Hailing from Toronto, Canada, Riley Wallace started his career as a musical artist—emerging from the rubble of MySpace with a big enough fan base to earn early viral success and a major-label deal. He later left the industry, which was (sonically) in a precarious state at the time, in search of a new outlet for self-expression, namely writing professionally. Beginning at the end of the infamous blog era, he built a thriving platform—Above Average Hip Hop—and then parlayed his success into a contributing role with XXL magazine, and later HipHopDX and Exclaim! (Canada’s oldest print-based music publication).