News

Please join me for the 1783 ALBUM CELEBRATION at the Sanctuary in Dartmouth NS on June 6, 2026. Presented by Nowadays Festival, this is going to be an incredible night. We’ll be playing tracks from 1783 with a killer 12 piece band, featuring special guest vocalists Linda Carvery and Josh Williams, and I’m showing some pieces from my upcoming 1783 art installation. It’s a family friendly, seated show and it’s going to be a big celebration.  Get your tickets under the SHOWS menu.

Featured guests include Measha Brueggergosman-Lee,

Linda Carvery, Gary Beals, The Sanctified Brothers, Haliey Smith

Toronto ON (Feb. 6th, 2026) – Award-winning Halifax singer, rapper, composer and storyteller Aquakultre aka Lance Sampson releases his highly anticipated fourth studio album, 1783 via Next Door Records. The new 17-track soul, R&B, gospel and folk-fuelled album produced by two-time Music Nova Scotia “Producer of the Year” Erin Costelo, mixed by Grammy-winner Qmillion (Robert Glasper) and mastered by world-renowned multi-Grammy nominee Chris Athens (Drake), follows on the heels of his critically-acclaimed 2023 Polaris Music Prize longlisted album Don’t Trip, his second album to land on the longlist.

Theformer CBC Music Searchlight competition winner who has released his best and most complete album to date, also drops some new visuals for the song “I’ll Be Damned”, rooted in reflective Black Nova Scotian storytelling, and influenced by his lineage. 

“This song is inspired by my uncle Derek Johnson who grew up in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. He was the black sheep of the family, he got into a lot of shit,” explains Aquakultre. “He didn’t play with nobody. As soon as he could, he got out of the country. Like a lot of these folks that left these rural areas, they came to the city and got themselves into trouble. My uncle came into the city and married a lady named Joan Brooks. They married real young. They had a lot of kids and did their best to raise them but my uncle was dealing with what happened to him, racism and abuse. He didn’t know how to love a woman. He didn’t know how to raise kids. His image was of his dad – my grandfather – who was an evil dude. Even though I grew up in the city, I’m recognizing that a lot of my family and my ancestors were born and raised in rural Black areas of Nova Scotia, like Liverpool and Weymouth Falls. I wanted to recognize the relationship that my uncle had to his place of birth. This song was me trying to write the story of my uncle coming through and trying to make a life for himself, and the parallels with my own life. This could be anyone’s story, but it started with my uncle, and then with me meeting my wife Julia and us having our two children Georgina and Jamel. As someone who really had to put their best foot forward and be held accountable and try to connect, and seeing that relationship has made me who I am today. I’ll be damned.” 

STREAM 1783 (album)
HERE

Media Contact  
Dalton Higgins 
daltonhigginspr@gmail.com 
437 256 2576 

New song sheds light on his late great-great-grandfather Daniel P. Sampson who was wrongfully convicted and executed

Toronto ON (November 12th, 2025) -Multi-award-winning Halifax singer, rapper, composer and storyteller Aquakultre aka Lance Sampson releases the new single and video for “Gallows” , a profoundly reflective prison song that raises awareness and acts as a call to action surrounding the wrongful conviction of his great-great-grandfather Daniel P. Sampson, the last person to be executed in Halifax as a result of systemic anti-Black racism in Canada’s legal system. Explains Aquakultre: “My great-great-grandfather Daniel Perry Sampson was wrongfully convicted of murder and executed in 1935. His story was told to me by my grandmother Carolyn Sampson, who always recognized that there was something fishy, something not right about what happened to her grandfather. I got on that research 90 years later, and she was right, his case was a miscarriage of justice. The song is written from his perspective, in his final moments before being hanged at the Halifax courthouse.” 

The “Gallows” music video directed by Sobaz Benjamin displays powerful scenes centred around spirituality, tyranny, protest, and redemption. “Gallows is not simply about death, punishment, or execution, it is a metaphor for the centuries-long weight placed upon Black bodies, Black families, Black memory, and Black imagination,” says the respected film and video director known for his documentary Race Is a Four Letter Word. “It is about the architecture of oppression, yes, but far more profoundly, it is about what we have done with that. It is about the miracle of transformation.” 

On March 7, the 90th anniversary of Daniel’s execution, the Sampson family represented by Lance filed an application to have the case reviewed by the Minister of Justice. They have authorized their lawyer to set up Fundrazr to raise funds toward the legal hard costs (i.e. court fees, disbursements, travel costs) of the appeal. 

STREAM GALLOWS

HERE 

WATCH GALLOWS MUSIC VIDEO

HERE

Aquakultre acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Music Nova Scotia, Province of Nova Scotia Creative Industries Fund, FACTOR and the Government of Canada.

Media Contact  

Dalton Higgins 
daltonhigginspr@gmail.com 
437 256 2576 

Announces new album 1783 out on Next Door Records

Guests include Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, Linda Carvery, Gary Beals, The Sanctified Brothers, Haliey Smith

Toronto ON (October 15th, 2026) – Award-winning Halifax singer, rapper, composer and storyteller Aquakultre aka Lance Sampson releases the new single “What Are You Sayin'” and announces his much anticipated third studio album, 1783, arriving February 2026 via Next Door Records. The soul, R&B, gospel and folk-fuelled new album produced by two-time Music Nova Scotia “Producer of the Year” Erin Costelo, mixed by Grammy-winner Qmillion (Robert Glasper) and mastered by world-renowned multi-Grammy nominee Chris Athens (Drake), follows on the heels of his critically-acclaimed 2023 Polaris Music Prize longlisted album Don’t Trip, his second longlisted effort.

Having emerged as an artist who has thoughtfully showcased Black Nova Scotian musical brilliance from Canada’s east coast, the second single “What Are You Sayin'” from his forthcoming full-length 1783 guides listeners with skilfull precision to questions surrounding cultural self identification amongst his own historically unique Nova Scotian community. “Growing up in Overtown (what we call Uniacke Square, a large public housing complex in Halifax, Nova Scotia) everybody would use the phrase “What are you sayin’”, and it meant so much – what are you doing, how are you doing, where are you going? Are you doing okay?” explains the former CBC Music Searchlight competition winner. “Through this song, I am giving people exactly who I am. On the bridge I sing, “We avoid who we are.” I struggled with not knowing who I was for a long time. The cultural identity of being Black Nova Scotian was not in me at a young age. As I got older I began to understand, and this song is me answering that question many different ways. I’m also posing the question to the listener. I want to leave you with that question, and answer it for yourself when you’re alone. Who are you? What are you sayin?”

STREAM: What Are You Sayin’

For Aquakultre’s forthcoming full-length album, 1783, the events of 1783 sparked the origin story of a unique people and culture, sometimes called African Nova Scotia or Black Nova Scotia, which served as the inspiration for his new musical output. Descended directly from those first settlers, Lance has created a profound concept album that is deeply rooted in his own rich family history. The 17-track album comprises 11 full- length songs and six interludes, with each track describing Black Nova Scotian history, thoughtful family stories, and intergenerational reflections on Aquakultre carrying the torch passed on to him from elders, and acting as a beacon of light for a brighter future.

Pre-Save 1783
Tracklist

1. What Are You Sayin’
2. Bags Packed
3. Letter to the No. 2 Construction Battalion
4. Holy
5. La Joux
6. The Great Judgment Morning
7. Gallows
8. Keep Me Down
9. Make That Change feat. Measha Brueggergosman-Lee
10. The Avenue
11. Old Bones
12. Black Doll
13. Matriarchs feat. Linda Carvery
14. Father’s Fresh Start
15. I’ll Be Damned
16. Show Me The Way To Go Home
17. Scotia Born feat. Gary Beals, Haliey Smith

ABOUT NEXT DOOR RECORDS
Established in 2019, Next Door Records supports a diverse array of artists across multiple genres with the hope of bringing recognition to underrepresented groups in the Canadian music industry. They strive to support their roster’s integrity, ambition and desire to better the world through music by being a trusted ally and partner. Next Door Records is the label home of The Weather Station, Yves Jarvis, The Dears, Charlotte Cornfield, Ada Lea, Land of Talk, poolblood, Casper Skulls, Hua Li 化力, Super Duty Tough Work, Louie Sanchez, Wild Black, and Luka Kuplowsky.

Media Contact
Dalton Higgins
daltonhigginspr@gmail.com
437 256 2576

Toronto ON (September 3rd, 2025) -Multi-award-winning Halifax singer, rapper, composer and storyteller Aquakultre aka Lance Sampson releases the new single “Scotia Born” , his first music release since 2023’s Polaris Music Prize longlisted album Don’t Trip. The anthemic new single is destined to become a new soulful source of Canadian east coast pride, while simultaneously nudging the rest of Canada and global audiences to pay strict attention to this historically significant region. Produced by fellow acclaimed songwriter and two-time Music Nova Scotia Producer of the Year Erin Costelo, “Scotia Born” also boasts contributions from a few of the finest pure vocal talents who represent two of the oldest Black communities in Nova Scotia; Juno-nominated Canadian Idol finalist Gary Beals from Cherry Brook, and North Preston’s Haliey Smith, one of the most recorded background session singers in Atlantic Canada, whose credits include Canadian music icons David Myles and Joel Plaskett. 

“This is a song recognizing the cultural richness that we have here as Black Nova Scotia, the resilience, the togetherness, and how all communities of Black Nova Scotia are connected,” says the former CBC Music Searchlight competition winner and Prism Prize recipient. “It’s about being proud of that cultural richness and being aware of it. I didn’t have that when I was a teenager, I really wish I did. In the generation before me there were people who understood what that was, but somehow down the line that awareness of identity as Black Nova Scotian didn’t come through. Scotia Born is just being proud of our ancestors for paving the way for us and being proud for coming home, and being proud of our birthplace when we’re abroad. It’s just about being proud of being Black Nova Scotians.” 

Equal parts catchy and celebratory, “Scotia Born” offers a rich glimpse into the storied musical and cultural histories that emanate from a distinct ethno-cultural Canadian community, incorporating vocals and lyrics that invoke what it truly means to be from this region. The music video co-directed by John Butler and Juno-winning artist Shad provides a bird’s eye view of a multi-generational community-centred cookout and dance-friendly retrospective that acts as a tribute to some important Black Nova Scotian music luminaries. With heart-on-sleeve intensity, “Scotia Born” is a life-affirming anthem that provides just the right backdrop for Lance’s big, warm vocals and potent rhymes to shine through, while paying tribute to a unique region of the Black diaspora. 

STREAM SCOTIA BORN

HERE

WATCH SCOTIA BORN VIDEO

HERE