6 Acadian artists to listen to right now

Surf rock, disco, pop punk, hip hop — these aren’t the sounds of traditional Acadian music, but they are part of the increasingly diverse rainbow of offerings coming from Acadian musicians today.

Traditionally rooted in country and bluegrass, Acadian music is no longer any one thing these days: its main thread is cultural identity, not genre. Artists including folk and disco-inspired singer-songwriter Lisa LeBlanc, hip-hop group Radio Radio, folk and pop trio Les Hay Babies and more recently multi-genre artist P’tit Belliveau have broken the mould since the mid-aughts and on, standing on the shoulders of what legends including Edith Butler and 1755 built before them.

The Congrès mondial acadien, or the Acadian World Congress, is a festival that celebrates Acadian and Cajun culture every five years, sharing hosting duties between the Maritimes and parts of the U.S. This year, it’s in Nova Scotia for the first time in two decades, and music is an inextricable part of the events that are being held in the southwestern part of the province from Aug. 10-18.

While LeBlanc and the aforementioned bands are now known outside of Acadian circles, there are plenty more artists redefining what Acadian music is today whose names may sound less familiar to some. Below, you’ll find emerging and established artists alike who are participating in the Congrès — either expanding tradition or eschewing it.

LISTEN | A playlist of artists playing the 2024 World Acadian Congress: 

Baie

This Acadian quartet from Petit Rocher in northern New Brunswick has only been together as Baie for a few years, but their splashy live show and award-winning debut album, 2022’s Grand bleu, handily proves they’re a band to watch. Singer/bassist Chloé Breault and singer/guitarist/keyboardist Matt Boudreau have been releasing work under their solo monikers for about a decade each (Boudreau also plays in Breault’s band), and together with singer/guitarist Marc-André Boudreau and drummer Maxence Cormier the four-piece delivers a mix of pop, disco and surf rock that’s perfect for a day à la plage. It’s cheeky, flirty and fun — and when Breault and Boudreau join each other behind the mic, there’s no stopping them. 

Baie plays L’Ultime Tyme at the Congrès mondial acadien on Saturday, Aug. 17.

Peanut Butter Sunday

Pop-punk rockers Peanut Butter Sunday share (a couple) band members and an off-kilter sense of humour with P’tit Belliveau, but otherwise this group is blazing an entirely original path out of the same hometown of Baie Sainte-Marie, N.S. Set to release a debut full-length album this fall, Peanut Butter Sunday spent last year opening for Green Day in front of 35,000 people at Quebec City’s Festival d’été and making it to the semi-finals of the competitive Francouvertes festival in Montreal — a right of passage for P’tit Belliveau and Les Hay Babies in the past. Bandmates Michael Saulnier, Normand Pothier, Jacques Blinn and André LeBlanc make blistering Acadian pop-punk that pulls influence from Blink-182 and Sum 41, but is still like nothing you’ve heard before.  

Peanut Butter Sunday plays L’Ultime Tyme on Saturday, Aug. 17.

Denzel Subban

Rapper Denzel Subban, real name Moussa Sangaré-Ponce, also hails from Baie Sainte-Marie, N.S., and started getting into hip-hop when hometown rappers Radio Radio and Quebec City’s Boogát came to his high school for a workshop. After taking a break from music for university, he headed to Tide School, a mentorship program/studio/creative centre run by Radio Radio’s Arthur Comeau in Meteghan, N.S., where Denzel Subban worked and performed with Comeau, Jonah Guimond and Mike Saulnier — before the latter two would form P’tit Belliveau and Peanut Butter Sunday, respectively. His influences are indiscriminate (Nickleback, Karim Ouellet, Bad Bunny and Tate McRae come up), which is a strength: it means he isn’t afraid to take chances and do what feels right, while adding his own brand of humour to it all. Denzel Subban’s latest single, “Sa best life,” is an earworm collaboration with Halifax producer Waants, and hopefully signals an upcoming album at some point.

Denzel Subban plays L’Ultime Tyme on Saturday, Aug. 17.

Caroline Savoie

“Concocter une bonne chanson, l’histoire, le message. C’est ma thing.” This is what Dieppe, N.B., singer-songwriter Caroline Savoie told La Presse in 2022 when she released her third album, Bruits blancs: “Crafting a good song, the history, the message; it’s my thing.” And she is undeniably excellent at it. Savoie got an early start in front of a big audience at 19 years old on France’s reality talent show The Voice in 2014, and a year later won the prestigious Granby song competition in Quebec with her own work.

Since then, she’s released three full-length albums, with her debut produced by Jay Newland (Norah Jones, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon), and her most recent with Joe Grass, who works frequently with Elisapie and Patrick Watson — and which resulted in her first ADISQ nomination last year. With a keen sense of life’s emotional minutiae and a simplicity that shoots her lyrics straight to your heart, Savoie has been one to watch her entire, decade-long career. And with a fourth album on its way, we’ll be lucky to experience the next chapter.

Savoie co-headlines a concert with Jacques Surette on Tuesday, Aug. 13. 

Ruby Foxglove

Ruby Foxglove grew up on Surette’s Island, just outside of Yarmouth, N.S., and now calls Ottawa home. Billing herself as “Ottawa’s plus-size singing diva,” she’s been doing drag for almost five years, and singing long before that. Performing at the intersection of Broadway musicals, Hollywood glam and camp, Ruby Foxglove recently made it to the semifinals of the fifth season of Absolut Empire’s Ball in Toronto, where houses of drag queens compete against each other for the title of Canada’s next Drag Empire. (The video above is Ruby Foxglove performing Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody” for the competition.) You can also catch Ruby Foxglove’s artistry on Canada’s Drag Race: when she’s not performing she’s designing jewelry and accessories, both of which have been shown off in seasons 3 and 4.

Ruby Foxglove plays L’Ultime Tyme on Saturday, Aug. 17.

Lost Bayou Ramblers

Brothers Louis and Andre Michot formed Lost Bayou Ramblers as a way to keep their language and culture alive — and 25 years later, the sprawling, Cajun French punk band from Pilette, La., has six members, two Grammys (and three nominations) to its name and collaborators that include the Violent Femmes, Dr. John and Scarlett Johansson. Lost Bayou Ramblers are rooted in history but not overwhelmed by it: the band updates and records traditional Cajun songs, creating a catalogue for a new generation of listeners. 

“We do this because we love traditional Cajun music and we want to bring the other elements of music that we love into it as well, and I think the result is that people feel that they love it for traditional Cajun music but they also love it because it’s something new that they’ve never heard before,” Louis told Vice in 2017. Louis even has a connection to Nova Scotia: when he was 18, he travelled to the University of Sainte-Anne to study in the immersion program, more than 250 years after his predecessors were forced out of the province during the great upheaval. 

Lost Bayou Ramblers play L’Ultime Tyme on Saturday, Aug. 17.