• ARTIST: Wolf Castle
• TITLE: Waiting for the Dawn
• CAT#: FMG105
• FORMAT: Vinyl, CD, Digital
• RELEASE DATE: October 18, 2024

Wolf Castle’s new record begins in shadow, during a dark night of the Mi’kmaq rapper’s soul. Over the album’s 12 tracks, he traces the moon as it makes its way across the sky, unraveling his own personal anxieties in the darkness, coming to terms with growing up, paying tribute to the place and people who shaped him, putting bigots in their place, speaking up for those who have trouble speaking up for themselves, and forging a path forward. Fuelled by Wolf’s signature cerebral, breakneck flow, powerful beats, and hooks that nod to classic R&B and ‘90s hip-hop hits, Waiting for the Dawn isn’t a coming-of-age story. It’s about figuring out how to live when you get there.

In contrast to the youthful braggadocio of Wolf’s 2021 EP Da Vinci’s Inquest, Waiting for the Dawn finds the New Brunswick-based artist fully grown, investigating his place in the world and how to take care of the people around him. Just before he began working on the album, he lost his grandfather, Gilbert Sewell, a former Pabineau First Nation Chief and tireless community leader—namechecked on the album’s penultimate song “Never Letting Go”—who happened to look exactly like Wolf. 

“It got me thinking about life and death, and how I'm 27—I'm not a kid anymore, I have real life responsibilities,” Wolf (aka Tristan Grant) says. “It kicked me in the ass to work on myself and be like, ‘hey, what do you really want to do? Not only career-wise, but how are you going to be successful in your personal life?’ On paper I’m successful, but if you don't have a strong family or community to go back to, what the hell's the point?”

In the soft dancefloor glow of 'I Won’t Stop,' he makes the case for getting out of your head, grounding yourself by physically moving and escaping your inner dialogue, if only for a few minutes. 'Run It Back' picks up the pace, mimicking Wolf’s anxieties about failure and who he is when he’s not on stage. Wolf bares his fangs on the fight song 'Manners,' calling out the powers that be for trying to force him into boxes and reinforce stereotypes: “Why’s it when I’m out I always gotta make a statement? Cut my hair, pretend that I don’t hate shit—like I ain’t grown up in lower-class places, like I ain’t seen shit that keep a kid shaking.”

First light starts to shine on the triumphant 'Never Letting Go' even as he details his father’s absence, celebrating the rest of his family and pledging to lift up his community. There are no solutions that arrive with the dawn on the gentle, clear-eyed 'Hey Ya Hey (Sewell Street Song),' but a chorus of voices celebrate new beginnings, and Wolf contemplates where he comes from and where he might be going.

From Pabineau First Nation, Wolf gives to the culture and resolves to put actions over words with Waiting for the Dawn, cementing himself as an illuminating, incisive, and socially conscious voice in modern hip-hop.