Shad Tickets

Shad In Concert

Over the course of his career, Canadian MC Shadrach Kabango — aka Shad — has been bringing disparate worlds and mindsets together: classic hip-hop and modern indie rock, polemical lyrics and feel-good humor, history lessons from our colonial past and street-level dispatches from our turbulent present. 

Born in Kenya to Rwandan parents, Shad came of age in London, Ontario, before moving to nearby Waterloo to attend Wilfrid Laurier University. While there, he won a campus radio talent competition that gave him the funds to record his first album. 

Released in 2005, When This Is Over was a debut that felt like the work of a seasoned veteran. The naturally loquacious MC waxed philosophically about everything from gender relations to the Rwandan genocide (with spoken-word recollections from his mom) over cool boom-bap beats. 

With his second album — The Old Prince — Shad reached a wider audience thanks to cheeky but incisive singles like "The Old Prince Still Lives at Home," whose MuchMusic Video Award–nominated video saw Shad playfully re-creating the opening credit sequence of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The album would earn Shad a place on the 2008 Polaris Music Prize shortlist and a Juno Award nomination for Rap Recording of the Year — an honor he would eventually win in 2011 (beating out some MC named Drake) for his next album, TSOL.

Featuring contributions from Broken Social Scene's Brendan Canning and Lisa Lobsinger, TSOL was indicative of a broadening musical vision that fully flourished on 2013's Flying Colours, which rolled up string sections, hard-edged synth-funk, African pop, and an ambient hip-hop reconstruction of Don McLean's ‘70s standard "American Pie." 

In the midst of establishing himself as one of Canada's most respected rappers, Shad's curious mind turned to other pursuits, like hosting the CBC Radio talk show Q and the Netflix documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution. He also released a yacht-rockin' side project under the alias Your Boy Tony Braxton. 

In 2018, Shad returned with his most audacious rap release yet, A Short Story About a War. It was a musically eclectic but lyrically direct concept album about a fictional world on the verge of apocalypse.