Coming fresh out of Toronto, Canada is Charmaine and her debut EP Hood Avant Garde. The project is stacked with bars that reflect an artist confident in who she is and what she is bringing as a female MC.
Born in Zimbabwe, Charmaine and her family relocated to the United States at the age of five. Most of her childhood was spent in the American south. During high school her family was on the move once again, this time heading north across the border to Toronto.
Life in Canada would prove to be a bit harder than expected. “After we moved to Toronto, my dad got laid off,” says the rapper, “and quickly after that, we lost our house. We went to a shelter and then ended up living in a motel, all six of us in this tiny little room with just a hot plate for a kitchen.” Throughout her life Charmaine has always found music as a source of comfort and stability with all the relocating and financial struggles her family endured.
It is this background of listening to songs on motel floors and penning her own rhymes in a notebook that has seen Charmaine enter the scene hungry, looking to make a future for herself away from some of the struggles she has already lived through. The rapper has already taken Canada by storm, named one of the 25 artists to watch in 2021 by Complex Canada and is certainly looking to expand her reach.
Her debut EP Hood Avant Garde makes it clear Charmaine is not her for the games and is coming to make a name for herself. The confidence is apparent from track one “I Don’t Care” and continues into the two singles “Bold” and “Woo!” Charmaine is a woman on a mission and isn’t here for nonsense.
Get to know Charmaine and check out Hood Avant Garde below:
