Meet The Juno Nominees: Classified

Canadian athletes won more gold medals at the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics than any other nation, and set a new record for the most golds won at any winter games. At around the same time, Classfied's "Oh... Canada" also went gold.

The Nova Scotia rapper picked up a few more accolades on Wednesday (March 3) when he received Juno Award nominations for rap recording of the year for last year's Self Explanatory, single of the year, and video of the year.

The rapper born Luke Boyd spoke to CHARTattack by phone about his nominations.

CHARTattack: Don't be modest. How do you feel about being nominated?
Classified: I feel amazing. I don't know how to really sum it up.

The hip-hop one, we figured we were going to get that one, but Sean [Cordner, Sony Music] just kept texting me when the nominations were coming in, and he was like, "Oh, you just got single of the year," which, to me, that's probably the biggest one, just because, you know, of the group of people that's up for it, like Michael Buble, Nickelback and Drake and stuff. To be in that category is crazy.

My manager and I were just talking about how the whole hip-hop category is, I think, one of the best ever. Usually you can look at it and pick who's going to win, but this year it's stacked with a lot of people who are doing stuff. I think it's just really good for Canadian hip-hop in general just to have everybody stacked in that category.

What was your musical highlight of the last year?
Playing at the MMVAs [MuchMusic Video Awards] was pretty big for me. Other than that, going to Australia and over to Europe and the U.K. for the first time. Doing more international stuff. I've always just kind of focussed on Canada more and to get out there and do the international stuff has just been refreshing and a whole new start out there.

Name something you'll do with your trophy other than put it on your mantle.
I should probably make a chain out of it. You know how rappers do it. A big chain. If I could make a chain out of my Juno, that'd be cool.

Like Flavor Flav?
Exactly. A big chain, go buy a chain at the hardware store, hook it up, there you go.

If you win all three, that could be difficult...
I'll figure it out.

April Wine are this year's Canadian Music Hall Of Fame inductees. What's your favourite April Wine song?
Oh, fuck, you're putting me on the spot now. They just played about five minutes from my house a little while ago. It's a small town — I live in Enfield, it's a small town and they played by there. What's the big one? I'm not even going to lie. The one that everybody knows.