Canada’s most renowned pure rap export, Kardinal Offishall, brings his music industry know-how and indie credibility to the VJ Search Expert Panel. As one of the pre-eminent figures in Canadian hip hop, Kardi has built a portfolio of international production and recording credits comprised of a virtual Who’s Who of urban music talent. Before multi-platinum reggae crooner Sean Paul became the toast of the pop charts, Toronto’s Offishall rap ambassador was already penning gold-selling Juno Award winning singles with him (“Money Jane”). To date, Kardinal is the only Canadian urban act to appear on BET’s Rap City show (even freestyling in the booth with Big Tigger), and on MTV’s Advance Warning (which introduces the world to artists on the verge of breaking big, like former guest Kanye West). When you couple that with recent collaboration work alongside the Neptunes’ Pharrell Williams (“Grinding” remix, “Bellydancer”), on recent records by Pete Rock (“We Good”), Method Man (“Baby Come On”), Akon (“Kill The Dance”) and on the blockbuster movie soundtrack 2 Fast 2 Furious with Disturbing The Peace’s Shawnna (“Block Reincarnated”), it’s really not open to debate—Kardinal is “the people’s champ like Lennox Lewis”, as he raps on the title track.

Interestingly, Kardinal earned his industry-wide international chops the old fashioned way - with dope beats and sick rhymes. His diction, a deft mix of Jamaican patois, mixed with Canadian and American slanguage, sounds so distinctive and dissimilar to any other music out there… and that’s where the Fire comes in.

Despite the flurry of activity and accolades that have followed Kardinal around since the late 90’s, for the record, Fire and Glory is his debut release of new music. “Fire and Glory describes what my life’s been like for the last few years,” explains the multiple Juno Award winning emcee (e.g. Northern Touch) and last year’s winner of the UMAC (Urban Music Association of Canada) Reggae Recording of the Year “Empty Barrel” featuring Blessed. “You have to walk through the fire, to get to the glory. Having your ex-label dissolve, and then trying to get a priority release on Geffen/Interscope with Jadakiss and Eminem in the picture means my eyes are wide open now.”