Famous is the stage name of Ashton Bishop, a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

rapper and radio broadcaster."Learn how to fly with Famous"
'' Now'', November 3, 2008. He is most noted for his 2008 EP ''I Rap Now'', which received a

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

nomination for Rap Recording of the Year at the

Juno Awards of 2009 The Juno Awards of 2009 honoured music industry achievements in Canada in the latter part of 2007 and in most of 2008. These ceremonies were held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada during the weekend ending 29 March 2009. Loverboy was induc ...

."Some surprising newcomers nominated at Junos". ''

Telegraph-Journal The ''Telegraph-Journal'' is a daily newspaper published in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. It serves as both a provincial daily and as a local newspaper for Saint John. The newspaper is published by Brunswick News. The ''Telegraph-Journal'' i ...

'', March 28, 2009. Originally from

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

, he studied music production at

Trebas Institute Trebas Institute is a for-profit private Canadian, bilingual, post-secondary college that offers music, film, business, technology and management programs, with campuses in Montreal, Quebec, and Toronto, Ontario. History Trebas Institute, a ...

, and moved to

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

after one of his teachers, Jane McGarrigle, arranged an internship for him. He subsequently became a radio personality on Toronto's CFXJ-FM, and released ''I Rap Now'' in 2008. The album's most successful single was "Fourth Biggest City", a song about Toronto. Later that same year, he recorded and released the non-album track "President Too", a celebration of the historic importance of

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

's victory in the

2008 United States presidential election The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from ...

. When he received his Juno Award nomination in 2009, he told the press that he was flattered by the nomination but did not expect to actually win, as he was up against Kardinal Offishall's '' Not 4 Sale'' and felt it was clearly Kardi's time rather than his. Later that year he released ''Goddess Girl'', a music and video project consisting of a short film and a soundtrack EP produced by

Burd & Keyz Burd & Keyz is a Canadian hip-hop and R&B production group from Markham, Ontario, Canada. Some notable acts they have produced for are Kardinal Offishall, MGK, Meek Mill, Pusha T, and more recently A$AP Ferg, Fabolous, and French Montana. Mu ...

."Former staff left to face the music alone"
'' Et Cetera'', March 17, 2011. In 2011, he had his first acting role in Reza Dahya's short film ''Esha''. In 2011 and 2012 he released ''Road to Center Stage'', a series of three EPs leading to the release of his full-length debut album ''Center Stage'' in 2014. Unusually for a Canadian musician of non-Asian descent, Famous has had greater success in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

than in Canada. In 2017, he released the single "HeiHeiDe 黑黑的 (First Black Man Rapping In Chinese)", in which he performed a

Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...

rap, and filmed the music video at the

Dragon and Tiger Pagodas The Dragon and Tiger Pagodas () is a temple located at Lotus Lake in Zuoying District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The temple was built in 1976. One of the towers is the ''Tiger'' Tower, the other one being the ''Dragon'' tower. Both towers are seven ...

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung City (Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Kaohsi ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

."Black rapper 'Famous' releases music video shot in Kaohsiung"
'' Taiwan News'', June 5, 2017. He has also hosted a radio show for Taiwan's International Community Radio Taipei.

References

{{Authority control 21st-century Canadian rappers Black Canadian musicians Musicians from Montreal Musicians from Toronto Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Black Canadian broadcasters Canadian radio personalities Canadian male rappers 21st-century Canadian male musicians