WRITING
Ways of Listening is a love letter to music, a sharp analysis of our current cultural reality, and a joyful celebration of the artists who keep creating against all odds.
How has the internet changed the way we listen to, and love, the music that shapes our lives? Award-winning musician Rollie Pemberton (Cadence Weapon) interrogates our current musical landscape.
Music occupies a curious place in modern life, somehow omnipresent and disposable at the same time. Computers have democratized song creation. There is more music being produced now than at any point in human history and streaming platforms are the ultimate distribution model for this vast bounty.
But streaming relies on an algorithmic discovery system that guides the user’s choices and encourages them to listen passively to the company’s curation, while also dissuading the listener from searching for music and developing their own taste. Streamers offer meagre royalties to artists on their platforms, largely devaluing music in the public sphere. And social media companies have taught a whole generation of young listeners to perceive music as merely background noise for content.
This all adds up to a bleak landscape for the true fan, but there’s another way. Pemberton delves deep into his own music discovery process to present a gentle reminder of another path for the contemporary music lover. He explores the obsession with the “mysterious artist” archetype, studies Charli xcx’s groundbreaking Brat album rollout, assesses the magic of demo recordings, breaks down the Kendrick Lamar - Drake beef, and examines AI’s struggle to understand Italo disco’s strange balance of classic and cringe.
MORE INFO
![]()
BEDROOM RAPPER
McClelland & Stewart
Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what’s happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and poet laureate.
Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music—De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, and more—Polaris Prize winner Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a Cadence Weapon, captures the joy in finding yourself, and how a sense of place and purpose entwines inextricably with a music scene.
From competitive basement family karaoke to touring Europe, from fights with an exploitative label to finding his
creative voice, from protesting against gentrification to using his music to centre political change, Rollie charts his own development alongside a shifting musical landscape. As Rollie finds his feet, the bottom falls out of the industry, and he captures the way so many artists were able to make a nimble name for themselves while labels floundered.
Bedroom Rapper also offers us a wide-ranging and crucial history of hip-hop. With an international perspective that's often missing from rap music journalism, he integrates the gestation of American hip hop with UK grime and niche scenes from the Canadian prairies, bringing his obsessive knowledge of hip-hop to bear on his subject. Rollie takes us into New York in the ’70s, Edmonton in the ’90s, the legendary Montreal DIY loft scene of the 2000s, and traces the ups and downs of trusting your gut and following your passion, obsessively.
How has the internet changed the way we listen to, and love, the music that shapes our lives? Award-winning musician Rollie Pemberton (Cadence Weapon) interrogates our current musical landscape.
Music occupies a curious place in modern life, somehow omnipresent and disposable at the same time. Computers have democratized song creation. There is more music being produced now than at any point in human history and streaming platforms are the ultimate distribution model for this vast bounty.
But streaming relies on an algorithmic discovery system that guides the user’s choices and encourages them to listen passively to the company’s curation, while also dissuading the listener from searching for music and developing their own taste. Streamers offer meagre royalties to artists on their platforms, largely devaluing music in the public sphere. And social media companies have taught a whole generation of young listeners to perceive music as merely background noise for content.
This all adds up to a bleak landscape for the true fan, but there’s another way. Pemberton delves deep into his own music discovery process to present a gentle reminder of another path for the contemporary music lover. He explores the obsession with the “mysterious artist” archetype, studies Charli xcx’s groundbreaking Brat album rollout, assesses the magic of demo recordings, breaks down the Kendrick Lamar - Drake beef, and examines AI’s struggle to understand Italo disco’s strange balance of classic and cringe.
MORE INFO
BEDROOM RAPPER
McClelland & Stewart
Bedroom Rapper is a book for obsessive music fans who are looking for the definitive take on what’s happened in the last two decades of hip hop, from Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton: Pitchfork critic, award-winning musician, producer, DJ, and poet laureate.
Tracing his roots from recording beats in his mom's attic in Edmonton to performing with some of the most recognizable names in rap and electronic music—De La Soul, Public Enemy, Mos Def, Questlove, Diplo, and more—Polaris Prize winner Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a Cadence Weapon, captures the joy in finding yourself, and how a sense of place and purpose entwines inextricably with a music scene.
From competitive basement family karaoke to touring Europe, from fights with an exploitative label to finding his
creative voice, from protesting against gentrification to using his music to centre political change, Rollie charts his own development alongside a shifting musical landscape. As Rollie finds his feet, the bottom falls out of the industry, and he captures the way so many artists were able to make a nimble name for themselves while labels floundered.
Bedroom Rapper also offers us a wide-ranging and crucial history of hip-hop. With an international perspective that's often missing from rap music journalism, he integrates the gestation of American hip hop with UK grime and niche scenes from the Canadian prairies, bringing his obsessive knowledge of hip-hop to bear on his subject. Rollie takes us into New York in the ’70s, Edmonton in the ’90s, the legendary Montreal DIY loft scene of the 2000s, and traces the ups and downs of trusting your gut and following your passion, obsessively.
NOMINATIONS AND AWARDS
Mind In Bloom nominated for Best Column, 2025 Digital Publishing Awards
Mind in Bloom nominated for Best Column, 2024 National Magazine Awards
The Prairies got something to say, finalist for Excellence in Audio Digital Storytelling, Use of Audio Storytelling, 2023 Online Journalism Awards
The Prairies got something to say, Gold Award for Best Digital Design, 2023 Digital Publishing Awards
Atkinson Artist, Atkinson Foundation Artist in Residence from 2022-2025
Edmonton Poet Laureate, 2009-2011
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2022 - Rollie Pemberton, Bedroom Rapper
A Globe And Mail Best Book of the Year
Published by McClelland & Stewart
2014 - Roland Pemberton, Magnetic Days
Published by Metatron
PUBLICATION HISTORY
The Guardian, Pitchfork, The Walrus, Toronto Life, Hazlitt, Noisey, Wired, TIFF, Red Bull Music Academy, NOW Magazine, Eighteen Bridges, The Globe And Mail, Maisonneuve, Matrix Magazine, Avenue
SELECTED WORKS
Not Like Us, Hazlit, 2024
https://hazlitt.net/longreads/not-us
Closing Pandoras Box, Hazlit, 2022
https://hazlitt.net/feature/closing-pandoras-box
Musicians like me can no longer afford to tour. Live music won’t survive unless the industry changes, Toronto Life, 2022
https://torontolife.com/city/musicians-like-me-can-no-longer-afford-to-tour-live-music-wont-survive-unless-the-industry-changes/
Why does concert merch cost so much? Venues are taking a cut and it’s time for that to change, The Globe And Mail, 2022
www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/arts/music/article-cadence-weapon-music-merchandise-cuts/
Saving Little Jamaica, Hazlit, 2020
https://hazlitt.net/longreads/saving-little-jamaica
Innercity Griots, Freestyle Fellowship, Pitchfork, 1993
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/freestyle-fellowship-innercity-griots/
Nightclubbing: Montréal’s Lime Light, Redbull Music Academy, 2016
redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/10/nightclubbing-lime-light/
Nightclubbing: Torn Curtain, Redbull Music Academy, 2016
redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/06/nightclubbing-the-torn-curtain/
'I no longer have to explain why I exist': how hip-hop changed Canada, and me, The Guardian, 2016
www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/05/hip-hop-changed-canadian-identity-rapper-cadence-weapon
The Guardian, Pitchfork, The Walrus, Toronto Life, Hazlitt, Noisey, Wired, TIFF, Red Bull Music Academy, NOW Magazine, Eighteen Bridges, The Globe And Mail, Maisonneuve, Matrix Magazine, Avenue
SELECTED WORKS
Not Like Us, Hazlit, 2024
https://hazlitt.net/longreads/not-us
Closing Pandoras Box, Hazlit, 2022
https://hazlitt.net/feature/closing-pandoras-box
Musicians like me can no longer afford to tour. Live music won’t survive unless the industry changes, Toronto Life, 2022
https://torontolife.com/city/musicians-like-me-can-no-longer-afford-to-tour-live-music-wont-survive-unless-the-industry-changes/
Why does concert merch cost so much? Venues are taking a cut and it’s time for that to change, The Globe And Mail, 2022
www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/arts/music/article-cadence-weapon-music-merchandise-cuts/
Saving Little Jamaica, Hazlit, 2020
https://hazlitt.net/longreads/saving-little-jamaica
Innercity Griots, Freestyle Fellowship, Pitchfork, 1993
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/freestyle-fellowship-innercity-griots/
Nightclubbing: Montréal’s Lime Light, Redbull Music Academy, 2016
redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/10/nightclubbing-lime-light/
Nightclubbing: Torn Curtain, Redbull Music Academy, 2016
redbullmusicacademy.com/2016/06/nightclubbing-the-torn-curtain/
'I no longer have to explain why I exist': how hip-hop changed Canada, and me, The Guardian, 2016
www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/05/hip-hop-changed-canadian-identity-rapper-cadence-weapon
