ENTITY · PERSON (ARTIST, SELECTOR, PRODUCER…)
Michie Mee
Well supported
Michelle McCullock, born in Kingston in 1970 and raised in Toronto from age six, is Canada's first lady of hip hop and the artist who made the country's rap speak patois. Discovered through Ron Nelson's Fantastic Voyage circuit, she became the first Canadian rapper signed to a US label (First Priority/Atlantic), traded verses with the Boogie Down Productions camp, and with DJ L.
A. Luv made the 1991 album Jamaican Funk-Canadian Style, a Juno-nominated statement of exactly what its title says: dancehall carried inside hip hop. She later fronted the rap-rock band Raggadeath and acted in CBC's Drop the Beat.
At a glance
- Confidence
- Well supported
- Sources
- Wikipedia "Michie Mee"; Vice (2015) "Michie Mee Is The First Lady of Toronto Hip-Hop"; Sounds Like Toronto; Canada Black Music Archives; The Canadian Encyclopedia.
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Debate & reception
What people argued about this record — two documented positions each time, kept apart from verified fact. Browse every argument in the archive →
Whose patois? Toronto argues about its own vernacular
One side
Patois going mainstream is recognition: the language and the people who brought it are finally valued
The other
Borrowed without the history, it becomes costume, and the stereotype lands back on the community that speaks it
As patois spread from Toronto's West Indian community into a general suburban slang, and from there into Drake's records on If You're Reading This It's Too Late (2015) and Views (2016), the community that brought the language found itself of two minds. The Globe and Mail put both to print in 2017. On one side, pride: a restaurant owner saying it feels good, that everybody wants to be associated with patois now, and radio host Carrie Mullings using it professionally as a matter of cultural weight. On the other, unease: a second-generation teenager saying outsiders overuse words they do not understand until she no longer wants to use them herself, and York University's Clive Forrester warning that a people already stereotyped as aggressive carry the cost when the language is worn as a costume.
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