blog post Announcing the First Ever X3 Artist of the Month: K'naan

Is K'Naan really an 'emerging' artist, 'cause I know who he is and pretty much everybody I know knows who he is. I love him, so no disrespect to K'Naan, but what about the hundreds of other amazing emerging artists in the Canadian music scene right now (the best it's ever been, btw - in my opinion) that haven't got the proper exposure they deserve? That's like saying Broken Social Scene is an emerging artist!
I guess it's a matter of opinion but I hope we see some better examples of the Canadian 'emerging' artist in the future. Other than that little detail I think it's a great initiative!

"I bet everyone at least on this website has heard of him."

I would agree, but everyone on this website isn't exactly a random sampling of Canadian music fans.

You guys are - and don't take this the wrong way - music freaks. The fact that you are coming to sites solely dedicated to Canadian music indicate a commitment that goes way beyond a passing interest.

The goals of this partnership are to give artists that extra little push, in hopes that more people will have a chance to hear what these artists have to offer.

Remember... there are still another 11 artists to profile in 2009.

Who do you guys think deserves an extra little push?

Whoa! I swear I didn't paraphrase you intentionally. I only saw your post after mine went up. I guess we're just riding the same wavelength.

I could come up with a better (and longer) list given a bit of time but quickly and in alphabetical order, how about:

$100
Acorn
Andrew Vincent
Andy Swan
Arkells
Attack in Black
Awkward Stage
Black Diamond Bay
Brent Randall and His Pinecones
Bruce Peninsula
Burning Hell
Cam Malcolm and the Owls
the D'urbervilles
Dan Mangan
Diableros
Dudes
Elbow Beach Surf Club
Elliot Brood
Fembots
Forest City Lovers
Ghost Bees
Grand Analog
Hank Pine and Lilly Fawn
Hey Ocean!
Hilotrons
Hooded Fang
Hot Panda
Hylozoists
Immaculate Machine
Jenn Grant
Jenny Omnichord
Jim Bryson
Justin Rutledge
Lily Frost
Maylee Todd
Nathan Lawr
Oh NO Forest Fires
Ohbijou
Old Man Leudecke
Peter Project
Phonemes
Rebekah Higgs
Rock Plaza Central
Rural Alberta Advantage
Sunparlour Plaers
Superfantastics
Timbre, Timbre
Volcanoless in Canada
Wet Secrets
Will Currie and the Country French
Woodpigeon

This was a head scratcher for me too. If I’m understanding you correctly John, the objective is to take very popular R3 artists and help them to become something closer to household names in Canada? “Underexposed” here is a relative term, then. This would be on the fringes of what R3 does, it seems to me, and that’s probably why it has confused quite a few of us, but I can see how it could act as a bridge between the world of R3 and a more mainstream audience. K’naan is not the first artist I would have picked either, however, although he is good. The artists that first spring to mind for me are people like Joel Plaskett, The Weakerthans, Chad VanGaalen, AC Newman, or even a band like Sloan, who I don’t think have ever gotten the exposure that they deserved. I think Arcade Fire has probably already achieved the level of exposure we’re talking about or they would have been a good pick too. Carl Newman is one of the most critically acclaimed musicians in the world over the last 10 years, and yet the Canadian media, including CBC 1, 2 and TV, have done a very poor job of letting mainstream Canada know about him. Both Plaskett and the Weakerthans are highly critically acclaimed and I would say highly culturally important as well. I think these artists are our current day folk singers. They are Canadiana and I think every household in the country should have at least one of their CDs.

If I’ve got it right I can see where you’re going with this now, but K’naan wouldn’t have been at the top of my list either for some of the reasons already stated in this thread, and simply that he doesn’t have the same body of work and hasn’t had the same level of critical acclaim that these other artists have yet.

First let me just say that I wasn't involved in making this decision, and I don't know who's up next. It's entirely possible that some of those artists could be on the list.

Remember... we're doing one per month, so at least wait a few months before you decide we're wildly off track.

And also, keep in mind that it's not as simple as saying "this is who we're doing". R3, Exclaim! and Aux.tv need to achieve consensus on who to back. No small task, because as you can imagine... everyone has their own very strong opinions.

As for K'naan. He's an exceptionally talented emerging musician who happens to be a refugee from a failed state that's in the news a lot these days. That in itself makes him an compelling candidate, and somebody who might pique the rest of the MSM's interest.

Go read the cover story in Exclaim! and tell me that this isn't a character that North Americans should know more about.

Part of the wikipedia entry "..he has been on tour promoting his album and working on his follow-up release, "Troubadour," his debut album for new label A&M/Octone Records. He has also been working with artists like Nelly Furtado, Mos Def, The Roots, Dead Prez, and Pharoahe Monch on tours such as Live 8[9] and Breedlove Odyssey.[5] He also collaborated with Damian Marley on the "Welcome to Jamrock" touring session.[10]"

There's alot more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K'naan

The 'next level' for K'naan would be the Nelly Furtado level. He's certainly better known than say K-Os or Shad

I suspect that there’s more to it than that, and I sure hope there’s more to it than that. If you leave it that wide open then I think there’s too much room for abuse, and I think you’ll end up with a small group of people promoting the wrong bands for the wrong reasons. Remember the 2006 Polaris Prise, where a jury stacked full of unqualified Torontonians picked bands they were amped about, and in the process left two of the very top albums of the year off the list, and stacked the final 10 with 6 Toronto based bands. If you don’t have and follow legitimate guidelines, that’s what you get.

I suspect that the idea is to make artists like K’naan as well known as Nelly Furtado, and The Weakerthans as well known as Bruce Cockburn, and if that’s the case then I’m all for it. I think Feist and Arcade Fire proved that our indie artists can appeal to a fairly large segment of the mainstream audience “without selling” out or “compromising their artistic integrity” provided they can get the right kind of exposure. K’naan is almost there already in terms of exposure, and that may be why he was picked. A lot of people in the mainstream audience will already have heard of him, and that may catch their attention and get them to check out this feature. It will be interesting to see who the next artists are.

Apologies in advance if I come across as a bit defensive, but I want to address some of the concerns in this thread.

The ENTIRE Radio 3 service is dedicated exclusively to new and emerging Canadian musicians (including almost all of those in the suggestions in this thread). It’s what we do all day, every day, 365 days a year on our website, on web radio, on satellite radio, and in our podcasts. We play a very wide variety of artists and support them in every way that we can.

And we’ve just announced a large project that will combine radio, TV, print, and 3 websites to help bring more attention to Canadian artists than any of the individual groups can do on their own and I’m not quite sure why people are complaining that an artist is TOO successful and doesn’t need any help. What does too successful for a Canadian artist mean? Once an artist hits a magical number of records sold, we should just stop playing them forever?

One of the dangers for all of us working at Radio 3 is that we become very, very familiar with our community of artists and forget that the bulk of the population has little or no exposure to them at all – they certainly don’t hear any of the music played here on private radio. A constant mantra around our office is to focus on context and accessibility – we want to be a great place to visit for the first time AND the thousandth time. Some of the best tools we have to bring new people into the fold are our core artists, and K’Naan certainly fits the bill in that regard. (That’s why he’s ‘cover material’ for Exclaim!…)

We hope showcasing K’Naan this month will not only help bring new sets of ears to his music and make his new album a huge success, but that it will also bring new audiences to all the other artists that are featured on Exclaim!, Aux.tv, and CBC Radio 3. If X3 works properly, we will see more first time visitors to all of our sites & services, discovering a wide variety of Canadian music, in many cases because of K’Naan.

I am very proud of the fact that three separate ‘competing’ companies have been able to come together and mutually share content and editorial calendars to support a single Canadian artist every month. Obviously, it remains to be seen how much impact we all have for the artists, but I’m a bit surprised that more of you aren’t seeing this as a very encouraging tool to bring new Canadian artists to broader audiences, regardless of their past success.

I can assure everyone here that we are doing X3 with the best of intentions for musicians and for all of you who enjoy their music.

If you have any other questions about X3, please keep them coming here in the comments.

Thanks for all of your continued support of Canadian music,

Steve Pratt
Director, CBC Radio 3

Yes, this is a good idea.

Does this mean that from now on, all Exclaim covers will be going to X3 artists? That could be good... I'm tired of seeing American musicians on the cover of Exclaim.

I guess I haven't really considered all the reasons and arguements, but I don't see the huge problem. K'naan has been around for a long time, but I don't think he's gotten a HUGE response, isn't really known by the average hip hop listener, or any music listener for that matter, and he definitely deserves it. With Exclaim, AUX and Cbc3, my friends may actually get some inkling of who this amazing person is...the majority know most of the indie rock/pop to some extent, but K'naan is completely out of their normal radar.
I'm extremely excited for any promotion of this artist, and next month, maybe I'll be the one to learn more about the new Aritist of the month.

The background water percussion rythyms have been a tradition for years every time I visit the cowichan river for a swim with m kids.
It was not composed by K'naanX3
but I was still happy to hear it.
I think we should all be thinking water.
this artist is not too bad either.
Tavin