Céline Dion, Allison Russell and more: 10 musicians who shaped 2024

In a year when so many things have felt hard, hopeless and horrifying, the common themes found among the artists below are resistance and faith. These artists believe in themselves and their visions of the world. They refuse to give in to hate and fear, they stand up for what they believe in, and each uses their music to lead, heal, inspire and revolutionize in their own way.

From the rock band that refused to stream its album online and became a critical darling, to the folk poet who organized star-studded international humanitarian fundraisers for Gaza and Sudan, to the iconic pop star who documented the harrowing reality of living with stiff-person syndrome, the musicians on this list modelled what it means to show up for themselves, their communities and their art. In doing so, they haven't just shaped 2024 — they're helping set the stage for a better 2025.

Cindy Lee

Canadian rock enthusiasts likely knew who Cindy Lee was before this year, but in 2024, that name became ubiquitous in critics' circles. Their seventh album, Diamond Jubilee, earned some of the best reviews of any album this year, a Polaris Music Prize shortlist nomination, and Cindy Lee frontperson Patrick Flegel was touted as the "underground success story of 2024" and "the future of music." (The album has already earned a spot on various "best albums of the 2020s" lists.)

Those accolades might make you believe that Flegel scored a chart-topping hit or notched millions of streams, but the masterful double album — a kaleidoscopic time machine mix of fuzzed-out glam rock, '60s girl group pop and more — was nowhere to be found on traditional streaming services. While Flegel isn't the first artist to circumvent the now-standard platforms of music consumption (and encourage artists to remove their music from those places), this gem of a release grew organically from a small word-of-mouth album into a must-hear phenomenon. Whether this sparks a revolution is beside the point: with Diamond Jubilee, Flegel proved that great art can still prevail on its own terms. — Melody Lau   

Allison Russell

At the Grammys in February, folk/roots musician Allison Russell wore a gold gown, a fitting wardrobe choice: she walked away with the matching golden gramophone for best American roots performance for her song "Eve Was Black." Russell, whose activism has always drawn attention to issues such as racism and homophobia both in her work and outside of it, continued to call out injustice throughout 2024. In typical Allison Russell fashion, she used her Grammy acceptance speech to promote inclusion: "All Americana, all of us — all colours, all ages, all abilities, all orientations, all genders. It's for everybody and I love y'all." Even when a Tennessee resolution to honour her win was rejected, Russell stood tall, tweeting: "That the TN GOP blocked it, I take as a compliment. Their bigotry, sadly, is on relentless display."

The Grammy win was only the beginning of a banner year for Russell, as she nabbed a spot on the Polaris Music Prize short list for her album The Returner, hit the road on tour as an opener for Hozier, performed at the Juno Awards and also took the stage with Joni Mitchell during her legendary Hollywood Bowl concert. And if that wasn't enough, she dipped her toes into acting, too, making her debut on Broadway as Persephone in Hadestown. — Natalie Harmsen

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko

In the classical music world, international competitions are the springboards that launch the careers of young performing artists, and this year, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, a 25-year-old pianist from Salmon Arm, B.C., won first prize at not one but two major international competitions: the Montreal International Music Competition in May, and in September, the Leeds International Piano Competition in England. While the hundreds of thousands of dollars of prize money will surely be welcome, so are the concert engagements that will fill his calendar for the foreseeable future.

Since September, Izik-Dzurko has performed concertos with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In January, he'll make his debut with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, and give a solo recital at the Auditorium of the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. To understand what all the hype is about, watch his first-prize-winning performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in the Leeds final, streaming above. — Robert Rowat

Kaytranada

Last year, DJ and producer Kaytranada dropped an album with Aminé, performed at Coachella and was selected to open for Beyoncé — none of which are small feats. And yet, in 2024 he levelled up: between serving as a producer on Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign's Vultures 1, dropping his own star-studded album, Timeless, and embarking on a tour with rapper Channel Tres, Kaytranada went truly global in 2024. He headlined All Points East in the U.K., played a set that went viral at Tyler the Creator's Camp Flog Gnaw festival, and graced the covers of DJ Mag, Rolling Stone (who called him a "low-key legend") and Vulture — an interview that also went viral, thanks to cheeky comments about Drake. If 2024 was a blockbuster year for Kaytranada, next year he'll continue his ascent: he's already snagged three Grammy nominations for the 2025 show. Plus, his sparkling Timeless run isn't over yet, as he'll continue his electrifying tour by heading to South Africa and Australia in January, and then Europe in the spring. — NH

Nemahsis

I swear if I showed you a song I made,
You'd say it's not your taste,
If anyone else but me wrote it, it's a masterpiece.

The opening verse of "Stick of Gum," the June single from Nemahsis, is steeped in experience. The Toronto-based pop artist has been open in interviews about how she's treated in the music industry: with pop music that easily could top the charts, Nemahsis constantly hits roadblocks as a Muslim Palestinian hijabi in the West who doesn't look like a Taylor Swift or Chappell Roan. But in 2024, Nemahsis, given name Nemah Hassan, independently dropped her debut album, Verbathim, to critical praise — even though it almost never arrived.

In various interviews, Nemahsis has described how, in fall 2023, she had a fully finished album that labels were fighting over. She signed with one in early October, but by the end of the same month she posted an unexpected update on TikTok: "My label just dropped me, a Palestinian artist, for being pro-Palestine." As she told Q's Tom Power, no label she called afterward would sign her. She was too "controversial." Finally, by May 2024 — just a few months after Stevie Wonder made a venue delay her show so he could catch it — Hassan decided to go it independently, giving us one of the year's most exquisite albums. Verbathim is spelled with a "th" to reflect the album cover: the pronunciation is as if Hasan has a lisp from someone holding her tongue. But in 2024, Nemahsis proved that she can't be silenced. — Holly Gordon

Tia Wood 

Salish and Plains Cree singer-songwriter Tia Wood made history this year when she became one of the first Indigenous women signed to Sony Music Canada. Although she's always sung and performed with her family (her father, Earl Wood, is part of the Juno-winning powwow drum group Northern Cree; her mother, Cynthia Jim, was in an all-women drum group; and her sister, Fawn Wood, is a Juno-winning singer) it wasn't until 2024 that she dropped music of her own.

Her debut EP, Pretty Red Bird, was released in September and her first single, "Dirt Roads," quickly gained steam, reaching nearly half-a-million streams on Spotify. She then started personally sharing that music with the world: by joining Ruby Waters on tour, performing at Billboard Canada's inaugural Women in Music ceremony and getting profiled about her songs in Vogue. Wood, who has always empowered her community through powwow performances and social media activism, continued ardently using her voice and sound to inspire others this year. "I'm making music for rez kids," she wrote on Instagram in October. "I hope whoever hears this music sees [themselves] in it and feels heard and seen." Now, she's gained fans in some of music's biggest names — including Kacey Musgraves. — NH

Mustafa

Mustafa has always been outspoken and politically engaged, but 2024 saw the Toronto folk singer use his rising influence to get the attention of a wider audience. He kicked off the year with an Artists for Aid fundraiser in support of Gaza and Sudan, with proceeds going to non-profit Human Concern International. Mustafa was joined by Charlotte Day Wilson, Daniel Caesar, Omar Apollo, Stormzy, Clairo, Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd and more for a night of performances at the Newark Symphony Hall in New Jersey. When promoting the event on Instagram he wrote, "In the last few years I visited both my homeland, Sudan, and Palestine. My visit to both had a principal intention, to connect with artist communities, with young organisers — for parallels of sorrow and hope and faith…. The violence in both nations seized the dream." Following the success of the first event, he spearheaded another in London that included many of the same performers, as well as Blood Orange, Yasiin Bey, FKA Twigs, Earl Sweatshirt and King Krule. 

Jeremy Dutcher 

For Jeremy Dutcher, music is an act of preservation and resistance. The two-spirit singer, composer and ethnomusicologist from Tobique First Nation uses his art to further linguistic revitalization: his groundbreaking debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, was sung entirely in Wolastoqey, a language spoken by fewer than 100 people fluently. Motewolonuwok, his second album, released in late 2023, was sung in both Wolastoqey and English as a means of bridging cultural divides and inviting settler audiences into conversations about healing and resilience. With a blend of classical, jazz and pop influences with operatic vocals, Dutcher's work stands out as a testament that you can still make music that is like nothing else out there.

This past September, Dutcher made history as the first artist to win the Polaris Music Prize twice. Accepting the award for Motewolonuwok, he told the audience: "I can only do this because you're here to listen, and that means so much to me because to bring forward art and music in this land, in our languages, with our aesthetics…. We are shining for you, now go shine for other people." True to his values, Dutcher pledged to donate his $50,000 prize to the Kehkimin Wolastoqey Language Immersion School, founded by his mother, Lisa Perley-Dutcher. — Jesse Kinos-Goodin

91 North Records Signees

Since 91 North Records launched in August 2023, the South Asian music wave sweeping the country has continued its meteoric rise. The joint venture between Warner Music Canada and Warner Music India is led by hitmaking producer Ikwinder "Ikky" Singh, and includes Jonita Gandhi, Karan Aujla, Chani Nattan and AR Paisley on its roster. In a press release, Singh said, "I've always been fascinated by the blending of Indian and Western sounds into culturally impactful, innovative music. 91 North Records exists to elevate artists pursuing this fusion."

The 91 North signees are leading the pack when it comes to that cross-cultural blend, creating Punjabi hip-hop and pop music that reflects a new era. From Aujla's history-making Juno win (and electrifying Juno performance) in March to Gandhi sharing the stage with Dua Lipa at a festival in India in December, these artists made their mark in a big way this year. Plus, Nattan and Paisley dropped an "East meets West" freestyle on the taste-making New York-based online radio show On the Radar, a platform that has featured the likes of Drake, Ice Spice and Lil Yachty. With collaborations with major producers like the Chainsmokers, a new songwriting camp with SOCAN and hundreds of millions of collective streams, the momentum of 91 North Records signees shows no signs of slowing down. — KA

Céline Dion

It can easily be argued that 2024 was the year of Céline Dion. Within the first 30 days, the Montreal superstar dominated headlines: news of her documentary, I Am Céline, dropped on Jan. 30, with nearly no details. But it was the first inkling anyone had of how Dion had been doing since stepping away from the stage after her diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome in 2022. The documentary, released in June, was a snapshot of a monumentally difficult time in Dion's life, showing fans how much she'd been suffering while offstage. "My voice was the conductor of my life," she said in the film, and it was clear that not being able to use that voice had irrevocably changed her. (The film also became Prime Video's most popular documentary ever.)

But on July 26, Dion surprised the world at the Olympic opening ceremony in Paris with her first performance in four years: standing atop the Eiffel Tower, wearing a Dior couture gown, Dion belted out an incredible cover of Édith Piaf's "Hymne à l'amour." There wasn't a dry eye that heard the return of Dion's singular voice. Since then, Dion has been appearing a bit more in public — including a performance of both "The Power of Love" and "I'm Alive" at an Elie Saab fashion show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — and leaning into her sense of humour on her Instagram page. (Her frustrations with Siri are particularly great.) In a year where there was so much despair and darkness, it was heartening to see Céline Dion reclaim her throne and continuously receive her flowers. — HG