category in and of itself. It didn't exist.

I'm very proud of that. So yes, my first album, Symphony in Effect, was the first album to receive a Juno Award for rap recording of the year [or] hip-hop recording of the year. How cool is that?

That's super cool. I just want to know, does that live somewhere in your home?

Yeah, I got it up somewhere.

You know, what is it that everybody tells you? [That it's] stashed in a box in the corner? 

No, I got a little shrine. But the thing is, at the same time, too, when you're working on more projects, you don't always want to see that, what you did back in the day, all the time in your face, every day. So you put it aside in the corner for a minute [so] you can just continue growing, because if not, it could be a liability of you thinking how great you were, and it could be a crutch to your personal and professional development. And then you end up looking like Al Bundy. 

I mean, so my whole thing is I'm very proud of what I did back then. [But] for me to continue growing and thriving, I don't I don't always want to see what I did. 

I have never heard of it like that before. Someone else said that "Now that the expectations are higher, you know, that now you've set the bar here and you've got to get above [it]."

There's different things you can do. So, in other words, if you do music, that's good. There's other things from a multimedia perspective, that you could still try, to thrive. And to me personally, I don't always want to see the Juno Awards in my face every single day, right. Because I'm trying to do other things as well. But I'm proud of it, don't get it twisted. 

So I want to say, I don't know if you know, but, I've established a scholarship. 

Really? 

Yeah.

Tell me about that.

It's called the Maestro Fresh Wes scholarship, at Nova Scotia Community College. It'll be for Black youth interested in skilled trades. So I'm excited about it. Like, how cool is that?

I think it's super cool because I also went to like a trade school. See, you know sometimes coming from a family where everybody's got master's degrees, me going to a trade school wasn't necessarily the look, but look at where I am now.

Yeah. And the thing is you learn a trade and there's more things you can do, too. I just feel that there's definitely not a shortage of rappers, but [there's] definitely a shortage of Black youth interested in learning skilled trades. So I thought, how cool would it be? 

I think it's just so interesting too, because I assumed that you were going to say that it was music or creative arts-related.

I really built Black music in Canada to some capacity, and now it's important for me to inspire young Black builders. So the Nova Scotia Community College Akerly campus, they gave me an honorary diploma back in 2017. So how cool would it be for my very first scholarship to be for that specific campus that deals with trades? To me it's like, why limit [the] people you're working with, who you've inspired.

I know I've inspired people beyond just MCs. I inspire people who do different things as well.  And I think that's a ripple effect that we should continue to expand as opposed to staying within the parameters of music, because these Black hands built pyramids, man, you know, and we've been socially engineered not to know our true greatness. So something like this, hopefully it'll encourage more artists and we can keep it going. 

Man, I love that the Maestro Fresh Wes scholarship is going to live long beyond when you're gone. 

Yeah, man.

So speaking of which, you made a big move yourself, from Toronto to Saint John, New Brunswick. Why that move?

What's that word called again? Oh yeah, Covid. Covid hit in 2020 and my son's mother and I felt, actually it was more her than anyone, that [it] would be the best place to co-parent our son. We have a support system out there, her family on that side. And man, let me tell you, Saint John [has] the nicest people I ever met in my life, man. Definitely. The mayor gave me a certificate, I'm an ambassador in Saint John, everything.

What! Look at you. I love it. Saint John embracing Wes.

Exactly.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. To hear the full interview, listen to The Block on CBC Music.

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.