Hip-hop has enjoyed many periods of renaissance over the nearly four decades it's served as the soundtrack to urban America. While birthed and cultivated within the borders of New York City, those humble beginnings would soon turn into a burgeoning cultural movement that would eventually spread to other locales throughout the country, sparking a rise in popularity of the little genre that could.

But while hip-hop has been around the world and back, reaching as far as the U.K. and Asia, America's neighbor, Canada, has long been known more for hockey, cold weather and free healthcare than beats, rhymes and life. While artists like Kardinal Offishall, K-os, and others have managed to gain credibility on the underground, no Canadian artist had been able to penetrate rap on a mainstream level, leaving the country as an afterthought to many rap fans and critics until Drake.

The emergence of Drizzy, who transformed himself from a former child-actor-turned-aspiring-rapper into one of the biggest stars in all of music, prompted many to ponder what other unearthed talent might be lurking in the home of the maple leaf. And that question has been answered slowly, but surely, over the past few years with a number of Canadian acts like The Weeknd and PartyNextDoor emerging as heavyweight talents and helping to change the face of rap and R&B as we know it.

Much of this credit should go to Drake, who has continuously repped his hometown of Toronto and turned it into a hotspot destination for anyone with aspirations of good living, but artists like Tory Lanez are also doing their part in stamping Canada as a certified spot on the hip-hop map and making it prime for the next regional explosion. We've rounded up 10 artists from Canada with the potential to make major noise in the near future and add their unique stylings to the game.