It’s the build-up to Crescendo Fest, Halifax’s new music festival “designed to turn up the volume on Black music artists,” and Maggie Andrew is enjoying what might be some of her last days of relative anonymity. On Saturday, Aug. 5, the 24-year-old from Fall River, NS, is set to perform alongside the likes of Canadian hip hop legend Michie Mee, Nigerian-Canadian phenom Nonso Amadi and Halifax favourite Reeny Smith. It’s her second big live show, after a scene-stealing spot at the BLACK VIBES showcase at this year’s East Coast Music Awards. There have been recording trips back and forth to Los Angeles. Music videos to shoot. For now, though, Andrew is killing time in a parking lot outside of Sydney.
“It feels crazy,” she says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “To have the opportunity to perform onstage in front of the whole city is so exciting.”
Despite Andrew’s modesty, there’s good reason for her name to be among the festival’s headliners—there’s not another Nova Scotia alt-pop act more poised for a breakthrough than her. And it sure feels like the moment is coming.
Consider this: In the last four years since Andrew released her debut single “Sleep 4Ever,” her genre-blending pop ballads have earned praise from the likes of CBC Music, Pigeons & Planes and Rolling Stone India—the latter of which described her songwriting as “poignant” and “powerful.” Her knack for melodies has made fans out of the likes of Santigold—who tabbed Andrew as one to watch in Shure24—and Justin Bieber and Pharrell collaborator blackbear—who joined Andrew for a “Sleep 4Ever” remix.
Not bad for a kid from Lockview High School who got her start singing Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” in a talent show.
Andrew’s musical story, in some respects, is about as Canadian as they come: She was working at Tim Hortons when her first break came in 2017. She’d been playing the guitar since the age of 12, and had progressed to penning songs and recording them in her phone’s voice notes app. She sent one to her older brother—snowboarder-turned-artist Trevor Andrew, who makes music as Trouble Andrew—and he encouraged her to fly out to Los Angeles to record with him. Andrew did three months of college, then dropped out and took her brother’s advice.
“That was where it clicked for me,” she tells The Coast. “I went to the studio for the very first time and recorded a song, and I was like, ‘This is what I need to be doing with my life.’”
Andrew moved from Halifax to Los Angeles. She met and recorded with the late producer and songwriter Ash Riser, who earned a Grammy for his contributions to rapper Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly.
“We just clicked,” she told Shure. “We met, and we were in the studio almost every single day and night for two months straight, just working, working, working, working, working. The creativity in those sessions was really great. It almost felt like we were just pulling ideas out of nowhere, and we became best friends over the time.”
Andrew also got to spend more time around the recording studio with multi-hyphenate artist Santigold, a genre-spanning inspiration who’s earned nods from the likes of Beyonce and collaborated with Jay-Z. (Santigold, a Philadelphia-born songwriter, is married to Andrew’s brother Trevor; the two met in Brooklyn at a 2003 magazine photoshoot.)
“Growing up, her CD was one of the first CDs I had ever listened to in my life,” Andrew says. “I got a couple chances to… just kind of see how she writes, and the way her melodies come together… The sounds that come out of her mouth with her voice, they’re incredible—and the drums and synths, and she has like a punk energy… She is just inspired endlessly by so many different things, and that’s what I kind of took from her.”
Today, Andrew is back in Nova Scotia—“COVID kind of brought me back [in 2020], because LA was like, the worst place in the world to be,” she says. She’s found a community of other artists in her home province. Andrew counts Juno award winner Corey LeRue as a close collaborator: The two worked on “Biting Ice Cream” together—an effortlessly catchy song that sounds like Remi Wolf-meets-Cardi B—and Andrew’s latest single, “Better Than You,” a breakup anthem that shows shades of Miley Cyrus and Pink.
It was those songs—and that versatility—that caught the ear of Crescendo Fest organizer Micah Smith, who saw Andrew perform at the ECMA showcase in May.
“We were all blown away,” Smith told The Coast last week, “and I feel like everybody else needs to experience that—because I feel a lot of the time, when people think of Black artists, they think hip hop and rap, but there’s so much more to what we do.”
Andrew agrees.
“As a Black artist, I always felt like I kind of didn’t fit in, because I wasn’t making, like, rap music, or making the stereotypical R&B/soul,” she says. “I had this moment where I was like, ‘Who’s to say what Black music is?’ I’m Black and I’m making the music. So whatever I’m making, that is Black music.”
“Who’s to say what Black music is? I’m Black and I’m making the music. So whatever I’m making, that is Black music.”
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Andrew still has bigger dreams for her future. She’d love to work with Post Malone. Doja Cat is another dream collaborator. For now, though, there’s a big Halifax show to prepare for.
“It’s going to be fantastic,” she says. “Are you coming?”
When to see Maggie Andrew: Saturday, Aug. 5 at Crescendo Fest
Where is Crescendo Fest? The Grand Parade (opposite City Hall, between Barrington Street and Argyle Street)
What time is the show? Performances start at 7pm.
How much are tickets? Admission is free, but donations are accepted here.
