Karl Wolf has carved out a lasting legacy in Canadian music, and now he\u2019s embracing new sounds, fresh projects, and the chance to give back to the scene that shaped him.<\/p>\n
Catching up with Now Toronto, the \u201cAfrica\u201d singer shared that life in the limelight hasn\u2019t been his main focus lately.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two years ago, Wolf launched 4AM Vibes Records, a new label meant to mentor emerging talent and build a forthcoming music-and-tech platform. A major part of that vision included signing his first artist, electro-pop singer-songwriter Dani Doucette.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing everything,\u201d Wolf said. \u201cI wear so many hats. I\u2019ve been an executive at a label, I\u2019m an artist, I\u2019ve been a producer, so I kind of know the game and I think I know exactly how to change and move to the next level of streaming.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get him wrong \u2014 Wolf says he enjoys being a frontman, but he values the craft just as much as being in the spotlight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could be making music 24\/7. Even if I wasn\u2019t famous for it, I\u2019d still love doing it,\u201d he said, noting that his writing credits already run deep, including on Jamaican singer OMI\u2019s international hit \u201cHula Hoop.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve written for so many artists who\u2019ve done really well,\u201d he added. \u201cI love both sides of it \u2014 but being a frontman is fun too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Wolf has had a busy 2025, with several songs steadily dropping over the course of the year. His latest is \u201cBody Talk,\u201d a dancefloor-ready hit he says was inspired by a trip to Canc\u00fan, Mexico. Also influenced by his time living in Montreal, where he was exposed to French nu-disco clubs and artists like Stardust, Mojo, and Daft Punk, he says the single is a tribute to the music that shaped him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A CITY THAT \u2018SET THE TONE\u2019 <\/p>\n
Paying homage to different sounds isn\u2019t anything new for the entertainer. Alongside \u201cBody Talk,\u201d his TikTok hit \u201cYeah Habibi,\u201d a modern Middle Eastern-influenced remix to Usher\u2019s 2004 hip-hop club smash \u201cYeah!\u201d continues to rack up massive numbers online, garnering billions of views on the platform.<\/p>\n
As a Lebanese-Canadian artist, Wolf has always placed his heritage at the centre of his music. With songs like \u201cYalla Habibi\u201d becoming mainstream, he says when he began incorporating Arabic sounds into pop music more than 20 years ago, there was no blueprint to follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first started doing it, I was one of the first \u2014 they call me the father of A-pop now, Arabic pop. There\u2019s actually a genre now, but at the time we didn\u2019t have anyone to look to,\u201d he said, also pointing to artists like Massari and Belly as others who helped establish the sound.<\/p>\n
Wolf reflects on the Toronto music scene as a whole with pride, crediting his friend Kardinal Offishall with paving the way for the city\u2019s global stars, including Drake, The Weeknd and Justin Bieber.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve set the tone already. I never did anything anyway,\u201d Wolf laughed. \u201cI just put the Habibis on notice. People come up to me and they\u2019re like, \u2018Yo Karl, I was seen because of you.\u2019 I\u2019m so happy just doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
WHAT\u2019S NEXT, HABIBI? <\/p>\n
When he\u2019s not working, Wolf keeps things local \u2014 naming Bloor Street Lebanese restaurant Amal as his go-to \u2014 while exploring personal interests ranging from artificial intelligence to UFOs (the latter, he predicts, we\u2019ll see as early as 2027).\u00a0<\/p>\n
But until then, the songwriter says his next chapter is focused on creating space for emerging artists. He notes that today\u2019s musicians don\u2019t have the same visibility his generation did on platforms like MuchMusic, and says he\u2019s currently developing something aimed at supporting as many as two million artists by 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love performing but there\u2019s something in me that wants to help the artists that are coming next\u2026 Let\u2019s sort of educate and help the new artists, and give them a platform that\u2019s even better than what we had,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s my Opus right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the new year approaching, Wolf shows no signs of slowing down \u2014 curious, creative, and focused on whatever comes next.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t tell what stage of music I\u2019m in\u2026 I\u2019m loving performing live, I think that\u2019s something that people are craving these days,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, he\u2019s also leaning into revisiting the songs that defined an era. \u201cI\u2019m excited to go back to the old hits \u2013 people love that. It\u2019s like nostalgia is back,\u201d Wolf added. \u201cOnce you see the Backstreet Boys come back, you realize, you know, we could do a comeback too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Karl Wolf has carved out a lasting legacy in Canadian music, and now he\u2019s embracing new sounds, fresh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,341,3302],"class_list":{"0":"post-358525","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-toronto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}