Schedule for Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017

Today on q: Bebe Rehxa, Karine Vanasse, Ryan McMahon, Nabil Elderkin.

CBC Radio · Posted: Jan 25, 2017 8:45 AM EST | Last Updated: January 30, 2017

Today on q: Bebe Rexha, Karine Vanasse, Ryan McMahon, Nabil Elderkin (Dennis Leupold, Penny Evangelakos, courtesy of Flip Publicity, courtesy of Nabil Elderkin)

Today on q, hosted by Tom Power:

1. Bebe Rexha on finding success as a songwriter

Albanian-American singer Bebe Rexha is becoming a huge star. She's about to release her debut record, All Your Fault: Pt. I, and she has a massive radio single called "I Got You" out now. Rexha is no stranger to success, penning songs like "The Monster" for Rihanna and Eminem, but she wasn't always writing hits. "I knew that I was going to be in music and I was going to be successful some way, somehow," says Rexha. She admits that her early songs were not up to par, so she participated in songwriting workshops and earned her chops. Now, Rexha is focused on releasing records and touring her music. "There's a different feeling that you get when you perform your own songs," says the songwriter. "It feels a lot better when you perform them and you see people sing the songs back to you."

— Produced by Mitch Pollock

2. Karine Vanasse takes on Canada and the U.S. as a French-Canadian actress

Quebec actress Karine Vanasse is well-known to French-Canadian audiences, having starred in films like Polytechnique, and series like 2 frères. She's also a familiar face to American audiences, with roles on Pan-Am and Revenge, but on those shows, Vanasse typically plays French characters. Tom Power talks to her about the joy she's finding in her new role as Detective Lise Delorme in the upcoming CTV crime drama Cardinal where she gets to be not French, but Quebecoise. Cardinal premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET on CTV.

— Produced by Elaine Chau

3. Ryan McMahon's musical tribute to Treaty 3 in Northwestern Ontario

From Tanya Tagaq to Kendrick Lamar, Anishinaabe comedian and activist Ryan McMahon gives q listeners a musical tour of Treaty 3 territory in Northwestern Ontario. (For the full list of songs, scroll down to the music featured on today's episode.) "It's a secret place on Earth that I don't like to tell too many people about," McMahon says about this former pulp and paper town. McMahon's latest project, Colonization Road, is a documentary that examines First Nations and settler relations through Ontario's first roadways. After its successful premiere at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival last year, Colonization Road will air on CBC's Firsthand, on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2017, at 9 p.m. ET. The documentary will later be available to stream in full here.

4. From The Weeknd to Nicki Minaj: how Nabil Elderkin became one of music's go-to photographers

Last fall, Abel Tesfaye — better known as the Weeknd — posted a Tweet that drove the internet wild. It showed the Toronto-based singer, lit up in blue, sitting in front of a striking red background, holding his head in his hands. To his fans, the message was clear: the Weeknd had a new look, and was ready to drop a new album. And he chose carefully when he picked the artist to help him send that message. Nabil Elderkin is a photographer and music video director. He has photographed Nicki Minaj, John Legend, Bon Iver — many of them before they even broke through. Elderkin has a knack for choosing subjects who are on the edge of something big. For example: when Elderkin heard an early mixtape by up-and-coming Chicago rapper Kanye West, he wanted to work with him. So what did he do? He bought KanyeWest.com before West himself could. When time came to retrieve that domain from Elderkin, the trade-off wasn't monetary but instead, Elderkin gave it up for a photoshoot with West. The results: West's first press photos.

Check out all of Elderkin's work here.

— Produced by Cora Nijhawan

Music featured on today's episode:

Bebe Rexha, 'Me Myself and I'