Every year, the release of the Juno Award nominees comes with the excitement of seeing which first-timers made the list. This year, there were 90 first-time nominees, a significant jump from 2023’s 50 first-timers, and a clear sign that Canada’s emerging talent is getting recognized more and more by the larger industry.
CBC Music has highlighted six artists we think you should check out ahead of the awards on March 24 — we combed the list for standouts across genres, who are either pushing boundaries, racking up undeniable streams or spearheading the Canadian music landscape in new, exciting directions.
Lu Kala
Nominated for: single of the year and breakthrough artist of the year.
The sound: upbeat pop bops and tearjerker ballads.
Everything changed when Lu Kala (born Lusamba Vanessa Kalala) released “Pretty Girl Era.” The Juno-nominated track was nearly inescapable last year on the apps and radio, and Kalala officially cemented her status as an artist to reckon with. She’s gunning for the title of Canadian pop princess — she even refers to herself as “your fave popstar” in her Instagram bio — and she could easily teach a masterclass in turning TikTok virality into certified hits.
She’s been in the music industry for over a decade, starting off by writing songs for other artists — which is how she ended up with a feature on Atlanta rapper Latto’s song “Lottery.” When Latto’s team got their hands on a hook that Kalala had written in 2022, they called her to the studio to finish the song and to sing the chorus on the earworm-y pop-rap hit that spent 16 weeks on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100. If the tens of millions of streams and her recent emerging artist award at the 2023 Legacy Awards are anything to go by, Kalala is well on her way to pop stardom.
Connor Price
Nominated for: breakthrough artist of the year, rap album/EP of the year and rap single of the year.
The sound: high-energy hip-hop with quippy bars.
The pandemic was a paradigm shift for Markham, Ont. actor and rapper Connor Price. He started his career as a child actor when he was six years old and spent the next couple decades of his life working in the industry, appearing in films like Cinderella Man and Good Luck Chuck and television shows like CBC’s X Company and Being Human. When Hollywood shut down due to pandemic lockdowns in 2020, he saw an opportunity to pursue another lifelong passion: hip-hop. He began releasing a song every two weeks, promoting them on TikTok just as the social media app was gaining in popularity.
He always loved hip-hop growing up and would freestyle as a party trick, but it wasn’t until his wife heard some recordings and encouraged him to release his music that he started to take it seriously. His star has risen at an exponential rate, as he went from 7,000 streams a year on Spotify in 2018 to 608 million in 2023, and he was the eighth most popular artist on TikTok in Canada last year. His Juno-nominated debut album, Spin the Globe, includes artists from all over the world (Zambia, India, Japan, South Africa, Brazil and Germany) that Price connected with through the internet.
Karan Aujla
Nominated for: breakthrough artist of the year and TikTok Juno fan choice.
The sound: Punjabi-inflected hip-hop, pop and R&B.
After it was released last August, Karan Aujla’s joint album with producer Ikky, Making Memories, hit No. 5 on the Billboard Canadian albums chart, becoming the highest-charting Punjabi album in the chart’s history. Punjabi-Canadian artists have been finding increasing success in recent years, and the Surrey, B.C.-based singer, rapper and songwriter is at the forefront of that wave.
Aujla is a juggernaut: with over one billion Youtube views since August 2022, 10 millions monthly listeners on Spotify and multiple tracks north of 100 million streams, he’s now a certified hitmaker. He got his start as a songwriter for other artists like Jassie Gill and Elly Mangat, before releasing his first song in 2016, “Property of Punjab.” It wasn’t until his debut album, 2021’s B.T.F.U., that he started to become a household name in his own right. It was a slow rise to the moment where he is now, but the momentum shows no signs of slowing, with a new remix by Tiesto of hit song “Softly,” and another freshly released album with Indian rapper Divine, Street Dreams.
Bambii
Nominated for: electronic album of the year.
The sound: futuristic dance music inspired by the Caribbean.
Toronto producer Bambii has always been devoted to pushing the boundaries of dance music. She cut her teeth in the 2010s as a DJ with an omnivorous palate, blending dancehall, techno, jungle, house and more, leading to worldwide tours and sets at the most storied venues in Berlin and London. In 2019, she took the lessons she learned from DJing and began producing original music. Her first two singles, “Nitevision” and “Truck Riddim,” featured Jamaican artists Pamputtae and Beam (a year before he appeared on Beyoncé’s Renaissance) and introduced listeners to her genre-defying sound with callbacks to her motherland of Jamaica.
2023 was a catalyst for the emerging producer — she was a producer on Kelela’s critically-acclaimed album, Raven, with credits on 10 of its 15 songs and released her debut EP, Infinity Club. The EP is nominated for best electronic album at this year’s Juno Awards and received praise from Dazed, Resident Advisor, the Guardian, Pitchfork and more.
Cheng² Duo
Nominated for: classical album of the year (small ensemble).
The sound: classical with a modern twist.
Although siblings Bryan and Silvie Cheng grew up making music together, it wasn’t until 2011 that they became an official musical duo, performing arrangements for cello (Bryan) and piano (Silvie). They’ve played in concert halls all over the world, from Montreal to Brussels, New York to Berlin, and are embarking on tours across Canada, South Africa, and playing recitals in the U.S. and Switzerland this year.
The Ottawa-raised duo released their fourth and most personal album, Portrait, in 2023, which garnered them their first Juno nomination. Their first three critically-acclaimed albums were devoted to music by French, Spanish and Russian composers, but with Portrait, they decided to commission new works by contemporary South, Central and East Asian composers and rearrange Chinese folk songs for cello and piano. In 2021, while still in the process of creating the album, Silvie told CBC Music: “We love the masterworks, of course, of classical music. But classical music is still growing. People are still writing it today and we really want to highlight the voices of our generation, the next generation.”
Jah’Mila
Nominated for: reggae recording of the year.
The sound: roots reggae with a message.
Jah’Mila (real name Jhamiela Smith Dunn) makes roots reggae with Rastafarian influences, emphasizing equality, love and revolution. The singer from Kingston, Jamaica moved to Halifax in 2017 and quickly emerged as a beacon in east coast reggae. She’s even started racking up accolades, winning the global music recording of the year at the 2023 East Coast Music Awards, and new artist of the year and African Nova Scotian artist of the year at the Music Nova Scotia Music & Industry Awards.
Smith Dunn’s musical education started young: her father was a guitarist for Bob Marley and the Wailers and she grew up sitting in on their studio sessions. She worked as a background singer while in Jamaica, but decided to make her own music after moving to Canada. Her debut album, Roots Girl, showcases her undeniable lead vocals and her fondness for the authentic roots of reggae. From speaking out against police brutality on “Chant Their Names” to shouting out the genre’s early days on “Roots Girl,” the album is an ode to the spirit of reggae culture.
Host Nelly Furtado is bringing the party to the 2024 Juno Awards on Sunday, March 24, at 8 p.m ET. Tune in on CBC-TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music and CBC Listen, and stream globally on cbcmusic.ca/junos.
