Canadians Redefining R&B: The Online Marketing of Drake, Justin Bieber, and Jessie Reyez

In a country that long failed to accept, include, and institutionalize R&B music as part of Canadian culture, musical artists Justin Bieber, Drake, and Jessie Reyez have successfully broken-down barriers by having successful careers as racially diverse Canadian R&B artists. This qualitative study surveys the literature on classifications of the R&B genre and of Canadian identities in popular media. The theoretical framework of discourse analysis is used to conduct a brief episodic history of Canadian R&B and to evaluate how the music genre “R&B,” is traditionally associated with people who have "Black" and "American" identities, and how a “Canadian” identity is traditionally associated with “white” and “folk” musical artists. I conclude that the ascription of racialized and nationalized identities is found to play a role in each artist's respective inclusion, exclusion, and/or authentication vis a vis R&B. I evaluate how Bieber, Drake, and Reyez each articulate “R&B-ness” and “Canadian-ness” to represent multiple, yet equally Canadian national narratives through their Canadian R&B artist lifestyle brands. In exploring ideas of national identity, intersectionality, digital celebrity, branding, and marketing related to contemporary Canadian popular music genres, the dissertation seeks to answer the question: How have the careers of Justin Bieber, Drake, and Jessie Reyez reinforced, complicated, and/or challenged hegemonic understandings of both “Canadian-ness” and “R&B-ness”? Through textual analyses of their social media posts, brand partnerships, interviews, music videos, and music lyrics, the dissertation traces out how multicultural Canadian artists Bieber, Drake, and Reyez broke into the music industry as “digital stars” (Harvey, 2017) by using online communication strategies, alongside traditional industry practices (such as networking with music industry gatekeepers). A particular focus involves Drake’s, Bieber’s, and Reyez’s brand partnerships and social media strategies, between 2019 and 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the significance of online communications, and the Black Lives Matter movement encouraged changes to race-based music industry classifications. The dissertation includes insights from interviews conducted with 35 U.S. and Canadian marketing professionals and music industry executives in 2020. This study is applicable to explorations of how race, nationality, and music genre categories are classified, cultural branding, and contemporary marketing strategies.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph D

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Media Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Pope, Amara

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Keightley, Keir

• Intersectionality
• Popular Music Genres
• Cultural Marketing and Branding
• Digital Celebrity
• National Identity
• Musical Multiculturalism

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/37382

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/37382