Wes Williams aka Maestro Fresh Wes is the first Black Canadian artist to have a single or album reach gold and platinum status in Canada . This Toronto born multimedia celebrity, is the first Hiphop artist to receive a Juno Award for Best Rap Recording of the Year, the first to have a single on Billboard, as well as the first to be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame . The success of Wes’s 1989 debut single Let Your Backbone Slide , and his debut album Symphony In Effect, helped shape the Canadian music industry and reinforced him to being labeled as The Godfather of Canadian Hiphop.
Throughout the past 40 years , Wes has evolved professionally from performing on local college radio, to making groundbreaking music and hitting national as well as international stages. As an actor he has appeared in several films and has worked alongside Mekhi Phifer, Omar Epps as well as Oscar Award winner Jamie Foxx. In Canadian television, Wes completed 8 seasons as a supporting character on CBC’s hit sitcom Mr. D.
The foreword for Wes’s awarded winning self-help book STICK TO YOUR VISION was written by Chuck D of the legendary Public Enemy. The foreword of Wes’s children’s book YOUNG MAESTRO GOES TO SCHOOL , was written by the legendary Kardinal Offishall and inspired two Juno Award nominated albums in the category of Children’s Album of the Year. Currently Wes is the host on CBC’s hit summer television series RACE AGAINST THE TIDE Season 3, his cooking show which he co-produced, MAESTRO CHEF WES is the second most watched show on the Bell Fibe1 Network, and his brand new single STILL WINNING is scheduled to drop at the end of June 2023.