A Quebec City native of Senegalese heritage, Aly Ndiaye is a man of many hats. He’s an activist, an academic, a local walking-tour guide, a children’s book author, and—under his alias, Webster—an acclaimed conscious rapper. But all of those disparate roles are connected by a common purpose: to educate audiences about Quebec’s oft-overlooked history of slavery dating back to the 17th century. That mission has yielded survivalist anthems like “Everyday” and “Qc History X [Remix]”—from his 2010 breakthrough, Le vieux de la montagne—that project Webster’s forceful flow against vintage boom-bapped backdrops. More recently, Webster’s investigative ethos has inspired a deeper exploration of hip-hop’s roots in jazz, resulting in a series of free-flowing collaborations with improv outfit 5 for Trio.