Biography of artist famous

Musical artist

Famous is the stage name of Ashton Bishop, a Canadian rapper and radio broadcaster.^[1] He is most noted for his EP I Rap Now, which received a Juno Award nomination for Rap Recording of the Year at the Juno Awards of ^[2]

Originally from Montreal,^[3] he studied music production at Trebas Institute, and moved to Toronto after one of his teachers, Jane McGarrigle, arranged an internship for him.^[4] He subsequently became a radio personality on Toronto's CFXJ-FM,^[1] and released I Rap Now in ^[1] The album's most successful single was "Fourth Biggest City", a song about Toronto.^[5] Later that same year, he recorded and released the non-album track "President Too", a celebration of the historic importance of Barack Obama's victory in the United States presidential election.^[6]

When he received his Juno Award nomination in , he told the press that he was flattered by the nomination but did not expect to actually win, as he was up against Kardinal Offishall's Not 4 Sale and felt it was clearly Kardi's time rather than his.^[2] Later that year he released Goddess Girl, a music and video project consisting of a short film and a soundtrack EP produced by Burd & Keyz.^[7]

In , he had his first acting role in Reza Dahya's short film Esha. In and he released Road to Center Stage, a series of three EPs leading to the release of his full-length debut album Center Stage in

Unusually for a Canadian musician of non-Asian descent, Famous has had greater success in Asia than in Canada. In , he released the single "HeiHeiDe 黑黑的 (First Black Man Rapping In Chinese)", in which he performed a Chinese language rap, and filmed the music video at the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.^[8] He has also hosted a radio show for Taiwan's International Community Radio Taipei.^[8]

References