05/06/2026
Montreal Hip Hop history 🇨🇦⚜️
In 2001 during Limp Biskit’s Anger Management tour, Mr Wiggles () from the legendary New York breakdance group The Rock Steady Crew and DMX organized a rap battle between Montreal rapper Bless (who was 17 at the time) () and Yung Berg (now known as Hitmaka) () in DMX’s tour bus on his birthday.
The two young rappers battled in front of DMX and his Ruff Ryders crew, John Otto and Fred Durst from Limp Biskit, Hulk Hogan, Interscope record executive Jordan Schur and members of Destiny’s Child.
Bless is one of the most important Montreal rappers to come from Quebec who started off as a breakdancer at a young age in the 1990s. As a breakdancer, he was managed by legendary Montreal Hip Hop promoter Garry T at the age of 7 or 8. He met Tupac Shakur (2Pac) in New York at the age of 11 and was the first and only Canadian rapper to meet and rap for Tupac. Tupac gave Bless his stage name. Bless is also the only Canadian rapper to have a Tupac feature.
Bless traveled and spent a lot of time in New York as a young child and teenager to pursue a Rap career. He linked up with major American Hip Hop figures such as Limp Biskit, DMX, Jam Master Jay from Run DMC, LA Reid, Pharrell Williams and many more. Mr Wiggles from The Rock Steady Crew was Bless’ mentor and Guru from Gang Starr took Bless under his wing and both of them frequently collaborated with each other. bless collaborated with JR Writer from Dipset, Tony Touch, Cappadonna from the Wu-Tang Clan, Rah Digga, Foxy Brown, Twista and many more.
Bless became the first and only Canadian rapper to have a playable video game character based off of him as he became a video game character in the Def Jam video game series.
