Cadence Weapon Breaking Kayfabe 20th Anniversary Tour
Schedule
Thu, 20 Nov, 2025 at 08:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
The Garrison | Toronto, ON
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Transmit PresentsCadence Weapon: Breaking Kayfabe 20th Anniversary Tour
https://cadenceweapon.bandcamp.com/
Cadence Weapon is the Edmonton-born, Hamilton-based rapper, producer, writer, poet, and activist Roland “Rollie” Pemberton. Throughout his work, the multidisciplinary artist aims to preserve and resurrect Black cultural memory by forging connections between personal, local, and collective histories.
Raised by a pioneering radio DJ father from New York and piano playing mother, Pemberton started rapping at age 13. He cut his teeth performing live with his uncle’s funk band as a teen, but as one of the only rappers in Edmonton, he found endless outlets for his creativity on the internet, where there were no limits on discovering music. Pemberton thrived online finding samples, remixing songs, and battling rap strangers on message boards. As a university student, Pemberton penned alternative hip-hop reviews while crafting his debut album, 2005’s Breaking Kayfabe, the first of five of his albums that have been nominated for the Polaris Music Prize.
In 2009, following the release of his second album Afterparty Babies, he was appointed the Poet Laureate of Edmonton and spent two years forging a new legacy for his city as
its representative rapper-poet. His debut poetry collection, Magnetic Days, arrived in 2014. Between 2009 and 2021, Rollie released Hope In Dirt City and Cadence Weapon, and lived in Montreal for a few years before moving to Toronto where he has reported on the gentrification of the city’s Little Jamaica neighborhood and the migration of Black Canadian communities, while still holding pride for the Canadian Prairies he hails from. In 2022, he moved to Hamilton.
Pemberton received the 2021 Polaris Music Prize for his fifth album, Parallel World, an incisive project that uncovers the splintering realities both created and hidden by modern systems of inequality, atop blistering production that draws from UK grime, trap, and acid house. In 2022, Pemberton released memoir Bedroom Rapper (McClelland & Stewart / Penguin Random House): a personal account of his life in music as an artist, critic, and fan amid a changing digital landscape. The memoir was included in Globe and Mail's 'Best 100 Books of 2022'. The book has received wide acclaim from CBC, the Toronto Star, The Talkhouse, Under the Radar and The Walrus. That same year,
Rollie also was appointed the inaugural Atkinson Artist (Atkinson Foundation) and launched the #mymerch campaign, which is a campaign geared at ending merch cuts in North America.
Pemberton has performed as Cadence Weapon live for over 20 years across North America and Europe, including performances at dozens of festivals like Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, Roskilde, Osheaga, Pitchfork Music Festival, and the 2010 Olympics in
Vancouver. He’s toured extensively as a headliner, and has also supported tours with Too Many Zooz, Japandroids, Jurassic 5, Born Ruffians, and many more.
A scholar and entertainer with many hats, Pemberton has done narration work for VICELAND TV shows, hosted lectures for the Red Bull Music Academy, conducted live interviews and guest hosted for CBC (q, Commotion), and acted in Sean Nicholas
Savage’s debut musical, Please Thrill Me as well as featured in documentaries Paid In Full (BBC/CBC), and Play It Loud (TVO). In 2020, he launched his ongoing self-titled Substack, where he shares personal essays about being an artist, music and cultural
criticism, and behind-the-scenes posts into his work and creative process.
His sixth album 'Rollercoaster' was self-released in Canada, and released via MNRK in the rest of the world, on 19 April 2024. This collection is a call to arms where Pemberton turns the tables on social media apps and fake news outlets in a stirring musical
manifesto of techno-revolt. Over the course of the album, Pemberton takes on toxic start-up culture, neighbourhood-gentrifying tech companies, fake accounts, and the pervasive influence of the internet over an ecstatic collection of electro, hyper pop, trap and house beats.
Pemberton has recently completed the recording of his seventh Cadence Weapon album 'Forager' slated for release in early 2026. He is also writing a new book called "Ways of Listening", which is a series of essays about music.
with
DijahSB
https://dijahsb.bandcamp.com/
19+
$29.10 Advance (Taxes & Fees Incl)
www.transmitpresents.com
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Where is it happening?
The Garrison, 1197 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M6J 1X3, CanadaEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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