The ensemble consists of multi-instrumentalists and rotates members depending on the song, and their membership includes rappers, singers, keyboardists, saxophonists, trumpeters, trombonists, guitarists, bass players, and drummers.

[2] In 2004,[3] a collective made up of solo artists was created in Montreal in order to participate in a hip-hop festival in Havana, Cuba.

After three weeks of immersive living and collaboration with Cuban artists, during which music served as the central focus, the group returned to Montreal with the idea of recording a mixtape and a show in order to present their experience.

[4] The record received critical acclaim both locally and internationally, and Nomadic Massive began to establish its own distinct niche in the music scene.

In 2016, after years of international touring, Nomadic Massive launched a new album on the Coop Les Faux-Monnayeurs record label The Big Band Theory, a release that included soul, jazz, and funk music.

From 2017 to 2019, the band heavily toured Europe twice a year (France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain) and recorded and released an EP (Miwa, 2018) and a full-length album (Times, 2019).

In 2022, the band began touring internationally again with a week-long project in Paraguay, where they recorded and released a live session of a new song called "Pocket Full of Lingo."

Active in the international hip-hop scene since his teenage years, Piensa has been involved in many aspects of the movement, including radio, music production, performance, and event organization.

His music had him travel and share the stage with world-renowned artists (Common, Wyclef Jean, Dead Prez, K'naan, Julian Marley), particularly with Nomadic Massive.

Lou Piensa is one half of The Loop Pilots, a collaborative beat-making duo founded in 2015 with his former English student and established producer, Dr.

Waahli has shared the stage with acts such as Guru, Antibalas, Yasiin Bey, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Blackalicious, K’naan, and Wyclef Jean.

More recently, he has been exploring skills as a beatmaker, releasing the instrumental EP series Soapfactory Volumes 1 [11](2011) and 2 (2012), which he showcased at Artbeat Montreal Revelation in 2012.

Although his original loops were done on the same classical guitar he received as a child, he opted for a Japanese Stratocaster when the group decided to go with a live band.

He also collaborated with Ali Sepu on the Iron Chef Project, which allowed him to integrate his South American folkloric influences with occidental urban music.

[14] In 2007, NoBad Sound Studio was founded in affiliation with Maison des Jeunes Côte-des-Neiges, where Butta Beats, alongside bandmate Piensa, was hired to conduct workshops.

She is also the daughter of activist Kennedy Frederick, who was one of the six original plaintiffs and a leader in the infamous Sir George Williams Affair, a series of protests held at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in the 1960s after the administration failed to address students’ claims that a professor at the school, Perry Anderson, was guilty of racism; these events make the subject of the 2015 documentary film Ninth Floor, in which Indongo stars.

Fluent in Arabic and French, she learned English through long hours of religiously listening to Wu-Tang Clan, Big L, Fugees, Public Enemy, Dead Prez, and other influential hip-hop artists.

As a singer, she has collaborated on soundtracks for films and TV shows like Lance et Compte, On the Beat (Sur le rythme), Omertà, Dérapage, and more, adding the Netflix Marvel Original Iron Fist to the list in 2017.

Leger is also a founding member of Solid’Ayiti, an association dedicated to cooperation between artistic and academic communities in Montreal and Haiti.

Sambou has launched several video clips, including "DiscriminaSida" on World AIDS Day,[26] as well as "Article 14" in collaboration with Narcy and Professor Noam Chomsky.

His latest release, The Brasil Sessions, incorporates songs from his live show, fully recorded in Brazil with his musicians, with whom he has toured across the Americas as well as in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

He is a founding member of SOLID'AYITI, an initiative of artists and activists working for long-term solidarity between Montrealers and the movement fighting for social justice in Haiti, according to the principles of self-sufficiency, education, decentralization, and reforestation.

This initiative offered young artists the opportunity to work directly with professional staff to create, record, and develop musical projects that express socially conscious lyrics.

In 2010, the studio began expanding its activities outside of Montreal, which gave them the opportunity to bring five youths to Toronto, ON, after being invited to play and speak at the Regent Park International Film Festival.

[31] As the most successful act to have come out of NBS to date, Sambou would go on to call them "the pride of NoBad Sound Studio and of the Maison des Jeunes" in an interview with France Ô and Outre-Mer 1ère.

[33] The group, composed of Mags, Naïka Champaïgne (having attended NBS since 2013), and SageS (from 2014 to 2020), takes its name from the Billie Holiday song "Strange Fruit".

As Nomadic Massive's protégés, they have made waves in the Montreal hip-hop scene, having released their eponymous first EP at the Hip Hop You Don't Stop festival in September 2014 with Tali as one of the fellow acts, only 3 months after their first meeting.

Their second EP, Blossom This Froot For Thought, was released in July 2016 through Concordia University's official campus and community radio station CJLO, by way of their OnRotation artist residency.