Artist: Kardinal Offishall, Album: Eye & I, Song: On Wid Da Show

Kardinal Offishall is a hip hop artist from Toronto, Ontario.  Kardinal started rapping at a very young age and got the chance to perform for Nelson Mandela on one of his Toronto visits at the age of 12.  Today he is one of our country's most recognized artists in the hip hop genre as both a performer and producer.  He is a 3 time Juno Award winner and has been nominated an astounding 15 times over the course of his 15 year recording career and 4 albums.  It all started though, back in 1996 with his first single, Naughty Dread.  The underground hit spawned a Juno nomination and led to this album, Eye & I.  It was his debut album in 1997 with Capitol Hill Music, run by fellow rapper, Saukrates (see blog 8/13/11).  There was a lot of exciting hip hop coming out of Canada during the nineties and Kardinal was at the front of the pack along with K-os (see blog 2/3/12), The Rascalz, The Dream Warriors (see blog 7/27/10) and Ghetto Concept (see blog 11/12/10).  He has a reggae influenced style to his delivery and his lyrical content can be both witty as well as socially conscious.  The song, On Wid Da Show, was the single off this release and the video received some major play on Much Music.  It has a Snoop Doggy Dogg, "Gin & Juice", feel to it.  You can check out the original video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMgIBhX1F4M.  I loved this track when I heard it back in the day and unfortunately it has become a real rarity.  At the time of this blog there were copies trading on Ebay and Amazon between $40 and $50.  Kardinal has gone on to collaborate with some big names in the music industry like Rihanna, Akon and Sean Paul.  He is currently set to release two albums this year.  One is a collaboration with producer, Nottz Raw called, A.M.T.R.I.M., as well as his own upcoming solo release.  You can follow him at http://www.facebook.com/kardinaloffishall.  Thanks for reading and enjoy!