JUNO Award-Winning Artist · Producer · Label Owner

• JUNO Award winner and multiple-time nominee

• Host, the 2014 JUNO Awards

• 5x MuchMusic Video Award winner

• Multiple East Coast Music Award winner

• Founder, Half Life Records (est. 1995)

• 16+ albums across a 30-year career

• Enfield, Nova Scotia

Classified is one of the most decorated artists in Canadian hip-hop, and he built the whole thing from a small town in Nova Scotia without ever leaving it.

Luke Boyd started Half Life Records and released his first album in 1995, at a point when the Maritimes had no hip-hop infrastructure to speak of. He spent the better part of a decade recording and producing his own work independently before Trial & Error broke through as one of the best-selling independent rap albums in the country. Everything since has been built on that same foundation: he produces his own records, runs his own label, and has never needed anyone's permission to make what he wanted.

His single "Inner Ninja" with David Myles became the biggest rap single in Canadian music history. Across his catalogue he has earned dozens of gold and platinum certifications, a JUNO Award and multiple nominations, five MuchMusic Video Awards, and a shelf of East Coast Music Awards. He has collaborated with Snoop Dogg, Maestro Fresh Wes, Buck 65, Ria Mae, and David Myles, and in 2014 he hosted the JUNO Awards, Canadian music's biggest night.

What sets Classified apart in the brand space is that he never left. He still lives and works in Enfield, Nova Scotia, and his audience knows it. He's a family man with a thirty-year career, an unusually loyal Atlantic Canadian following, and national name recognition that comes without the polish or distance most artists at his level carry. When he puts his name on something, people believe it's actually his, and that's a rarer commodity than reach.