Shad has built a career as one of Canada’s most consistent and versatile hip-hop artists. Since 2005, he’s been racking up critical and commercial acclaim, winning the Juno Award for Best Rap Recording for his 2010 album TSOL and being shortlisted for the Polaris Prize five times. But he’s not done yet. With his seventh full-length release Start Anew, Shad thematically tackles our collective reluctance to break out of our comfort zones armed with his trademark wit and thought-provoking bars. “The new start, that positive fresh new life is right there,” he says. “But it's often just on the other side of risk or even loss of some kind.” In a storied career that has seen Shad branch out as a radio show host (CBC’s q), TV host (the Peabody and Emmy award-winning Netflix docuseries Hip Hop Evolution), new wave singer alter ego (Your Boy Tony Braxton) and now academic professor at the University of Toronto and Laurier, Start Anew’s central premise is one that Shad has wholeheartedly embraced himself, completing a socially conscious trilogy that began with 2018’s A Story About A War and 2021’s TAO. Featuring collaborations with Toronto’s Jon Kabongo, Raz Fresco and Phoenix Pagliacci as well as Atlanta’s Chantae Cann and Queens, NY underground stalwart Homeboy Sandman, Start Anew addresses social inequality and the inner strength to succeed as well as Shad’s trademark witty and perspective lyrical bars on key tracks such as “Happiness,” “K.I.S.S.” and “Bars and BBQs.” “Musically, I felt like I want to make something this time that is kind of simple and easy on the ears and very listenable,” says Shad. Embracing a musical approach that evokes the playful soulfulness of his early releases, Start Anew is refreshingly and unapologetically direct, aligning with Shad’s ongoing mission to spread love, wisdom and hope in an effort to inspire personal and societal change.
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