Some moments in a career of “firsts” achieved by rapper Maestro Fresh Wes seem bigger than him, and next Sunday is certainly one of them.
“I enjoy being the first,” the Toronto native explained during a recent interview about reaching new heights in Canadian hip-hop.As one of the country’s first hip-hop artists, Williams blazed trails for generations of Canadian rappers, notably Kardinal Offishall and Drake, who took the local game to global levels.In his early twenties, he won the inaugural 1991 Juno for rap recording with his party anthem “Let Your Backbone Slide,” which broke ground in the United States for Canadian rap.
Not long after that visit, Johnson won the 1988 Summer Olympics gold medal in the 100-metre final, making him a hero to the country. But a few days later, he was stripped of the honour in a doping scandal that forever tarnished his reputation. Earlier this month, he issued “Rap Prime Minister,” a 24-track compilation that spans much of his career and reintroduces his brand of rousing inspirational rap anthems to a new generation.Some of the standout songs include his stirring “Underestimated,” a 2015 jam with JRDN and JD Era; and “Gravity,” an R&B-fused 2019 effort with Saukrates and O-Sound, where he pulls a few lines from his Guess Who-sampling 1998 smash “Stick to Your Vision.