Richard Terfry AKA Buck 65 doesn’t spend much time in Halifax anymore. He’s constantly on tour, taking his one-man hip-hop beat-poet act across North America and Europe, where his star has been steadily rising with the release of 2003’s eclectic Talkin’ Honky Blues. Terfry’s music shares few similarities to traditional hip-hop. But he uses the flow of hip-hop rhyme structures to showcase his offbeat lyrical sensibilities. His songs deal with life on the road, the consequences of cheating on a girlfriend and the decidedly un-hip-hop subject of his father. Terfry draws many of his inspirations from his life spent in Mount Uniacke and Halifax, so it’s no surprise SuperCitizens relate to him. “There’s a lot of young and upcoming MCs in Halifax,” Terfry says from a train speeding through the English countryside. “But a lot of people still remember me as the guy that worked at the PaperChase.”

Runner-up: Noah Haspray