Wendy ‘Motion’ Braithwaite has been a staple in Toronto’s hip-hop community for decades. The award-winning MC, playwright, poet, and screenwriter combines word, sound, and drama to paint her artistic vision. Thanks to her lyrical agility and vision, her work has been seen and heard on a global scale.

Motion has made a sizeable contribution to Toronto’s hip-hop legacy as co-founder of the Masterplan Show, Canada’s longest running hip-hop radio show. Founded in 1988, special guests featured included artists as big as Kardinal Offishall, Saukrates, The Roots, BrassMunk, the Wu-Tang Clan, and more. Her work with the show made her the first female hip-hop radio host in Canada. She made history again in 1997 as the first female nominated for the Much Music Best Rap Video Award for track “Use What U Got”. Her prowess has been lent to iconic compilation albums, Coldfront and Beat Factory’s Rap Essentials II, collaborating with other Canadian hip-hop legends. She has performed at countless venues including Manifesto, The Caribbean International Literacy Festival, Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, for CBC Television and more.

Not only skilled musically, Motion has made her mark in theatre, film, and television production as well. The Canadian Film Centre Alum has won and been nominated for several Canadian Screen Awards for productions Akilla’s Escape which she co-wrote with Charles Officer, and for Revenge of the Black Best Friend, which she co-executive produced and wrote; the production is now a CBC Gem hit television series. Other stage productions include Dora-Award nominated Oraltorio: A Theatrical Mixtape, Aneemah’s Spot, Loveleigh’s Logue, and Dora-Award nominated Nightmare Dream. She is also a published poet with her collections in Motion in Poetry, Everything Remains Raw, and The Black Notes. Her book Motion in Poetry was the first collection published by a major publisher from a hip-hop artist in Canada.

Motion continues to inspire her community as a course director at York University for class Griots to Emcees: Performance, Culture, & Spoken Word. She also founded MotionLive Ent. which helps develop young and emerging talents through multiple programs and workshops.