Choose among the following Emerging Artists that have charted to the top 50 but have yet to break the top 40 in any format, between October 31, 2020 and October 1, 2021 as tabulated by Mediabase.

The Nominees are:

Hailey Benedict

Hailey Benedict is making her mark as a rising talent in the Canadian music industry. This dynamic, guitar-wielding singer-songwriter is a multi-award winner from the Big Valley Jamboree Talent Search to the 2019 Alberta Country Music Awards. As a recording artist, she continues to win over listeners and gain new fans with each new release.

Her latest single, “Wanted You To” is a passionate and catchy anthem that is currently on the move up the charts in Canada. Written by Madeline Merlo, Emma-Lee, and Eric Arjes and produced by Award-winning Dan Davidson, this pop-country offering boasts Benedict’s naturally stunning vocals, and produces an elevated sound, matured from her previous works.

Writing and performing is in Hailey’s blood, with a lifelong passion for singing and songwriting. Pulled up on stage by Keith Urban in front of 20,000 fans in 2016, she was handed a guitar and sang an original song, with video of the performance reaching over 10 million views. Her viral videos have made her one of the top three most followed Canadian country artists on TikTok. They also grabbed the attention of American Idol Producers who invited her to perform for their judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie in San Diego last season.

Hailey has also performed for numerous large-scale events including the Alberta Country Music Awards, Big Valley Jamboree, Seven Music Fest, Canadian Finals Rodeo, and headline performer in John Cameron Changing Lives production of Crescendo. She’s been invited to sing twice at Tootsie’s World Famous Orchid Lounge in Nashville, TN and will be performing in London during Country Music Week festivities in late November. A strong advocate for mental health and anti-bullying, Hailey supports several charitable foundations, and as a result of her efforts in the community, Hailey was honoured as one of the youngest ever Global Woman of Vision award recipients.

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Wild Crush

Wild Crush is a Canadian pop / alternative band formed in 2018. The group started out with covers of songs on social media. After having accumulated more than 1 million views on the web at their beginning, the trio has been very successful by filling more than 60 performance venues in the greater Quebec City region. During this rise, Wild Crush intends to seek the emotions and attraction of their audience with unique melodies and catchy lyrics in their original songs. Now, we let you discover Wild Crush in their own image.

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Dooms Children

Central to the enveloping aural experience of Dooms Children is its live-off-the-floor recording and organic production style. The effort was co-produced with musical collaborator Daniel Romano, and also features multi-instrumentalist Ian Romano, and Montreal guitarist Patrick Bennett. More information on the project will be available in the coming weeks.

Since co-founding pioneering post-hardcore outfit Alexisonfire in the early 2000s, the Canadian singer, guitarist, songwriter, and composer has lent his talents to numerous influential and impactful projects. He founded gritty punk outfit Black Lungs, fronts U.K. hardcore heroes Gallows, put fingerprints on recordings by the likes of Anti-Flag, Cancer Bats, and Bedouin Soundclash, and scored a handful of successful feature films and video games. In 2017, Wade composed music for Jay Baruchel’s comedy Goon: Last of the Enforcers, and also scored Baruchel’s 2020 film Random Acts Of Violence.    

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Mattmac

Blind music producer and recording artist Mattmac has harnessed his melodic pop-trap beats and inspiring story, quickly establishing himself as ‘one to watch’ on the national scene with his debut album, 20/20 — available now!

At 500,000+ streams across platforms, Mattmac’s premiere release features poppy vocals combined with hard-hitting trap beats, and thoughtfully honest lyrics that give listeners a glimpse into the mind of a blind creative as he paints vivid sonic pictures of struggle, healing, celebrating love, family and life on the rez.

The eight-track album’s lead single “Paradise” has risen to become a popular song in the Canadian music circuit; garnering more than 150,000+ streams on Spotify, it hit #1 on the NCI FM Indigenous Music Countdown hosted by SiriusXM, and Top 50 on the Mediabase radio charts. With heavy local support from Virgin Radio Winnipeg, the song has become both a national and local sensation — including features with CBC Indigenous, CTV National News, Winnipeg Sun, and more. He recently won Rap/Electronic Album of The Year at the Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards 2021.

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Locals Only Sound

Locals Only Sound is a music collective founded by Gray Hawken and Curtis Smith. The product of friendship between Hawken and Smith, Locals Only Sound, was forged over a common interest in music, visual arts and skateboard culture. Inspired by the staples of R&B and Soul music coupled with electronic music influences Hawken and Smith are writing, recording and releasing music that is simultaneously distinct and accessible. The duo’s first mixtape titled Opus 1 was released in November 2018. Hawken and Smith’s collaborative process on their EP led to the creation of a Toronto based production company under the same name. Locals Only Sound offers a space for emerging artists access to resources, guidance and creative sounding boards.

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Kristopher Bracken

A French Canadian singer/composer/writer, Kristopher Bracken is best known to Quebec audiences for his appearance as a teen on TVA variety show “La Cour des grandes.” More than a dozen years later, he’s developed into a pop-folk artist in his own right with an EP released in 2020, produced by MC12’s Benjamin Nadeau.

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Kiwi Junior

Canadian indie rockers Kiwi Jr. bloomed when they moved from their hometown of Charlottetown, Prince Edward Islands to Toronto in the mid-2010s, imbuing their spirited college pop with a distinctive big-city romanticism. The band took cues from a lineage of jangly slacker pop acts from the ’80s and ’90s for their bright and bounding 2019 debut Football Money and signed on with Sub Pop for their 2021 sophomore effort Cooler Returns.

Kiwi Jr. were formed by four friends in 2015. Made up of guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Gaudet, drummer Brohan Moore, bassist Mike Walker, and second guitarist Brian Murphy, the band’s sound was one-part Pavement’s snarky melodicism, one-part C-86 jangle, and sprinklings of restless wit in their lyrics about house parties, strange friends, and suburban landscapes. The band moved to Toronto shortly after forming, integrating themselves in the music scene there. Murphy split his time between playing guitar with Kiwi Jr. and bass in Alvvays, as the former band worked on their debut album between 2016 and 2017. In that time, a single demo was the band’s only recorded output, but they played around Toronto constantly. It wouldn’t be until 2019 that they began working with Mint Records and Football Money saw a wide release. The next year they signed esteemed indie label Sub Pop and began releasing tracks from their upcoming sophomore effort Cooler Returns. The album arrived in January of 2021.

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