Decibels up: 2025 Juno Awards packed with patriotic expression, big ensembles​on March 31, 2025 at 1:00 pm

Hip-hop legend Maestro Fresh Wes, Inuk singer Elisapie and singer Jonita Gandhi performed a cover of Home with verses translated into Inuktitut and Hindi. It was the first of many multicultural mash-ups of the show. Backstage, the artists all commented on how fun it was to perform the tune that way and how indicative the number was of the cross-cultural collaborations that have come to define so many contemporary Canadian global superstars.

At the Juno Awards gala on Saturday night where 40 awards were handed out, CARAS/Juno president Allan Reid noted that Canada is the third largest exporter of music in the world. Watching the show play out, it became clear that one of the reasons for this is the fact that our artists create art drawn from their shared and distinct cultures to come up with something very special.

From TikTok fan choice award winning rapper bbno$ and Queen Priyanka with a runway of great drag performers strutting through It Boy to rap album of the year winners Snotty Nose Rez Kids and Tia Wood exploding on the stage with a mix of SNRK’s Red Future and Wood’s Dirt Road, the big numbers were what a good awards ceremony thrives on.