Music journalists Rosie Long Decter and Natalie Harmsen reflect on the year in Canadian music, highlighting the artists, albums, and trends that defined the sound of Canada in 2024.

With the release of the album ‘Missionary’ - the first full-length collabo between Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, music critics Mastermind and A. Harmony join Elamin to review the new release, and how it holds up to the duo’s classic album collaborations - ‘The Chronic’ and ‘Doggystyle.’ Plus, 'The Brutalist' has been nominated for seven Golden Globes and critics are calling it a ‘New Great American Masterpiece.’ But is it really? Radheyan Simonpillai joins Elamin to talk about 'The Brutalist'. 

It’s been a year on the internet. A pygmy hippo in Thailand captured our hearts, a model taught us how to make Cocoa Puffs from scratch, a woman turned a word-on-the-street interview into a media empire — and that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. Elamin is joined by culture critics Samantha Cole, Jackson Weaver and CT Jones to look back on everything that went down online this year. 

With news of a lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of raping a 13 year-old girl after an awards show more than two decades ago along with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, Elamin is joined by culture critics Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Rania El Mugammar. They'll discuss the allegations, the online response, and discuss how we might hold space for believing those who come forward with these types of claims, while considering other factors that might sway our moral compass. Plus, Jen Sookfong Lee chats with Elamin about Interior Chinatown, a new show based on the award-winning novel by Charles Yu, and whether the book’s metafictional premise works on screen.

It’s been just over a year since the CBC show The Fifth Estate aired its documentary about Buffy St. Marie, raising questions about her claim to Indigenous ancestry. In this group chat, we explore what's shifted in Indigenous art and music in the past year or so. Our guests are - Marc Meriläinen, an Ojibwe musician and producer who runs a record label called Meriläinen Music. He’s also created a program that aims to verify the identity of Indigenous musicians. And Michelle Cyca, a freelance Journalist and a member of the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation in Treaty 6. She has done lots of reporting and writing and thinking about false claims of Indigenous ancestry and how they should be handled.  

Moments after we learned that Brian Thompson, the head of a healthcare insurance company, had been shot in midtown Manhattan – the internet was full of speculation about the suspect’s motives. What we did not see coming were the memes or the look alike contests that were held in New York over the weekend. Internet culture reporters Miles Klee and Rebecca Jennings join Elamin to talk about it all. Plus, this past weekend, one of the top-grossing films at the box office was the 10th-anniversary theatrical re-release of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar, a film that was met with a mixed reception upon its initial release in 2014, but has since come to be seen as one of the Oppenheimer director’s most important films. Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri explains why the film is resonating more strongly today than 10 years ago.

With Taylor Swift’s epic Eras Tour wrapping up in Vancouver this past weekend, the Commotion Group Chat—Toronto Star writer Aisling Murphy, music journalist Suzy Exposito, and Swift Alert app creator Kyle Mumma—convenes to talk about the tour’s massive impact on the music industry, on fan/performer relationships and rituals, on social-media behaviours, and on Taylor herself as she closes this eventful chapter of her career and embarks on another.

'Tis the season for holiday movies, and the group chat is here and they're not all Grinches. Thomas Leblanc, Radheyan Simonpillai and Kathryn VanArendonk wade through what deserves your time and how holiday movies have changed. They also chat with Elamin about The Sticky, the new TV series based on the infamous $18 million dollar maple syrup heist in Quebec.

As Moana 2 breaks box office records, a critique that came up during the first Moana movie is resurfacing - how the movie flattens the identities and the traditions of indigenous Pacific Islanders. Anne Keala Kelly, an Indigenous Hawaiian journalist, podcaster and filmmaker, shares why she thinks Disney can do better.

"Brain rot" is the Oxford word of the year. Maybe you know a bit of what that feels like in this world where social media plays a gigantic role in our lives. Culture writers Rebecca Jenkins, Jackson Weaver & Mel Woods share some personal experiences of brain rot and what it says about this moment that we're in.

Writers Guild of Canada president Bruce Smith and guild member Anthony Q. Farrell join Elamin to discuss a recent experiment where the WGC fed famous lines from Canadian movies and TV shows into ChatGPT to see if the AI could improve upon them, and while the results were predictably awkward and humorous, they highlight the threats that professional screenwriters face as AI continues to encroach on the entertainment industry. Plus, Alison Herman discusses the latest installment in the Dune franchise: HBO’s ‘Dune: Prophecy.’