When we meet with Toronto rapper DijahSB, it’s the day after Kendrick Lamar’s Juneteenth “Ken Pops Out” concert in L.A. “People just don’t understand the cultural impact,” says Dijah. “Not only putting on a bunch of local artists, but having it streamed through Amazon, and having him uniting different gang members [Crips, Bloods, Piru]. This is more than just music. The cultural currency is priceless.”

In the wake of Lamar’s marathon beef with Drake, it’s not the most popular of views in the rap city that Drizzy built. For Dijah – usually found chilling at home with their cat, posting on X, or watching NBA and WNBA games – it’s all about staying true to the music. And even a dissenting Dijah is feeling the love in their hometown. “I feel Toronto and Canada support me a lot,” they say. “CBC, Polaris, FACTOR, SOCAN, those guys are behind me.”

DijahSB How R U, video

Select the image to play the YouTube (lyric) video of the DijahSB song “How R U?”

And after 10 years in the game, things have been breaking their way. Throughout the early 2020s, Dijah has worked with Tanika Charles on the song “Different Morning,” and opened for Cadence Weapon at TD Music Hall in Toronto. They participated in a jingle for the Jr. Jays Club, a youth membership program for the Toronto Blue Jays. They had a song featured on a major Android commercial. Crucially, Dijah signed a music publishing deal in late 2023 with Ninja Tune, the home of Kamasi Washington, Yaya Bey, and fellow SOCAN member Jayda G.

“Having them reach out to me really was a confidence boost,” says the rapper. “Very fair splits, and they pitch my stuff for sync, and collect the publishing side of my records. I’ve been releasing music for over a decade. But my fairly new stuff has been getting sync placements, put in commercials, played on the radio. So all this time, that  money has been accumulating, but not being picked up… to the point where the first quarter [they collected], I almost paid off  my advance [from them]… My last SOCAN cheque was enough to cover rent. That’s nuts!”

On July 11, 2024, DijahSB’s late-2023 album The Flower That Knew made the short list for The 2024 Polaris Music Prize (after making the long list earlier). “That kind of stuff is so surreal to me,” says Dijah, when we talk in June. “That 200-odd people sat down and listened to all of the best Canadian albums that came out that year, and said, ‘Dijah’s is one of those albums that deserves to be in the long list of 40.’ You dream about things like that, as an artist.” Now it’s in the short list of 10 – a second time for them (the first was when their EP Head Above the Waters was shortlisted in 2021).

Flower delivers on the promise of Dijah’s mad skills, and establishes them as an heir to the Native Tongues rappers of the early ’90s – De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah. Like their LPs, Dijah’s latest boasts funky grooves, hypnotically jazzy melodies, smooth verbal flow, and compelling lyrics. In songs like “How R U?,” “I’m Blooming,” “Back Outside,” and “Fertilize,” the vibe is mellow but positive, and the words both transcend Dijah’s own challenging circumstances, past and present, and inspire others to do the same. It’s feel-good music to persevere to, acknowledging the struggles of life and shining through them anyway.

“I understand the elements of making a good song, but also, putting your heart into it”

“I understand the elements of making a good song, but also, putting your heart into it,” they say. “Putting what you’re going through into it as well… That’s what most of my favourite artists have done for me. What is music if not vulnerability, and being relatable?”

Like their music, Dijah completely unpretentious. As they’ve said on TikTok before, “I don’t want to influence nobody, I just want to rap, I just want to make music.” “That’s the thing about being an artist,” they say now. “If you actually want to sustain yourself, and have a career – unless you’re a ghostwriter, or a [behind-the-scenes] songwriter – you have to be famous. It’s inevitable. But there’s a middle ground, where I can make money from music, but if I went into the grocery store, nobody would notice me. I feel like that’s what I want to hit.”

Instead of shooting for a quick turnaround from going viral, they’ve taken the slower-and-steadier route of a lifelong career. “You have to do the shows where only five people show up, and you’ve still got to perform,” says Dijah. “You have to do shows where you only get paid $300. You have to do those, in order to build that true following, and that confidence.”

DijahSB, I'm Blooming, video

Select the image to play the (static) YouTube video of the DijahSB song “I’m Blooming”

Dijah is already moving away from Flower and toward the dancefloor. They have a track with electronic duo Snakehips and hip-hop duo EarthGang dropping July 19th, and her own new self-described “dance/house-hop” single “Uh Huh,” with a beat by Keys N Krates, comes out Aug. 3rd – and aims to be The Single of The Summer™, 2024. The beat and flow are so tight, even the humble artist is posting on X that, “I might blow the roof off every venue with this one.” There’s another dance record slated for early September.

Speaking about “Uh-Huh,” Dijah says, “I’ve always had records that sounded a lot like that… When I rebranded from my old name to DijahSB, I was still figuring out a sound. I would try everything: house beats, trap beats, boom-bap… What really made people gravitate to me was the bouncier beats. And it’s where I make my best stuff as well… I feel like joy is resistance. Dancing is resistance. That’s what I’m trying to contribute.”

For DijahSB, earning a living from music is a victory in itself. “It’s so disheartening seeing artists falling for caring about the numbers,” they say. “The accolades are great. It’s beautiful that you can chart, see your name on a billboard. But do you know how rare it is to make a solid living solely from music? To be able to say, ‘I’m gonna go to another city, and put on a show, and people are going to show up’?… It’s a privilege beyond anything to be able to do music.”