Quebs Chronicle: Hip-Hop’s Boycott in Montreal

The hip-hop scene, which began to develop in Quebec in the early 1980s, was, like many others before it, boycotted by the government. Yes, unfortunately, even here… The censorship of this culture by the government was due to their fear that listening to rap music will attract the local gangs…

In the 2000s, they decided to boycott local bars that played rap music. This was done through the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux du Québec, which suspended and banned the liquor licenses of several bars, such as Vision in LaSalle and Le Pionnier in Pointe-Claire. In other words, the government cut off their main source of income, because they play a specific genre of music: rap. Over the decade 2000, at least 13 bars were forced to ban this music from their bars.

Unfortunately, political discrimination against rap is complex, common and dates back to the very beginnings of hip-hop.