Drake and Jessie Reyez will receive special achievement honours at the 2026 SOCAN Awards on October 26 at REBEL in Toronto. SOCAN announced the honourees on October 7, with Drake named Songwriter of the Year in the performer category for a fifth straight year and Reyez set for the International Achievement Award.
The ceremony is three days away, hosted by actor Andrew Phung and television personality Arisa Cox, and SOCAN says more than 100 music creators and publishers will be honoured on the night, with the full winners list released that evening.
Two Toronto artists, two different honours
Drake’s award recognises sustained songwriting at the top level. SOCAN cited his unmatched influence on music worldwide, and this is his fifth straight Songwriter of the Year performer honour, a streak that underlines consistency rather than a single album cycle. Earlier this year Drake released a triple album run in May with Iceman, Maid of Honour and Habibti, and coverage of the SOCAN announcement noted he passed Michael Jackson’s long held mark for the most No. 1s by a solo male artist on Billboard charts.
Reyez receives a different kind of recognition. The International Achievement Award honours her for representing Canada on the global stage and influencing music and culture with her talent. She is a Grammy nominee and a multiple Juno Award winner, her songs have been streamed more than four billion times worldwide, and she has worked with artists including Beyonce, Dua Lipa and Eminem. For a Toronto born singer and songwriter, that is a career defined by writing for herself and for some of the biggest names in music.
Together, the two honours tell a complete Toronto story. One artist is recognised for performing his own songwriting at a record setting scale. The other is recognised for carrying Canadian songwriting into rooms and records around the world. Both started in this city, and both will be honoured in this city on October 26.
Every year, the SOCAN Awards shine a light on the songwriters, composers and music publishers who define and elevate Canadian music.
That statement came from SOCAN chief executive Jennifer Brown in the announcement. It frames what makes this night different from a standard awards show. SOCAN is Canada’s music rights organisation, and its awards centre the people who write and publish the music, including writers who work behind the scenes for other artists and for film and television.
Maestro and the foundation of Canadian hip hop
The night also honours the foundation that made the current era possible. Maestro Fresh Wes and producers Anthony Davis and Peter Davis will receive the Cultural Impact Award for their 1989 song Let Your Backbone Slide. SOCAN says it was the first single from a Canadian hip hop artist to go gold in Canada, a landmark that predates Toronto’s global hip hop era by decades.
That connection is worth pausing on. Before Drake’s chart records, before Reyez’s international writing credits, Maestro proved a Canadian rap single could sell at a gold level at home. The 2026 trophies themselves carry that history, featuring five bronze crotales tuned to notes from Let Your Backbone Slide, making each trophy a small playable instrument. Last year’s version used notes from Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now.
Other special honourees show the breadth of Canadian creation this year. Peter Peter receives the Global Impact Award for his music in Heated Rivalry. Jenna Andrews wins Songwriter of the Year in the non performer category for work connected to the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. Andrew Lockington takes Screen Composer of the Year, Nathan Micay receives the Breakout Composer Award for scoring Industry, and Jade LeMac receives the Breakout Songwriter Award.
A hometown night for Canadian songwriting
Holding the ceremony at REBEL in Toronto, with Canadian hosts and a room of more than 100 honourees, makes October 26 a hometown celebration of the work behind the hits. It arrives in the same fall stretch as new chart success for Tate McRae, a billion stream milestone for Justin Bieber and a world tour for Daniel Caesar, giving Canadian music a run of stories that span performance, songwriting, screen composition and streaming.
For hip hop specifically, the line from Let Your Backbone Slide in 1989 to Drake’s fifth straight songwriting honour in 2026 is a clear, documented arc. It shows a genre that moved from a first gold single to sustained global influence, with Toronto at the centre of both ends of that story. Reyez’s honour adds the songwriting export story, proof that Canadian writers shape records far beyond Canada’s borders.
The full SOCAN winners list will be released on the night of October 26. For now, the special achievement honourees are confirmed, the hosts are set, and two of Toronto’s biggest musical exports will be honoured at home, on a night built to celebrate the writers first.
