Mcenroe

Raised in the prairie city of Winnipeg but now based in Vancouver, 26-year-old mcenroe (not, as the man himself puts it, to be confused with that "washed up tennis guy") offers a grainy, articulate and consistently provocative response to US alt.hip hop. In common with similarly predisposed countrymen Buck 65 and Sixtoo, mcenroe welds politically savvy, cliché-free rhymes to music whose bewitching sampledelic warp and weft is underpinned by a delirious retinue of skewed, raw but always mercilessly funky beats. No one trick pony, mcenroe is also the brains behind Vancouver's Peanuts & Corn label and is now established as a key player in the distribution and dissemination of hip hop across Canada.