Northern Dial Artist Profile

BADBADNOTGOOD

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

BADBADNOTGOOD formed among students in the jazz program at Toronto's Humber College, but the group's early identity came from treating hip-hop as material for improvisation rather than keeping jazz and rap in separate lanes. Their first releases reworked music associated with artists such as Tyler, the Creator and other contemporary rappers, helping a young audience hear jazz vocabulary through music it already knew. That approach quickly made the Toronto group an unusual bridge between beat culture, instrumental jazz and the city's broader alternative scene.

The band's reach expanded through collaborations as much as through its own records. In 2015, BADBADNOTGOOD made the full-length Sour Soul with Ghostface Killah, while work with artists including Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator placed the group inside major hip-hop sessions as musicians and producers rather than novelty jazz interpreters. The 2016 album IV broadened the palette further through soul, electronic music and guest vocalists, confirming that the band could write a distinctive catalogue outside the cover versions that first drew attention.

Talk Memory, released in 2021, marked another shift toward expansive original composition and classic jazz reference points, with collaborators including Arthur Verocai, Karriem Riggins, Terrace Martin, Laraaji and Brandee Younger. BADBADNOTGOOD matters in Canadian music because the group helped collapse boundaries that once separated jazz institutions, hip-hop production and indie audiences, becoming an internationally recognized Toronto ensemble whose collaborative footprint reaches across several generations and genres.