Nigel Webber was born and raised in Winnipeg and is proud of it. Having written for television and documentary film, Nigel moved to combine his two loves of writing and hip-hop music in 2018 when he began writing for Stylus Magazine.
It was while writing for Stylus that Nigel first began looking into Winnipeg hip-hop history and the idea for Gritty City: An Oral History of Winnipeg Hip-Hop Music 1980-2005 was hatched, back in December 2019. It took over four years to research, conduct interviews with over 120 people, transcribe each interview personally, and then write Gritty City, which was self-published through Friesen Press in 2024. The book has taken Nigel on the road to Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Toronto, as well as a number of events in Winnipeg, including through the Winnipeg Public Library (Nigel’s second home).
In 2025 Nigel launched a newsletter to pursue shorter form nonfiction writing, and over the course of a year he has produced 14 high quality original pieces, including a history of Winnipeg after-hours bars and a number of would-be chapters from Gritty City that had to be cut due to space.
Nigel lives in Winnipeg still, with his fiancée and their dog. Outside of hip-hop, Nigel enjoys the Toronto Blue Jays, reading about history, and riding his bike.