Author: Kevin Bourne

To start the year, we have our longest Ottawa music video roundup ever with 10 videos from the likes of Cheko Salaam, Huey Draper, BLikeBrett, Hevve and more. Similar to December, we’re continuing to see Ottawa being featured in different ways and the bar is being set higher and higher. New to this month, we’re asking you, the fans, to vote for Ottawa’s Video of the Month. Check out the videos below in order of release date, then help us crown the top video in the city for January. If there are any videos we forgot make sure to comment below.…

Female and male athletes are currently held to different standards. Case in point, over the course of modern history, female athletes have been fighting for things like equal pay and still are to this day. Despite significant pay increases and increased media coverage, it isn’t enough. According to Women’s Sport and Fitness Federation, women’s sports only receive 7% of media coverage and only 0.4 percent of commercial investment goes to women’s only sports. On top of that, female athletes are often judged based on their physical appearance while male athletes are judged on performance and skill. For most sports, uniforms…

Swoon Studios, Flee Normality and producer/DJ Lethargie recently launched their new monthly music event UNiTY, at the Happy Goat Coffee in Ottawa’s Hintonburgh neighbourhood. The event is designed to bring a sense of unity to the music community in the capital. With only an hour to prepare, the organizers turned the coffee shop floor, equipped with large industrial coffee grinders, old TV sets and a photo booth, into what looked more like a nightclub. Exact attendance numbers are unknown but the small and intimate venue filled quickly creating a well-needed artsy, big city vibe. Also in attendance was former Art…

The fashion industry is one of the hardest to break into due to its sheer size and high level of competition – that’s no secret. Getting your foot through the door isn’t an obvious task, and according to emerging fashion stylist Anita-Hosanna Kangabe, there’s no set path to “making” it. However, after working as a freelance fashion stylist for just over a year, this Ottawa-based artist was recently nominated for Faces Magazine’s “Favourite Fashion Stylist” Award. She has styled celebrities, including the likes of Mia Martina, and worked alongside well-renowned fashion moguls including Ty Hunter, Beyonce’s stylist. We caught up…

Star Wars is dying. There’s no point in beating around the bush. From the critical reception of The Last Jedi to the box office results of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it seems as though Disney has been doing everything in their power to sabotage their own franchise since they acquired it back in the early 2010’s. Now to be fair, they’re not “actually” trying to kill Star Wars. They’re just doing a very bad job running it and refuse to acknowledge it, which is pretty much the equivalent of pointing a flaming pistol at the damn thing. For a while,…

Toronto-based Twentytwenty Arts just concluded their latest mental health awareness campaign, Life on the Line, a public art project featuring 20 unique submission-based artworks that reflect on the personal experiences of mental illness. One hundred posters, five of each design, were exhibited on the Toronto TTC Subway from November 19th, 2018 to January 6th, 2019. Twentytwenty Arts created Life on the Line to raise awareness, visibility and funds for the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Toronto’s Holiday Gift Program. Now in its 63rd year, CMHA Toronto’s Holiday Gift Program bought gifts and necessities that were assembled by hundreds of volunteers…

By now I’m sure many of you have seen Surviving R. Kelly. Let’s talk. Why did we give R. Kelly a pass for so long? As a community (specifically the black community), we continuously forgave and forgave, and then forgot. We forgave him of things that we would never allow our fathers, brothers and friends to get away with. There was never a day of reckoning. With the current investigation and the airing of Lifetime’s three-part documentary Surviving R. Kelly, that day is coming. Now, just to give you the heads up, this documentary is intense and can be a…

For the second season in a row, the capital will be sending representatives to CTV’s The Launch, premiering on January 30th at 8pm. A year after Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine emerged as one of the stars of Season 1, Ottawa’s very own Vi and Michelle Treacy will be featured on the hit talent show alongside 28 other emerging Canadian artists. Vi will appear on Episode 1, set to air on January 30th, alongside Amber J of Trail, BC; Cassiopeia of Burnaby, BC; Dey of Toronto; and NOA of Richmond Hill, ON. The celebrity mentor for the episode will be…

To close out the year we got some great music videos from Black Iri$h, SVLM, Eddie Quotez, Josh Clarke and Vi. Here’s our Ottawa music video roundup for December according to release date. Once again, let us know in the comments if there are any videos from any genre we forgot. Black Iri$h Mars Release date: December 13, 2018 Visual by: Imaginamick Directed by: Black Iri$h Black Iri$h has a reputation for having some of the most creative music videos in the capital. In December, he released the video for Mars which he directed himself. Imaginamick held down animation duties. True to the lyrics,…

This year we’re back with our end-of-year feature, Top 10 Shifters in the Capital celebrating the accomplishments of cultural, business, sports, non-profit and political influencers in the capital. “Shifter” is a term we coined for people who use their creativity and influence to impact culture, business and beyond. Without further adieu, here’s our list of the top influencers who impacted the capital in 2018. 1. ELIJAH WOODS X JAMIE FINE | Recording artists, Winners on CTV’s The Launch View this post on Instagram A post shared by Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine (@ewxjf) on Nov 20, 2018 at 10:05am PST After…

GAME RECAP – CAMPING WORLD BOWL On Friday, December 28th, #20 Syracuse (10-3) and #16 West Virginia (8-4) squared off in Orlando for the Camping World Bowl at Florida Citrus Sports’ Camping World Stadium and SHIFTER was on location. In front of 41,125 fans, the Syracuse Orange toppled the Will Grier-less West Virginia Mountaineers 34-18. This win marks Syracuse’s first 10-win season since 2001, and their first bowl win (and matchup) since 2013. The game started slow, with only 10 total points scored in the first quarter (7-3 Syracuse), thanks to a 4-yard rushing TD from Abdul Adams (Jr). West…

Is there such a thing as “white privilege”? I don’t think so. I would rather say there’s cultural privilege. Here’s what I mean. Culture is designed to inherently benefit the dominant culture for said country but it doesn’t mean the privilege will necessarily give the individual a social and economic advantage. I know a lot of white people who are poor and aren’t benefiting from their whiteness. Western culture, by and large, was built on a western philosophy which by nature is inherently biased against people of colour. The challenge for a white person is to recognize they’re born in…