Entering its 28th year, Canadian Music Week is Canada’s longest-running music industry conference. This year’s big-name headliners aren’t particularly exciting, but there are plenty of up-and-coming acts worth checking out. We’ll highlight them over the next two weeks.

Vivian Girls may take their inspiration from 60s girl groups and 70s punk, but their success is a purely 21st-century story. In fact, it’s hard to think of any group more profoundly affected by the Internet’s rapid hype cycle.

Since forming in 1995, Virginia Beach brothers Gene “Malice” and Terrence “Pusha T” Thornton – Clipse – have thrived in the rap game despite record label disappointments and album delays.

Speech Debelle’s debut album, Speech Therapy, won Britain’s coveted Mercury Prize last year, but the jury’s still out on whether the career-boosting award will lead to success.

If one thing becomes clear while chatting with Language-Arts’ Kristen Cudmore, it’s that the pint-sized singer/guitarist is pretty fearless.

The world of nostalgic dance rock is crowded with artists vying for the listener’s attention. But when Brooklyn’s Tigercity hit the scene in 2004 with a brand of lo-fi, electro-nuanced pop rock that elicited comparisons to Prince, Hall & Oates and the Talking Heads, people took note.