for their music—as well as numerous record labels committed to rectifying their past lack of interest in the genre. In the 2000s, numerous Canadian hip hop artists, including Kardinal Offishall, Drake, Classified, k-os, K'naan, Swollen Members, Sweatshop Union, Buck 65, Belly, Moka Only, Lil 808, Shad, Kyprios and Cadence Weapon, as well as many R&B artists, have emerged as mainstream stars. Cadence Weapon, in fact, was named poet laureate of Edmonton, Alberta in 2009. In addition to terrestrial radio, the national satellite radio networks CBC Radio 3 and Bande à part, which are both dedicated to Canadian independent music of any genre, also include numerous emerging hip hop artists in their playlists. Bande à part has produced a compilation album of unsigned Quebec hip hop artists, 93 tours, which it distributed as a free download from its website. Several prominent contemporary hip hop artists, including Shad, Cadence Weapon, K'naan, Sweatshop Union, Radio Radio and Omnikrom, have in fact risen to prominence through these channels instead of through terrestrial radio. Apart from a few major stars, however, the hip hop scene has faced continued struggle. Virtually all of the urban-format radio stations which debuted in the early 2000s, including Flow 93.5, have since shifted from a pure urban format to a rhythmic contemporary format. While the stations still play some hip hop, they now focus far more on artists who have already established crossover Top 40 appeal—meaning that emerging artists can no longer rely on the stations to help them build their audience. In 2010, further, Milestone announced a deal to sell Flow 93.5 to CHUM Radio, a division of the mainstream media conglomerate CTVglobemedia. (Following another sale, Flow 93.5 is now owned by Newcap Broadcasting as of March 2014, and now airs a rhythmic adult contemporary format branded as "The Move".) However, a new radio station, CKFG-FM, was licensed to Toronto in 2011 as a community radio station authorized to broadcast a broad spectrum of African and Caribbean musical genres, including hip hop, reggae, soca and rhythm and blues. Canadian hip hop musicians have also continued to face obstacles when attempting to break into the American and international markets. Music critics and journalists have sometimes attributed this to the perception, real or imagined, that stereotypes of Canada as a land of igloos and hosers get in the way of Canadian rappers being taken seriously. As early as 1994, noted Canadian