Over the last twenty years, Roland Pemberton has been able to establish himself as a style-defining beat poet of a new school, and not only in the rap scene of his hometown of Toronto. The artist, author, and producer is now a fixture in the more experimental alleyways of the genre on this side of Canada’s borders, too, and he reinvents himself on each of his albums with increasing adventurousness. With his debut, “Breaking Kayfabe” (2005), he set brutal standards in terms of beat sequencing, lyricism, and sampling that have hardly been achieved by any Canadian rapper since. Whether as a keen observer of the general political climate, as on “Hope In A Dirt City” (2012), or as a contemporary witness to the rampant social problems in Canada and the entire West, as on “Parallel Worlds” (2021), Cadence Weapon fully deserves his place as an authority on contemporary conscious hip-hop. Now, he is presenting perhaps his most experimental work with “Rollercoaster” (2024). Atop a dim foundation of breakbeats, rap, and trap, scaffolding made up of deconstructed club, hyperpop, and future garage is erected in a finely tuned balance. The lyrics are zeitgeist-driven and yet somehow timeless. At the moment, it’s probably safe to say that no one sounds quite like Cadence Weapon – be it in the studio or on stage.