Bots and online activists. Tech gentrification and algorithms. Phone addiction and wellness culture. Through his urgent rap anthems, Cadence Weapon captures these dizzying contradictions of modern culture and technology with both precision and irreverence. The Hamilton-based rapper, producer, former poet laureate, and author of Bedroom Rapper (2022) also known as Rollie Pemberton got his musical start while careening through the rap internet as a teenager in Edmonton, Canada. He emerged as an artist who gave voice to issues of systemic inequality and racial disparity, particularly among Canada’s Black communities, with his fifth album Parallel World, which won the 2021 Polaris Prize.