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Kizaba is a Congolese Afro-Electro band based in Montreal, Canada. Singing in Lingala, French and Kikongo, the band seeks to infuse contemporary afrobeats, electro, house and music with melodies and rhythms from Congolese traditions, creating a unique Afro-futuristic universe strongly inspired by the stylistic tradition of “Sapology”. The Kizaba live show features customized visuals created in partnership with Congolese plastic surgeons. Growing up in Kinshasa, Lionel began playing drums in church at the age of 5, the love of percussive rhythms and singing from his grandmother Julienne Lusungi and his uncle, jazz music teacher François Mantuila Nyomo. He quickly became a sought-after musician with groups such as Jupiter & Okwess, Vodacom Superstar and many others. He studied jazz at the Institut National des Arts in Kinshasa, while playing soukous in clubs after hours. After moving to Montreal in 2011, he quickly established himself as one of the top drummers on the Canadian world music scene, performing with bands such as AfrotroniX, Mélisande [Électro-Trad] and others. Kizaba released their debut album, Nzela, in 2016.It won numerous local awards and led to a cross-Canada tour for the band. Last November and as part of M for Montreal, Kizaba released a second album, Kizavibe, which met with incredible success enabling them to tour the four corners of the globe.

Twin Flames build bridges between cultures, continents and styles, and have long been celebrated for their soundscapes spanning Canada and the Arctic. Their songs tell stories of courage and survival. Using unusual sounds, native spiritual flutes, traditional drums and Western instruments to enhance their harmonies, they offer a moving and unique experience.

The blues, a vehicle for heart-rending journeys par excellence, has led to the unlikely meeting of Swiss Thierry Jaccard and Mauritian Yannick Nanette. With their new album Sadela, The TWO delve into the Creole imagination of the Indian Ocean. Sadela, which means both in Mauritian Creole, is a musical itinerary that explores island blues known as Sega, Maloya…Through this creation, the two musicians recount their hybrid, mixed-race identities, in perpetual evolution, and thus echo the imaginary “creolization” of the world as thought by the poet Edouard Glissant.

Scott-Pien Picard is an Innu singer-songwriter from the North Shore community of Uashat Mak Maliotenam. He composes in Innu, his mother tongue, a language rich in imagery. Inspired by the bands Maten and Kashtin in his youth, he developed a passion for music and began strumming guitar. In 2015, he took part in the TV show Le Rythme 3 in Montreal, directed by Samian, and for the past few years has been taking part in Nikamun Mamuitun (Chansons rassembleuses), a large-scale show uniting Aboriginals and Allochtones. Scott-Pien Picard has been active on the Aboriginal music scene ever since, performing in many Quebec communities. Recently crowned Quebec’s Talent Bleu by the public on La Semaine des 4 Julie, the Innu artist unveiled his second album in March 2022. Scott-Pien Picard presents a rousing folk show and invites you to discover the richness of Innu culture.

Moonfruits is a creator of contemporary folk that addresses our humanity with heart, spirit and wonder. Led by husband-and-wife team Alex Millaire and Kaitlin Milroy, Moonfruits express themselves in both French and English, a reflection of their day-to-day life in Ottawa. The band’s harmonies are sometimes haunting, sometimes resounding, with deliberate arrangements specific to each of their song-worlds, featuring guitar, banjo, organ and glockenspiel.

As much dreamers as sleeve-rollers, they confront dehumanizing capitalism and environmental catastrophe head-on, with a message of solidarity woven into the very fabric of their work.

Moonfruits span the decade of their creation, from street performances in Ontario and Europe to prestigious venues (National Arts Centre, Place des Arts) and festivals (Philadelphia Folk Festival, Ottawa Bluesfest, Festival of Small Halls Ontario).Their village concept album, Ste-Quequepart (2017), is the winner of the Stingray Rising Star, SOCAN, and Trille Or awards, with tours of its half-story-half-song show in Canada, the U.S., France, Belgium and Germany.

Moonfruits collaborates with dozens of acclaimed Canadian bands-from Juno winner Wesli to folk group Tragedy Ann to the Hamilton Philharmonic-and, in 2021, co-wrote, arranged and performed the music for Moby: A Whale of a Tale (Art & Water), produced on a schooner in Toronto harbor. This production won four Dora Awards, including Best Ensemble Performance in the Theatre for Young Audiences division.

Moonfruits’ stripped-down second album, Salt (2022), offers 12 richly orchestrated songs that explore living, dreaming and raising a child in an age of climate change and growing socio-economic inequality. It tells the story of their families and the kind of communities they hope to help build.

For their 10th anniversary, Les Chiclettes continue to put their rich, powerful voices and solid vocal harmonies to good use, but with a major musical shift towards musical humor. Their jazz music, evoking the sound of the Andrews Sisters with a more contemporary twist, supports lyrics that are now more committed, avant-garde and humorous. With their intelligent lyrics and their perspective on women, the three performers revisit concepts of yesteryear that have more or less evolved, or deal with topical themes in a satirical way. After a long period of reflection, they decided to make a major musical shift towards musical humor. Our aim is to get across a committed message and an intelligent commentary on women through our humor. It’s a humor generally tinged with self-mockery, based on situations that touch us personally as women and as artists. For us, laughter soothes, comforts, relaxes, amuses, shocks and makes us think. Most of this humor is to be found in the lyrics. It’s in the way they invest themselves in a subject, in a proposition that may seem light-hearted on first listen, but that gets you right in the middle of it, with an unexpected ending. The song lyrics are collaborations between the three members of Les Chiclettes: Nathalie’s deadpan humor, Julie Kim’s madness, all sealed under Geneviève’s pen. The themes of their songs are drawn from our everyday lives. Their musical style is still inspired by the Swing of the ’40s. Julie Kim’s music, however, has a slightly more contemporary touch, solidifying the three-harmony sound that is our trademark.Don’t worry, Les Chiclettes won’t be falling for Hawaiian three-part music! Musically, we remain true to ourselves.

You may have seen or heard him collaborate with a ton of your favorite artists: Cindy Doire, Jacobus (Radio Radio), Caracol, LGS. He travels far and wide to get crowds of all ages dancing. You probably have a friend like him, the one who always brings the music to the party?

He throws down a thunderous energy in performance. In addition to getting people up and dancing, his goal is to introduce his audiences to new songs and nostalgic remixes. That’s why he doesn’t just stick to original songs, but remixes them too.

One of the most prolific figures on today’s French hip-hop scene is without doubt DJ Weedim, who possesses, among other things, that rare talent of delivering rich, complex productions. And the proof is in the pudding: to date, he has racked up an incredible number of collaborations, with talents from both the first and the new generation, always with the same recipe: remarkable energy, unfailing efficiency and a unique flavor. DJ Weedim composes for a multitude of artists from diverse and eclectic backgrounds, including Joeystarr, Alkpote, Vald…(again, the list is not exhaustive). His strength lies in his artistic direction: in addition to composing all the music for French Bakery Breadren’s projects, he doesn’t hesitate to write the choruses, bringing his own touch, his own tone, his own unique color, his own breath, his own energy… in short, his own effectiveness. It’s with a certain ease that he dons his DJ, beat-maker and producer hat. A true Stakhanovist, DJ Weedim has released over three hundred tracks in the last 6 years, toured with Vald and Alkpote, concocted tracks for leading artists and had artists such as 13 Block, Romeo Elvis, Larry, Jok’Air and Captaine Roshi play on his Boulangeries Françaises.

Cayenne performs stories that are at times left-field and energetic, at others introspective and sensitive. On the menu: feminism, millennial concerns, the search for identity through love of the land, all topped with influences that waltz with musical polyamory. It’s an encounter with a sympathetic bugbear with a heart as big as the vast Côte-Nord. Her debut album, SNOWFLAKE, was released in autumn 2022.