Over a prolific career dating back to 1995, rapper Classified (born Lucas Boyd in 1977) has won Juno Awards, topped the Canadian album charts, and collaborated with legends like Snoop Dogg. But true to his old-school approach, he’s never stopped repping where he’s from. While other MCs in his position may have chased their dreams to a bigger music-industry hub like Toronto, Classified has held it down in his homebase of Halifax, where his label, Half Life Records, helped establish the Maritimes city as one of the nation’s most consistently fertile hip-hop scenes. Classified spent nearly 15 years in the trenches before hitting the Top 10 with 2009’s “Oh… Canada,” a fiercely funky revision of the namesake national anthem. And that crossover success was just the warm up for “Inner Ninja,” a peppy Afropop-inflected duet with New Brunswick singer/songwriter David Myles that sent Classified’s 2013 self-titled album to No. 1 in Canada. But even as his musical scope has expanded far beyond the dusty-grooved beats of old, Classified’s streetwise flow and confessional lyrics remain as raw and real as ever.