dj5rivers · Digital Feature · August 4, 2025
Toronto, ON
In an AI driven digital era where sync placements are make-or-break career moments for independent artists and where global genres like Afrobeats, Punjabi pop, R&B, and Latin trap dominate streaming charts, Canada remains oddly behind when it comes to music supervision, especially when compared to the U.S., U.K., and even emerging juggernauts like India.
It is worth noting that Canada has virtually zero supervisors with a specialty in non-English genres like Afrobeats, Punjabi, or Latinx sounds, despite these genres being some of the fastest-growing across streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
Canada’s great PR boasts rich musical cultures, especially from Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, those perspectives are rarely represented behind the scenes in sync. There are barely any Black or South Asian supervisors working on major Canadian productions. As a result, the soundtracks of “diverse” Canadian shows often feel generic, dated, or painfully out of touch.
Why This Matters
Canada is sitting on a goldmine of sync potential. The global appetite for Afro-Caribbean fusion, Indian hip-hop, Indigenous folk and Francophone trap is exploding. When will our infrastructure reflect that?
The consequences are real. Emerging artists lose out on exposure and royalties. Canadian media exports lack authenticity and sonic innovation. Communities feel unheard and misrepresented.
Part of the problem is visibility. Canada lacks the industry-facing publications that champion the work of supervisors, producers, and music curators. Where the U.S. has Billboard, Variety, and niche outlets like Okayplayer, The Fader, and Music Business Worldwide, Canada has… a handful of blogs and a few CBC radio segments.
This media silence means that genre-specific supervisors, and the artists they could be elevating, are left off the radar. Without media literacy around sync culture and supervision, artists don’t know who to pitch to, and productions keep recycling the same tired Spotify algorithms.
Let’s Be Blunt: A Global Boom, A Local Silence
Music supervision is about plugging a hot track into a Netflix show and shifting the ways we experience music. It’s an intricate, genre-savvy, culturally fluent profession that can propel artists into global spotlights. In the U.S., music supervisors like Kier Lehman (Insecure, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and Morgan Rhodes (Dear White People, Selma) have helped break artists by curating scenes that reflect the real sonic DNA of today.
The U.K. boasts a robust sync scene, with supervisors who have their fingers on the pulse of grime, Afroswing, UK Punjabi, and alt-R&B. In countries like India, with their own thriving entertainment industries (Bollywood) and streaming platforms like Netflix India, genre-specific supervisors are now being hired to place everything from Tamil Drill to Indie-Folk with authentic resonance.
Canada won’t find its sound in spreadsheets and sync briefs, because it’s vibrating through basement studios in Brampton, backyards in Scarborough, home studios in Halifax, and jam sessions in Surrey.
We just need more people who know how to place it.
