Canadian musician CRi lands ‘life-changing’ campaign with Apple
Posted September 12, 2026 5:00 am
2 min read
Montreal musician strikes ‘life-changing’ deal with Apple
A Montreal electronic musician says he is still processing the biggest opportunity of his career after Apple purchased one of his songs for a worldwide advertising campaign promoting the Apple Watch Series 12.
The campaign, released this week, features “Naissance,” a track created by Quebec artist CRi, whose real name is Christophe Dubé.
Dubé, 36, said the process moved quickly. About three weeks ago, his publicist received a call from Apple requesting the isolated audio track. Then, about a week ago, the company contacted him again with an offer to purchase the song.
The musician described the deal as “life-changing.”
For an artist, Dubé said, having music featured in a global Apple campaign represents a major milestone.
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“You know, for an artist, I would not say it’s a dream, but it’s most definitely a milestone,” he told Global News on Friday.
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“When you start to make music, you think maybe one day I will play Coachella and maybe one day Apple will use my music for one of their worldwide campaigns. It’s kind of part of the dream and I still can’t believe that it happened for me actually. It’s crazy.”
The track, whose title translates to “birth” in English, was originally created six years ago.
Beyond the financial impact, Dubé said the agreement reinforces his belief that major companies still recognize the value of human creativity at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming creative industries.
He also sees the project as an example of the benefits of cross-border collaboration.
Dubé said the partnership demonstrates that strong working relationships between Canadian artists and American companies remain possible despite political and economic tensions.
The campaign has already attracted millions of views on YouTube, providing what Dubé called invaluable exposure for his music.
For the Montreal artist, the experience marks a career-defining moment and a chance to introduce his work to a global audience.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.