Having emerged as an artist who gave voice to issues of systemic inequality and racial disparity, particularly among Canada’s Black communities, with his 2021 Polaris Prize-winning fifth album Parallel World, Cadence Weapon (aka RolliePemberton) returns with an urgency, addressing the dizzying contradictions of modern culture and technology with both precision and irreverence, reminding us that we don’t just have to just “go along for the ride,” he says.

The hyperpop and electro-inspired production of ROLLERCOASTER is intended to replicate the internet’s “sensory overload.” With credits including the likes of Jacques Greene, Grandtheft, Bartees Strange, Machinedrum, Cecile Believe, Martyn Bootyspoon, Loraine James, Taydex, Wesley Singerman, myst milano, and Harrison, Pemberton has organized a combination of tried-and-true Canadian collaborators and “fellow Black weirdos,” as Pemberton puts it, to execute his vision. Despite its bleak portrait of today’s digital attention economy, ROLLERCOASTER still fits into a long lineage of Black electronic artists using music to forge Black futures. It goes hand-in-hand with his work outside of music, as he frequently uses his platform to shed light on musicians rights and financial realities. By illuminating the current issues of the world, Pemberton inspires others to join him in the fight for a better one.