Drake just became the first artist in history to generate 50 billion total streams on Spotify; The Weeknd holds the record for most weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100.
Suffice it to say that for Canadian musical artists, the bar has been raised incredibly high.
And yet, we’ve got no shortage of rising homegrown talent shooting for the moon. Despite what you may have read about the pandemic affecting productivity, there’s a surfeit of promising Canadian artists—from independent rappers to TikTok sensations, coast to coast—planning to make big moves in 2021. So many it was impossible to squeeze them all onto this list. Maybe the quarantine has given them more time to work in the studio, or maybe the competition in the Great White North is just too damn stiff for an artist to afford resting on their laurels. Either way, just as several acts on last year’s roundup wound up making international noise and topping year-end lists (see: Jessie Reyez, TOBi), you can expect to hear a lot more from the following names in the months to come. Here’s our list of 25 Canadian artists to watch out for in 2021.