Crafting Legacies in Music and Science with Donna McCurvin

[00:00:00] Ellington Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown! 

[00:00:16] Rita Burke: We are so fortunate today to have a woman that I've known for over three decades. Her name is Donna McCurvin, and I will claim the prerogative to refer to her as one of the silent giants in our community. Donna lives in Toronto and graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in chemistry.

She comes from a creative and artistic family. Now Donna is one of the brains behind the Word magazine, the Irie Music Festival, the Toronto Urban Music Festival, the Irie Music Festival of Mississauga. Donna is the co founder of the Canada Black Music Archives and the recipient of the Harry Jerome Award for Excellence in Business. She received that in the year 2000. To our listeners, I proudly present Donna McCurvin!

[00:01:23] Donna McCurvin: Thank you. Thank you, Rita. Thanks so much for that introduction. It is so wonderful to be here with you and Elton. I really appreciate the opportunity to tell my story and to hopefully inspire others. So thanks again for the opportunity. 

[00:01:40] Ellington Brown: I have total faith in you. I know that you're going to do just that. We're not going to get in the way of you telling your story. We just want to make sure that we get all the juicy parts out. 

[00:01:54] Donna McCurvin: All right. Let's go. 

[00:01:57] Ellington Brown: You, co-produced the I R I E Music Festival and the Toronto Urban Music Festival and Conference. That was huge because of the number of people, you had to deal with.

 It was several thousand people depending on festival. I have two questions. There were two, I R I E festivals, right? One in Toronto and one in Mississauga. What was the difference between the two did you find most rewarding? Tell us.

[00:02:35] Donna McCurvin: Wow! Yes! The I R I E Music Festival. What an interesting experience that was. The music festival came out of the Toronto Urban Music Festival, which came out of Word Magazine. Everything that we've done so far has been interconnected and the common thread has been music. When Phil and I, my husband, Phil Vassell we've worked together now for over 30 years.

 When we decided to start the IRIE music festival. We did so because we wanted to reflect the Caribbean music culture and we didn't really see a lot of vehicles that were doing that. There was a Carabana event that took place every year. There were occasional, reggae concerts throughout the year.

But there wasn't something that allowed the community, not just the Black community, but Toronto's community to appreciate Caribbean culture in a way that we thought was important. We wanted to emphasize reggae because Carabana was emphasizing non reggae type culture, and especially at that time. And, in fact, At that very year that we started the IRIE Music Festival Carabana had banned reggae.

involvement in caravan. There was an issue in the previous year and they decided that reggae was a part of the problem and decided that they will not include any reggae or jamaican floats etc. And we thought, we needed to find a space to be able to include this particular part of our culture.

A very important part as far as we were concerned Phil and I are both Jamaicans heritage. And so we took it upon ourselves to do that, even though we were publishers, we thought, why not? Let's give it our best shot. We recognize that Nathan Phillips Square was an available space on Carabana weekend, and we thought, let's see if we can book that space next year and produce an event and away we went! We were quite naive when we first started. We had a lot to learn, but we were willing to take the chance. And we also, we found people who were also interested in participating in this idea and contributing their talents to what we were doing. The very first year we booked Maxie Priest as our headliner and we thought that was a good idea and it was.

Maxi priest had not been in Toronto for 10 years, and, he was eager to come back to the city. And we presented this free event at City Hall, right in front of our City Hall building at Nathan Phillips Square, a free event available to the public on one of the busiest weekends in Toronto. In the city caravan a weekend and people showed up, we promoted the event as best we could limited resources as always, but we did our best and attracted four vendors.

I remember that very first year because it was a new event. It was on a very busy weekend and but they took a chance with us and people loved it. The response was very positive and we decided, okay, we can do this again. And we did, and we continued to produce that event. So 15 years we had a number of international headliners that came through third world.

We had I can't remember the name, but we had I'm sorry, names just lost me there, but we had many international headliners that came through and really put on fantastic shows. The shows were always free of charge. People were able to just bring their family. It was a family friendly event.

And the response was very positive, and it continued to grow. We had thousands upon thousands of people coming. We had Toots and the Maytels, we had one of our biggest crowds at that event and people loved it. We also featured a lot of local artists. Our intention was not just to focus on international headliners, but to also give local artists an opportunity to perform in front of a large crowd.

So typically the event was a two or three day event. And of those two or three days. We would feature one or two international headliners, but the rest of the performers were all local artists, so they got a great opportunity to get the word out about their talent. We also featured things like a literary tent.

Rita was involved in that part of our project, Rita and Sam. Burke sponsored that aspect, and it was, a time for people to, to come in and listen to authors reading, to, to have panel discussions about the importance of literature. And it was a great aspect. We had that in the daytime, but it was a great aspect.

The festival was not just about music, but it was about our culture and it continued to grow. And we, then we were approached actually, By the city of Mississauga, and they were interested in attracting events to a new venue that they had created in front of their city hall. It was called Celebration Square, and they asked us if we would present IRIE at that venue.

And we did. First year, again, the response was very positive. It's a very different venue. Very modern venue had a lot of the amenities that we didn't have at Nathan Phillips Square. And the people of Mississauga came out. They loved it again. Another free event. Thousands of people would show up and we continued that event for almost 10 years.

In fact, for a while, we were running both the Mississauga and Toronto event at the same time in the same year. That became a challenge, but we continue to do that. In fact, the Toronto event was also held at multiple venues, not just at Nathan Phillips Square, but we had it at Ontario Place, at Yonge Damdas Square and even Queen's Park.

We were very ambitious in terms of spreading the word about our culture and took on a lot of challenges that at the time seemed You know, ordinary to us. But now that we look back, we recognize that we were really stepping out there on a limb and but managed to pull it off somehow. And people again responded so positively.

I must say in the 20 years that we produced the festival at both venues, and all of the venues. In fact, it wasn't just one venue, but in both cities. We never had an incident. We never had a fight. We never had an argument. We never had an accident. People were so well behaved when they came to our event and they came with a very positive attitude and they left feeling very happy.

And that was really something that we were very proud of, to be quite honest, because that's not easy to do when you have thousands, tens of thousands of people in a space. With only four police officers, a few security guards. 

[00:09:41] Rita Burke: Yes. , 

[00:09:41] Donna McCurvin: But it happened year in and year out and we realized it happened because people took pride in what we were doing. They recognize that what we were accomplishing was something very unique, especially the locations, again, right in front of City Hall. And they didn't want to ruin that. They wanted to maintain that, and they were on their best behavior every single year. And I have so much respect for our community because they did that for us.

And we kept going. We kept going for as long as we could. Our last festival in Mississauga was the year before COVID, 2019. And the only reason we didn't have an event in 2020 was because of the pandemic. And, in fact, we tried to have You know, a couple of virtual versions, but it wasn't the same.

And in fact, a lot of people have asked us since are we coming back? Are you bringing it back? And it has changed now the environment has changed and we were hesitant to go back. And decided to take some time to think about it and decide whether or not we wanted to do that. And it's interesting just today.

I don't know if you saw that Rita, there's an article in the Toronto Star talking about a lot of festivals struggling since coming back after the pandemic because they have noticed it's not the same. Taste of the Danforth canceled. Taste of the Danforth is one of the largest events in the city and they canceled their event.

For this year after coming back out to the, after the pandemic last year, they decided to cancel it out right now. Just for laughs, another very huge event. This is a comedy festival. They have just gone into receivership. So it's very difficult now to maintain the costs have gone up significantly.

And that was one of the reasons we decided to pull back security costs production costs, et cetera, and producing a free event. You don't have a lot of revenue other than your vendors. And to put that burden on our vendors, we just couldn't do it. We couldn't justify it. So we had to really slow down and stop that process.

We haven't said outright, never again. But it has to be done in a way that makes sense to us. From a sort of financial standpoint, and, bringing something new to the, to our community, not just a repetitive thing that is draining people, draining our vendors, etc. We pull back and fortunately for us we're working on another project now that allows us to continue to do work in the community but in terms of which one I preferred, I don't know why I didn't say that earlier.

I'm looking forward to meeting you soon. Toronto. I'm sorry. I, there was early years and there were just such special times and the energy was just so positive. And I have such great memories about those early years working with Rita and so many others that really came out to support the event.

So I'd have to say Toronto gets it for me. Even though it was more work because we had to really build out the venue, there was nothing there. You had to every year build it out from scratch. Yes. Even putting up a stage and all of that. Mississauga had a lot of those things already in place, but I still have a soft spot for the Toronto event.

[00:12:45] Rita Burke: That Irie Festival was something to dream of. I look forward to it as well, Donna, and between you and Philip, I don't know where you found the energy and the time, but you brought it to life. And at this point, I will say the two of you. Were and perhaps still are visionaries that you saw a need in our community, you saw a need in the city, and you address that need in a special way with your festivals.

I want to go back to something a little different. Science was your major at university, but for the most part, you have been immersed in the arts. So talk to our listeners about what was behind that pivot for you from science to festivals, so to speak.

[00:13:38] Donna McCurvin: Yeah. What an interesting journey it has been. Um, growing up as a child I was in a household where I was encouraged to be curious and to explore my interests, no limitations, no restrictions, just being you. And I had just a wide variety of interests. I love music. I love dance. I loved history. I love science. I loved. I was just curious. I wanted to find out how things work. What makes things happen? Why? Why is the sky blue? All of those questions that you have as a child.

And that curiosity really just led me to science. Obviously, when studying science, everybody looks at it very strangely. Why would you and a lot of people have had bad experiences, but it came easy for me, and obviously when something comes easy for you you're more willing to pursue that.

So I continued through, high school and into university. I got a bachelor's of science and chemistry and biochemistry and really enjoyed it. I worked in the field of environmental sciences for 10 years following my graduation. And at that time, there was no such thing as environmental chemistry or environmental sciences.

Those programs didn't exist in the 80s. The environment was just becoming something of interest and concern. But one of my first jobs out of University was a summer position that I had with Environment Canada, and it was just supposed to be a summer position. I remember they said they interviewed over 100 people or 100 people applied and somehow I got the job.

And at the time, it was very strange for me because here I am a young black woman working in a field where there are very few black people. people, much less black women. In fact, throughout my entire university career there was only one other black person that I was in my program. So when I got the job, I was really quite surprised, but very happy, of course.

But that summer position turned into a three year contract. They kept renewing it, and they kept me there, and that's when I became introduced to this concept of environmental science. As a research assistant, I worked there, and then I got a job with the Ministry of the Environment as a scientist there.

I worked there for a number of years doing a lot of research about, toxic chemicals that contaminate our environment. And the types of things that are contributing to that. And how do we measure those levels of environmental contaminants. And I love the work, still love science, to be quite honest.

And worked with a lot of great people. I was then approached by someone, a company from the private sector that wanted me to come in and work in their laboratory and to supervise staff there. That went back and forth and I finally made the move a lot of people thought that was very strange.

Why would you give up a ministry job to work in the private sector? But again, my natural curiosity led me there and I worked in that environment, the private sector for a number of years as a supervisor and a manager. And again, enjoyed the work. It's very interesting because, again, the environmental science was just becoming something that people were paying attention to.

I was on the leading edge of that field. And what changed it for me, though, was my concern about the carcinogenic chemicals we were working with. We were working with things like dioxin and PCBs. Those are the chemicals that we were trying to measure in the environment, in the air. In soil samples and water samples and things like that.

And these things are known to be highly carcinogenic. In fact, dioxin is considered to be the most carcinogenic chemical known to man. And that's of course you take every precaution, but in a laboratory, you're touching things, you're exposed. And when I was working in the private sector, I was determined to improve the working conditions for the staff that I had.

Under my watch, and I met up with a lot of resistance when I tried to change our working environment, improve the ventilation in our laboratory, purchase protective equipment, etc. It always became about cost and profit, and I was more concerned about the health of my staff and self And that's when I began to realize that this field may not be the field for me long term, because Those were issues that I was concerned about, and it didn't seem to have the same importance for . my superiors. I didn't have a specific plan at that time to leave the field, but it was just something in the back of my mind. But during that time, while I was working at the Ministry of the Environment and Environment Canada and private sector, I was dating Phil Vassell, who is now my husband. He was working for CBC as a journalist.

I was doing my thing in science and never will those worlds meet, we thought. And we kept going, we were both having a great time in our chosen fields and thought, hey, we're doing great things and isn't this fun? But everything changed when we got married. Phil and I got married on May 19th in 1991.

And we decided prior to our marriage that we wanted to have a non traditional honeymoon. We didn't want to go to Hawaii. We didn't want to go to Florida. We didn't want to go to Jamaica. We decided we're going to Bahia, Brazil. And we took a three trip, three week trip to Brazil. We had to put that trip together ourselves because there was no pre packaged trip to Bahia, Brazil at that time.

I remember we had to find one tour operator who even knew about Bahia Brazil in the city. And she was a Brazilian woman and she helped us put the trip together because there was no other place that we could do it. And the trip involved traveling from Toronto to Miami and then from Miami to Rio.

And then we asked her to book our first few days in Rio. And, but we wanted to go from Rio. To Bahia, because that's where the Afro Brazilian culture was born, and that's what we wanted to engage, and, we're just curious about that. And so she books our trip from Rio to Bahia for booked us for one or two nights at a hotel.

And after that, we said, we'll figure it out on our own again. At the time, it seemed like a great idea, but now looking back, we were like, what were we thinking? But that's what we decided to do. And. Not speaking the language, of course but we decided we would do just that. So we had a fantastic time. Rio was wonderful.

Bahia, the first few nights at a hotel, beautiful. And then, okay, we have to figure out where we're staying now. And we decided we'll tour the city and figure out where to stay. And the first place that we, the first night we ended up at a small hotel that we didn't quite like. We decided, no, we're not staying here for another night.

Let's continue our search. And then we found like an apartment hotel. That was right on the shoreline, and we found our home for the rest of our journey, and it was a beautiful apartment hotel. The reason we wanted that is because we wanted to be able to go grocery shopping and prepare our own meals, keep our costs down, we were on a tight budget, and we would travel from that location to other parts of, Brazil. And it was a wonderful experience. We had so much fun. We discovered so much about Afro Brazilian culture. Life changing trip, to say the least. But on a rainy day, when we couldn't go out because of the heavy rain, because by the way, May in is considered winter in Brazil.

We didn't know that at the time. So the weather is not the best. But we had some wonderful days regardless, but it was a rainy day. We had to stay in the hotel. We couldn't go out. So Phil and I just, lounged around the hotel and started talking about what's next. And during that day, we discovered.

The concept of word magazine. We had no intention when we left Toronto to start a business to leave our jobs to go on this journey. We were quite content with our careers and our career path. but on that rainy day, having that conversation, the idea of Word Magazine was born. 

[00:22:03] Ellington Brown: Word Magazine is a part of, what was that, Writer's NL? Is that correct, or it was formerly known as that? The Writers Alliance of Newport. No, 

[00:22:14] Donna McCurvin: it's not. It's not associated with the Writers Alliance at all. This is Word Magazine. Now, other people have captured that name since we started that.

But when we started it in 19 In 1992, there was no other Word magazine. 

[00:22:31] Ellington Brown: How did your personal writing experience transcend into the Word magazine? And I know that you were looking for individuals, you had a what you were looking for, submissions should be between 500 and 700 words, they were to inspire and to be fresh and rejuvenate the people who read these articles. How did your writing influence Word Magazine? 

[00:23:01] Donna McCurvin: Not at all. I'll be quite honest. When we started the magazine, we had no intention of being the writers. Our idea was simply to celebrate black culture.

That's what the magazine was about. We wanted to educate the world about black culture, because we recognize that the concept of black culture didn't even exist. Believe it or not, when we decided on the name and the tagline, Toronto's Black Culture Magazine. People questioned that, what is Black culture?

They were not familiar with that expression back in the 80s. The term Black on culture just didn't connect in most people's minds. And I'm talking about Black people asking us, what does that mean? So we realized that we had to celebrate Black culture, not just report the news, not just write fiction, but we wanted to be able to celebrate it.

All that we saw as the beauty of Black culture. What's that? That's music. That's theater. That's dance. That's literature. That's visual arts. We wanted to bring all of that. Food, even. We had a food column, believe it or not. We wanted to bring all of that and talk about what was important to our community.

what was important to us, what we thought was important to celebrate. We didn't want others to define that for us. We thought it was important that we define it for ourselves. So that was the impetus and we knew that we had to rely on other people to write those stories. We did not want to be the writers at all. We had no intention of doing that. Our objective was to bring writers in and have them express what they thought as the positive elements of Black culture. 

[00:24:46] Rita Burke: And the Word magazine was hugely successful, if I may say, Donna, I'm sure you will agree with that. And you got the best writers to conceptualize, as you said, people didn't, never saw the words together, black culture.

But since you started the Word magazine, there's no question about it, that, that concept came together for people, that there is culture, like you said, there is culture for us. Now. Which would you say was the most challenging project you've ever worked on?

[00:25:22] Donna McCurvin: I hate to speak about Word again, but definitely Word Magazine.

Publishing, Is a challenge in and of itself. You have to have a variety of skill sets. You have to excel in a variety of skill sets to be successful. You can't just be a good writer, you can't just be a good editor. You have to be a good salesperson as well. You have to have a good eye for layout and design.

You have to understand distribution. You have to understand production and printing. You have to stay on top of the technology as it changes. When we started Word Magazine, there was no such thing as desktop publishing, for example, or the internet. It didn't exist. We had to cut and paste and use the traditional techniques of printing.

But within a year, desktop publishing became something of importance. And we were one of the first publications to make the transition because it was easier for us to create our magazine on a computer than it was to use the traditional cut and paste approach. The Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and all of the other, Newspapers and magazines were using, but they had spent millions of dollars establishing that style and approach of printing, but we were the upstarts, and it was easier for us to buy a laptop, not a laptop at that time, but a desktop computer, a Mac computer, and to create a magazine on our computer.

So we were one of the first publications to make that move. But it saved us a lot of time and money. But that was the other thing. You had to stay on top of the technology. You had to stay on top of what interests your readers. What do they find interesting? As the community changed and shifted, we had to shift with it.

Publishing requires that sort of finger on the pulse approach. And you have to be there every month. It wasn't, it couldn't take a month off. We didn't have vacations. We couldn't take a break. As we finished one issue, we had a few days and then we had to start thinking about the stories that had to be assigned for the next issue and had to be aware of what was going on in the community so we could assign those stories.

We had to be able to sell advertising, not just to our community, but to other communities because There weren't many black entrepreneurs back then that were willing to advertise in a pub publication like ours. So it was a challenge every step of the way. And doing that every month, all year, every year or almost 20 years was a lot of work.

The festivals once a year, it's a lot of work, but you only producing that event once per year. So it's not as demanding, but the need to produce a magazine. And that's the quality that we were trying to achieve. As Rita it took a lot of effort and time. But you mentioned that people came together.

People wanted to contribute to Word. They approached us. We didn't have to seek out a lot of people. Eventually, they came to us. They say recognize what we were trying to accomplish and wanted to be a part of it. So that helped tremendously. But yeah, it was a challenge. And initially, of course, nobody believed in the idea.

When we started Word Magazine, basically, it was just our parents that said, Yeah, okay, we'll support you on this, but everybody else predicted our demise. It's just a matter of time. You won't make it. They even predicted that our relationship wouldn't survive it because, come on, it's guaranteed to fail and that's going to then put pressure on your relationship.

So we got a lot of negative feedback, from people just didn't have the confidence in starting a business or coming up with an idea and then bringing it to a reality. But fortunately for us, we were able to persevere. And as time went by more and more people. Supported what we were doing and it became a very important part of our life and led to all of the other things we've done. 

[00:29:10] Ellington Brown: You and your husband were married in May of 1991? 

[00:29:16] Donna McCurvin: That's right. 

[00:29:16] Ellington Brown: You were in the thick of it in Brazil, you having all of this, native food and all of the music. You came back and then in 2002, I think it was, IRIE started. That's the music festival and so now you have a reggae and soca and afrobeat and country and african canadian music, Black groups. Was any of that influenced by your stay in Brazil? 

[00:29:55] Donna McCurvin: Most definitely. I would say everything was influenced by it, that, that trip. We recognized that the culture was more than what we knew, more than our favorite music, for example, more than Jamaican culture, let's put it that way. And we also recognize that it was all connected.

When we went to Brazil, we were seeing things that reminded us of Jamaica, some of the foods even. And that's when we realized that we were just dropped off in different places, but we all came from the same place. So that was important for us as well, to reflect that. To reflect not only, Caribbean music, but to make the connection so people understand that it's all interconnected.

We also produced the Toronto Urban Music Festival before we started the Irish Music Festival, which came out of the magazine. It was more of an urban hip hop type of event. But again, we included reggae, and we included African music in the early days of the Toronto Urban Music Festival.

Because we wanted to show everybody, all the young people that were interested in hip hop and all of that, that there's a connection here. It's all interconnected. Unfortunately, the audience didn't quite get the message. And we realized we had to separate the events. That's when we decided to create IRIE separate from the Toronto Urban Music Festival because it was a different audience.

As much as we wanted everybody to see those interconnections, it wasn't, it didn't play itself out that way in terms of the audience because of the age difference and demographic difference. But we still always made the point of connecting those dots that our culture. It's coming back from a very important place, the motherland, and we just happened to be dropped off in different places. So yes, that trip inspired that entire, our entire journey thus far, to be honest. 

[00:31:48] Rita Burke: You're making a very profound statement that we all came from the same place, but we were dropped off in different places. There's no question about that. I certainly concur with that. And Donna. Sounds like Bob Marley, something Bob Marley would say.

Oh yeah. Something that Bob Marley would say. So talk to us about what did it feel like to be given the Harry Jerome Award for business? 

[00:32:17] Donna McCurvin: That was a huge surprise and a very proud moment obviously for Phil and myself. When you're working in the trenches and dealing with the struggle and having to do, wear so many hats, you don't really think about the impact that you're having, but the Harry Jerome Award definitely made us take a moment to recognize that we were having a significant impact on our community. And you hear people saying it's always nice to be recognized by your community. You're recognized by outside of the community. But when you get that award from your community is extra special. I'll say that's very true.

It does just hits a bit differently. And Very proud moment, the highlight of my career, to be honest. Because when I look at the other people who have been awarded in that category, specifically the business category, these are some giants, who have accomplished great things.

And to think that as a publication that just came out of an idea and a thought that we had and just, the hard work that we put in, it was nice to know that people saw us on the same level. as some of those other business giants. 

[00:33:23] Rita Burke: Deserved, if I may say. Deserved, if I may say it, Donna. As I said, you are a silent giant, and you are a community builder, and that's all I've seen over the years that I've known you. And on SpeakUP! International, we aim to inspire, to educate, and to inform based on the stories of our guests. And today, there's no question that you will help us meet those goals and I thank you. 

[00:33:51] Donna McCurvin: Thank you. I really appreciate this opportunity. It's been an amazing journey so far. And it's nice to share that with others. Interesting enough, not a lot of people know about all of the businesses that we've done. They know about one or two. It's not always the same audience that participates in every one of those businesses, so it's nice to speak about it as a whole,

[00:34:16] Ellington Brown: It's good that we're able to grab whole of this historical information so that future generations can look back on the silent giants and be able to get a clearer understanding of the progress that was made for them so that they can use that as a foundation to build upon. You are the co-founder of, the Canadian Black Music Archive.

Drake and Molly Jackson Oscar Peterson Johnny Debt all of these really famous individuals that you guys were able to, to archive, are you still involved with that? That in itself is also extremely important to be able to lock in and, put all of these individuals in a time capsule, so to speak, so that again, our future generations can see where we come from musically, artistically, 

[00:35:24] Donna McCurvin: definitely something that we're very proud of and yes, most definitely still involved. It was only officially launched in November of last year, November 2023. And it's just the tip of the iceberg. The Canada Black Music Archives came out of. I hate to say it, but Word again, because there was a time when we were thinking about archiving our content, Word Magazine content.

And then we realized that, the majority of our content was music based. And then we recognized that there wasn't really any place or space in Canada that captured a lot of our music history. And the more we explored, the more we realized there was a huge void. And we decided that it was important to recognize the contributions of those musicians from across Canada and the various genres that they contributed to, and we felt that we had to take the challenge on before that history would be lost forever. We realized that we're now moving into a digital age, and we decided to make it a digital archive because we wanted to be accessible to the next generation, as you described. We wanted people to be able to go online and find out about these great artists that have contributed to Canada's music industry.

So started, officially launched in 2023, but we started it back in 2020. That's when the idea was first discussed with others, and we invited people to participate and started working with some interns, in fact, who are tasked with conducting the research and helping us to design a website and, identify the elements that we wanted to include with that website.

So we launched that website in November. It's called thecbma. com and that website currently houses about the information for about 200 artists. That's what we've collected so far, okay? And that information includes photographs includes the biographical information. It also includes music samples if they're available through Spotify.

The discography videos that may be available interviews live performances, etc. And we're also asking the community to contribute to the archives, we know we have a lot more. to do, but we're asking people to submit submission of people they know. And believe it or not, there are many family members.

Who's parents or grandparents were artists back in the day, and they have records at home in their basement. And we're asking them to bring that information to our attention. Let us know who those people are. In some cases, we'll digitize the content. So that we could include it on the website so people will be able to see it and build on it.

And the response has been really positive so far. We just recently learned that a professor at U of T, Mark Campbell, who also founded an archive, believe it or not, called North Side Hip Hop. It was a hip hop archive. But he's a professor at Scarborough campus, U of T. He says his students are using our website as a resource in their studies, we know that there are a couple of US publications have recently published articles about the archive, the Michigan Chronicle and the New Pittsburgh Courier have both published articles about it.

The archive and the connection to the U. S. Why? Why? It's important not just to us, but to us, because many of the early contributors to our music industry came from the U. S. Each time there was a wave of immigration. We brought new musicians and new culture to Canada, the Caribbean. Immigrants brought reggae.

And SOCA and now the new African immigrants are bringing all versions of African music. So this is what we want to reflect through the website. And we're also producing some events so we can amplify. Those people, those contributors, so that people get to see the ones who are still living and appreciate them for who they are.

We had a Black History Month event, not so long ago, on , February 23rd, and we featured Jackie Richardson and Josie Lee. We featured Jay Douglas and Mishy Mee. As well as Joanna Majoko, who's an up and coming artist, and Kobona Akra Harrison, who's an African artist, and it was really wonderful to see those artists not only perform, but to also talk about their history and why they thought the archive was important as well.

Because they have an opportunity to share their story with others. And they're so so appreciative of the archive because it gives them a place where they can keep that information. Our intention is to keep this going, long term, and, many other archives have approached us City of Toronto archives of Ontario, etc.

I'm asking us to contribute to their archive because most of the traditional archives do not have this information in place. They were not interested in black content. They're only now opening their eyes to that. And there's a huge void there and we're doing our part and we're asking others to also contribute and do their part, but it's very important as far as we're concerned to capture this history and make it available for the next generation.

[00:40:50] Rita Burke: Donner you and Philip often, based on what I know of the family, walk side by side. And we play around in our community with the notion that we're very often we're standing on the shoulders of giants. Whose shoulders are you standing on? 

[00:41:11] Donna McCurvin: That is such an interesting question, Rita. I have benefited from so many other people who've come before me, let's start at the very beginning, my parents, they have been such amazing individuals who have just really given me an opportunity to be me.

And that has helped me considerably. They raised me to believe that I could do anything I set my mind to. And I actually believe them. They said it often enough that I believe them and their confidence in me gave me the freedom to dream about the possibilities don't currently exist. I was allowed that freedom to think beyond what I saw what others were doing.

And they said if you can think it, you can do it. And that has really been our sort of mantra going forward. We've been able to manifest things that didn't exist. Before we put them into reality. And that comes from, having the confidence to step out there on that limb. And my parents really encouraged me to do that.

I also had a number of great teachers throughout my academic career. And, these are not teachers that look like me because there were no teachers that looked like me when I was in school. But also gave, supported me and I think that's important because a lot of people think if your teacher doesn't look like you, they won't support you.

That's not always the case. In my experience, I had a lot of support from teachers who recognized that, I was a little different and, could definitely, hold my own and wanted to encourage me to explore myself and my ideas and my thoughts. Again, not putting any restrictions in front of me.

In fact, tapping me on the shoulder and saying, you know what, I think you can do this. Why don't you try this? Even when I didn't think I was capable of doing it, but they encouraged me to take those chances and step forward. I also had some employers that also encouraged me as I mentioned earlier, I had people who, came to me and offered me positions and opportunities that I would probably would not have thought out on my own.

And I did that. And it helped me. To move along my journey. So many people have been there for me and have supported me over the years. And it has made a very big difference. You definitely need people like that. And that's why, a big part of what we do has always been working with young people.

We're not just creating these ideas for the sake of it. We want young people to be a part of this journey. We want to inspire them. We want to give them the type of encouragement and feedback that we received when we were going through our early years. And especially this latest project we're working with a number of interns. 

Currently, we have about 15 interns that we're working with. Most of them are volunteering and they're passionate about what we're doing. And that's an amazing thing for us. It's a very diverse group too. It's not just people from our community and we encourage them.

 We give them, we try to give them the confidence to step out of their comfort zone. And we've seen very positive outcomes. We've had a few who've decided to go back to school to study archives and things like that. So we're very happy with that, but it's very important. We think to give back, not just to stand on other's shoulders, but to be a shoulder that others can stand on.

Now that's our role. And we want to continue to do that for as long as we can. 

[00:44:35] Ellington Brown: Donna, you, talked about so many different cultures, from Caribbean to African, and you've experienced so many of these cultures. I wonder what food, or foods, did you really enjoy from these cultures, and can you replicate them? Can you cook them? 

[00:44:58] Donna McCurvin: Oh, yeah, that's a challenging question. I, I would not call myself a foodie, but I love food, so I guess I am in a way. I have. experience so many different types of food. And I am an adventure. I am definitely an adventurer when it comes to trying different foods.

I like to eat food outside of my culture. Most definitely. I love South Asian food, for example. I, when we went to Brazil we ate so many sort of Afro Brazilian dishes that were just very unique. And I've attempted to replicate. not necessarily successfully. But I have attempted to replicate some of those dishes.

I love vegetarian food, believe it or not. Typically when I eat food outside of my own culture, that's the first thing that I go for. Because I find that vegetarian meals made, created in other cultures, come with something extra, you don't miss meat and those aspects of the meal because they're using spices and things in a way that our culture doesn't necessarily do.

But food is so important, of course, in every culture. That's the entry point that most people are willing to explore another culture's food before they're willing to explore any other aspects of that culture. So it's a very important entry point. And it's something that I'm very comfortable with trying even things that I've, may not necessarily.

Would not necessarily try before but I think it's necessary to take that step to step out of your comfort zone. And try those foods and music is also something that people are willing to step out of their comfort zone and explore outside of their own culture. And again, I think it's such an important thing because that's how we are able to learn about each other.

When we realize that, there's some things that are common or familiar or something that we enjoy, we may be more open minded to explore the other aspects of that culture. So food is definitely a crucial one in Toronto. That's what it's all about. As we're sharing foods from all over the world, and it's something that we take pride in.

And you can find, food from different parts of the world on any main street. It's not limited to certain neighborhoods anymore. And that's the beauty of Toronto. And I love that aspect. But in terms of replicating, I can't say that's my strength, to be honest. So I leave that to others and I am willing to partake in the final product. But that's not necessarily one of my strengths.

[00:47:38] Ellington Brown: I want to thank you so much for taking the time and getting to reconnect with Rita, which I've heard that you guys had such, fun together back in the day, taking trips all over North America. 

[00:47:59] Donna McCurvin: Oh, yeah. 

[00:48:00] Ellington Brown: It must have been absolutely wonderful today. I, along with our listeners, got to learn so much about you and your creative side and handling the IRIE music festivals, not only the one in Mississauga, but the one in Toronto, and then all of the nuances that came about because of you taking on these projects.

 I don't know how you did it! What I've read about these things, it's absolutely short amazing. And I think you put it into context when you said that as soon as you finish one project, you had a couple of days where you used as a breather and then you were, you went right back under again.

 For yet another project, and I'm sure that the communities here in, Toronto and also in Mississauga and wherever, marginalized communities per se, were able to gather peacefully and enjoy each other and the music. And one other thing I wanted to say was. I remember going to a music, it wasn't a festival.

But it was at Nathan Square, and I got to see Martha and the Vandellas, and just wanted to say how you are right about how people behave themselves. There was no fighting. There is no, there was just a bunch of laughter and kids running around because it was like a family event and you just brought that great memory back.

So I have to thank you. For that, and I thank you so much for all of the information that you've now given us so that we can put in our archives here at SpeakUP! International. Thank you.

[00:49:55] Donna McCurvin: Thank you. Thank you. 

[00:49:57] Rita Burke: It was quite the pleasure!

[00:49:59] Donna McCurvin: I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you both for the work that you're doing.

This is amazing. You're bringing in stories about people and their The ideas accomplishments. Efforts and that's important. Otherwise, again, we don't hear these stories in mainstream media. So it's important to have outlets like yourself that makes that information available to us. So keep up the good work. We appreciate it. All right. Take care. Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.

[00:50:29] Ellington Brown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. If you wish to contact Ms. Donna McCurvin. please be prepared to submit your name, your email address and the reason why you wish to contact Ms. McCurvin to info@speakuppodcast.ca. 

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