Stamps cement Black History Month 2026

I remember the days when we had to hunt for our own voices. In the 1980s, the Canadian airwaves often felt like a gated community where the Caribbean cadence wasn’t invited. To hear a beat that matched the rhythm of our own hearts, we had to tilt our antennas toward American stations, or huddle around college radio in the dead of night. We were building a culture in two official languages: English and French, while the mainstream looked the other way, content to treat our contributions as a footnote.

Today, that journey has reached its most permanent destination yet. The kids who once needed a signal from across the border to feel seen are now watching their own faces and their own Caribbean-inflected words travel across Canada on official postage. Canada Post’s 2026 Black History Month stamp set is a monumental recognition of three foundational figures who refused to be silenced: the “Godfather” Maestro Fresh Wes, the “Godmother” Michie Mee, and the Haitian-Montreal revolutionaries, Muzion.

This is a moment where three distinct, powerful paths converge on a single sheet of stamps in every post office in the country. It is proof that our Caribbean cadence, the Caribbean twang in Toronto and the Haitian Kreyol-inflected French in Montreal, is now understood as the authentic soundscape of Canada.

Take Maestro Fresh Wes. Long before he was a celebrated actor and a children’s music creator with five Juno nominations in five years, he was Wesley Williams, the catalyst of a movement. His 1989 debut, Symphony in Effect, was the first Canadian hip hop album to go platinum, and “Let Your Backbone Slide” was the first rap single to go gold. He forced an industry to grow, effectively creating the space for hip hop at the Junos in 1991.

When I spoke with him about this honour, the weight of it was clear. Despite having just received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, the stamp felt different. “I’ll be honest, I knew it was an honour, of course. Like, wow, I’m on a stamp… crazy,” he told me. He is one of the only hip hop artists ever to be selected for such a national honour, placing him alongside icons like Oscar Peterson. The unveiling on January 27^th, was a masterclass in respect, featuring a display that opened like a radio to reveal the stamps. For Maestro, the honour was also deeply personal, “My father took the photograph that’s used on the stamp… in 1988,” he shared. His father is now part of that national legacy, too.

Then there is Michie Mee. Born in Jamaica, she brought the heat of the islands to Toronto’s streets, fusing hip hop with dancehall rhythms. She broke into a male-dominated scene and stayed there, proving that an African Caribbean woman’s story belongs on national symbols. Beside her stands Muzion, the Haitian voice of Montreal, who used hip hop to speak truth to power regarding racism and marginalization. They planted a Haitian-Canadian flag on the national map, ensuring the African Caribbean francophone voices could no longer be sidelined.

This win is a structural shift. We are moving from being vulnerable to being recognized as systemically essential. Our stories are no longer just basement tapes; they are part of the country’s cultural memory, archived in textbooks and collectors’ albums. We have been stamped into history, and we aren’t going anywhere.