Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to Speak Up International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown.

Speaker 2: 0:15

As you know, on Speak Up International we have conversations with people from all over the world. We've gone to Brazil, we've gone to South Africa, we've gone to England, we've done almost every state in the United States, and today we're back home in Canada with none other than Tiki Mercury Clark. Now, tiki is a third-generation Torontonian who grew up in a multi-generational family setting. She tells us in her bio that she was inoculated against racism by her grandparents. She also says that she was introduced to racism at an early age at a school in North York. Now Tiki started the Royal Conservatory of Music piano lessons in European classical music and progressed rapidly. Her teachers described her as a child prodigy. Tiki joined the cast of here in 1970, playing the lead of Dionne. She also toured the Life Club circuit in Ontario, quebec, new Brunswick. There's so much more that I would like to say about Tiki in this introduction, but, as we say on Speak Up International, we prefer if our guests tell their own stories, and so today I introduce you to and I welcome Tiki Mercury-Clark to Speak Up International.

Speaker 3: 2:05

Thank you. Thank you very much, Rita. I appreciate the invitation.

Speaker 1: 2:09

So happy to have you here with us, Tiki.

Speaker 3: 2:12

And you too, Elton.

Speaker 1: 2:15

So can you tell me about your early experiences in Toronto that shaped your understanding of cultural diversity?

Speaker 3: 2:28

Toronto that shaped your understanding of cultural diversity. Probably the one that was strongest for me was when we lived on Henry Street, which was in the Svedina and college area of Toronto. I moved there and I lived there from when I was seven until I was nine and it was like a little village. On the street were my family, there were Chinese families, there were Russian, jewish families, hungarian, greek, italian and a whole host of people and the kids we would play together. Back then, of course, kids actually played out on the street right. We were always outside. You know it was. You know go out and don't come in and stop coming in and out. There was no sitting in front of some device, sitting in front of TV. You were outside constantly and we often had to make our own games. There was not.

Speaker 3: 3:33

It was a working class area, so there weren't a lot of things that were bought to amuse us. We had to learn to amuse ourselves, and so there were numerous games that were played up against the side of a building with a ball. We had different hopscotch type things that we would do with chalk on the sidewalks. One of my favorite things was I can't even remember what we called it, but we would string elastics together together and you would have two people and one would hold one end, the other the other, and they would move up their body. So they would you know that, okay so that you'd put it at your ankle and then you had to jump over that level and then it would go up to mid calf and then it would go to the knee and then the mid thigh and it would keep going up and you had to keep jumping over it, that sort of thing. So we were very active.

Speaker 3: 4:26

But we were in and out of each other's houses. So I don't think it was a rule that anybody made. But when we went into the Lycorisous, for example, who were Greek, the Tanti who would look after my friend Georgina spoke Greek and she would speak to us in Greek and expect us to answer in Greek. So you'd learn bits of different languages, you know, between Cantonese and Greek and Ukrainian and French, and it was just a real multilingual, multiracial, multicultural. We'd be in and out of each other's houses eating the food and I thought that was normal. I really did.

Speaker 2: 5:17

And at that time it certainly was normal.

Speaker 3: 5:20

It was. Yeah, basically in those areas downtown it was normal. In other areas it wasn't. But that was very important for me, especially because the prior year was so harrowing that that particular stretch from when I was seven to nine was like a healing period before I went into another really awful period.

Speaker 2: 5:49

Sounds like pure joy and that you really enjoyed that particular segment in your childhood. Now in your bio you talked about a landing place for community members who needed a place to stay. Please elaborate on that statement for me please.

Speaker 3: 6:13

Okay, what I was talking about was when I lived with my grandparents From birth until six or five I guess five or six around there. We and I would say we, it was my mother's parents, so it was my mother myself. It was my mother's younger brothers who are still in school. They were teenagers, but then ones who were a little bit older than that. They were teenagers, but then ones who were a little bit older than that she was the oldest but some who were a little older than that had already married and had wives and had their first one or two or three children.

Speaker 3: 6:59

So there was a number of us that lived in this house on Ossington Avenue with my grandparents. We always had somebody from the community who needed what I call a landing place. So they were for whatever reason. They had no place to stay. Often they were in a time in their life where they were confused. They needed to have some kind of stability, not just a place to stay, but some stability and direction and guidance. And our house seemed to be well, my grandparents' house seemed to be there.

Speaker 3: 7:36

My grandfather was a minister in the British Methodist Episcopal Church. My grandmother was a deaconess. My grandparents were both Marcus Garveyites. My grandmother was a deaconess. My grandparents were both Marcus Garveyites. They were very much involved in the determining that they were going to have a building to house Marcus Garvey the next time they came to Toronto. Because there was a time when he had come and I think they met at a church and the police were called, called and it was disruptive and they decided that that was not going to happen again the next time he came and they determined in the Depression that they were going to buy a building for our community and be able to properly host Marcus Garvey when he came. And they did that, which was astounding, and some of the stories of how they raised money and what have you, and it was the women who did that I have to really stress. So my grandparents were involved in community. They were pan Africanists, they were certainly pan-Caribbeanists and I was taken under my grandfather's wing and he started me very early, teaching me Africana studies.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Can you tell me one story about an individual or family that needed a landing place?

Speaker 3: 9:10

Well, I can't give you much detail because of course I was very young. But I do remember my grandfather coming home with a woman who would become known to me as Aunt Minerva, and I did get her story when I was a little bit older. He, as a minister, he had different churches and responsibilities that he had to do. So he had gone down to I can't remember it was the train station or the bus depot and was waiting for his transportation and he saw this sister crying, you know, over in a corner. So he went over and he introduced himself and she explained that she had just come up from the Caribbean I think it was a few weeks before and her family decided that they didn't want her anymore and they brought her down there and just left her there and gave her some money and said find some place to go. So my grandfather brought her home with us and she lived with us for a number of years and well, certainly until we left the household.

Speaker 3: 10:22

The household ended up breaking up when I was six because my grandparents were reassigned to Owen Sound, right, but she lived with us for a number of years and she became a family member. It was a very long time before I realized that it really wasn't a blood relative, but she was always Aunt Minerva to me, you know. So that's one example, but there's a host of other people who, at various times when they were younger, had been at my grandparents place Over the years. I've, you know, heard of Archie Alleyne, the musician. I'm trying to remember some of the others. It was the man who did the Whiff Club. If you remember that West Indian Federation Club.

Speaker 2: 11:12

I can't remember, but there's different activists as well who, at times, had to come and stay at the house. That concept or that notion or the term landing place really resonates with me, because I suspect that it's tattooed in our DNA as a people, because I grew up in a house that I would want to describe as a landing place as well for people who needed a safe space to be. So I really like that and it's something that we're.

Speaker 3: 11:46

I have to say, it's something that we are missing very much now, and it's directly related to people, you know in our community who complain about children who grow up and don't have any sense of a father in their life and what have you. But that's how we would deal with it back in the day. You know, my grandparents was not the only landing place. You know there were others. The special thing about about our place is that my grandfather was a scholar and so there was a whole lot of teaching also going on while you were staying there. But that was something that that we did and we don't, and we're paying the price for it now.

Speaker 1: 12:29

I want to go back to something that you said earlier about these landing places. When these people stayed at your grandmom's house or someone else's house. Were there any positive stories where people they stayed at a landing place and then they were able to get their lives together and move forward? And if this landing place concept carried on through individuals who received such kindness?

Speaker 3: 13:03

That I can't really say because, again, I was a child, so there's some information I would not be privy to.

Speaker 3: 13:11

However, I do know, oh, you know, what one of the names that just came to my mind is too, and this might actually qualify is Howard Matthews, who, who is one of the owners of the Underground Railroad, salome Bay's husband. He spent time at my grandparents, and even after he had left again, this I know because I knew him well and he stayed in touch with our family and he would often come back to speak to my grandparents and visit them and what have you. And so he's an example of someone who yes, he, you know, was instrumental in having that restaurant that has not yet been duplicated in Toronto what a shame. And he also was instrumental in, I think, guiding Salome Bay as well into becoming that queen, you know, within our community, as compared to the very more commercial focus right that had been going on before. So, and her involvement in the community has been inestimable because there's so many younger people who were taken under their wing by her Right Because of his influence to direct her in that direction. So, yeah, it's paid us back many times over.

Speaker 2: 14:50

So we are interviewing, we're having a conversation on Speak Up International with Tiki Mercury-Clark and, as you know, on Speak Up International we seek to inspire, inform and educate, and there's no question that Tiki's story will do these things for all of us. I'm curious, Tiki, to learn about your first ever performance.

Speaker 3: 15:20

Oh my, I was.

Speaker 3: 15:24

you're talking about public performance right, yes ma'am, I was in grade it was either grade two or grade three, four and I say it that way because I did two years in one a school that really liked to get all the kids involved and do a parents night that was basically a talent night as well and to get as many children involved as possible. I don't know, I don't remember how it came out, but I had taught myself to twirl baton. I had, and you know what, when you think of it, that's something that's kind of disappeared from being as broadly a broad activity as it used to be. From what I understand, it may still be going on in pockets in the South, being a majorette, but it was a really big thing. Right when I was coming up and I had asked my mother mother, you know if I could take baton twirling lessons and she said no, we cannot afford it. And um, so I got a baton I can't even remember how and I taught myself to to twirl the baton. Um, I also went. I think I got a book from the library as well and I was able to. I mean, you couldn't tell that I hadn't taken lessons. It was that good. I didn't realize that at the time, but I realize now.

Speaker 3: 16:56

So I guess there was a list of the different things that kids could do. So I had put down baton twirling and one other girl had put down baton twirling. Now this other girl. I looked at her and I thought she was a woman, to tell you the truth. So this is back when the schools went from kindergarten to grade eight, and this was also back when, if you didn't pass your year, you were kept back, and so you would often have kids whose first language was not English. They may have to repeat one or two grades because of the language difference and they would end up being a few years older than you see nowadays for kids in grade eight. So it really wasn't that unusual that you could have a 15, 16-year-old, seven-year-old, in grade eight, right? I just remember that she had bazooms, right? So I know for sure she was a woman, right?

Speaker 3: 18:03

So we get together at the stage area, right, where they were doing auditions and everything, and the teachers were sort of cobbling together these different groups. So the two of us I guess we're the only ones that said we twirled the baton in the school we were put together, right? Well, this girl started to lose her mind, right, she had come over to me and she looked down at me because she was way bigger than me. I was a little kid, right. And she's looking down at me and, as you know, you twirl baton. I said, yes, I do. And she said how long did you take lessons? I said I never took any lessons. You know, I taught myself. Right, you can't be any good. And she immediately went over to the teacher and protested that she did not want to be seen on stage with this. You know incompetent here, and how could she be any good, etc. Etc. Etc. So the teacher just didn't pay her any mind. He said the two of you are going to do this routine.

Speaker 3: 19:15

And she had worked out a routine to a very popular song, whose name I keep forgetting, but it was a, you know, one of those marches thing. And they had got costumes for us the stereotypical majorette costume with a little mini skirt that's almost like a tutu, you know, and the round top hat with a brim and all this other kind of stuff, right. So we had rehearsals and I don't really remember how the rehearsals went, but on the night, right, there's a sea of parents, because they really attended those things and they bring the whole family with them too, right, and back then, you know, you'd have people that had six, seven kids, right. So we're talking the whole family, right, they're there, right. So it's just a massive number of people and I'm feeling smaller and smaller and smaller.

Speaker 3: 20:29

But it was I said I just I have to do this, have to do. I was so worried that I was not going to get through this. So we went out there and we started and you know, I'm doing my thing, my doing my thing, and I hear, and I look over, she's dropped her baton, right. And I just keep going like, well, I didn't see that, right. She picks it up and she starts over again and I hear bum, bum, bum, bum. She dropped her baton four times during this routine. I did mine flawlessly. So that was my first performance.

Speaker 2: 21:14

Well, I'm certainly glad that I asked that story, because it really tickles me pink, if that's possible.

Speaker 3: 21:21

It tickles me pink when I think of it, she was so arrogant and so sure that, yeah, sometimes, you know, actually I guess that's been my reaction quite a few times over the years- when. I've had people who decided that they should just pigeonhole me.

Speaker 1: 21:38

We talked about you living downtown in a multicultural environment and then you left that multicultural environment that was downtown, that multicultural environment that was downtown, and then you moved to an all-white school in North York. How was that transition for you?

Speaker 3: 22:04

It was actually the other way around.

Speaker 1: 22:06

The other way around.

Speaker 3: 22:07

Yes, I was in North York for my grade one year. Okay, I went from my grandparents' multi-generational home. We all had to go our separate ways, my mother and I, and at that time my brother had been born. My first brother moved to an apartment up in well, it was a basement apartment up at the Bathurst and Shepherd area. Okay, and I went to this school.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Now, I had enjoyed school.

Speaker 3: 22:43

I do remember that I started out at Regal Road, right downtown, but I don't remember much of it except I had lots of friends and enjoyed it. This was totally different. I wasn't uncomfortable around white people because, you know, in Canada it's kind of hard for Black people not to be around white people. So we can get very comfortable, which is, you know, it's different than, say, in the States where you actually I've met many friends I have down in the States who really didn't go around any white people until they were like out of high school, right, and for those of you who are privileged to grow up in predominantly Black countries, you know it's different. But in Canada listen, you know you gotta.

Speaker 3: 23:30

So I went to this school and I was just following along. Now, remember, I had never been in grade one before. So this is all a new experience to me and I didn't have any older brothers and sisters who could give me any kind of guidance. So I don't remember much of September, october or November. I don't remember much of September, october or November, but when December came around we were asked, told, to color in a nativity scene. I don't know if they still do that nowadays, but back then it was really pushed the whole.

Speaker 1: 24:18

Christmas thing.

Speaker 3: 24:18

And also on that same street, you had to pass a Catholic school to get to the public Protestant school where I attended, and so I think there was also a push to make sure that you're, you know, in the public school it would be pushed to make sure your beliefs remain Protestant oriented, and the same thing would happen in Catholic school. So come Christmas time, I mean for two, three weeks, it seemed everything revolved around Jesus, mary Joseph, the shepherds, santa Claus, you know everything having to do with Christmas. So the teacher brings out this um, just the outline of the figures right, and we had to color them in. We used to have these um crayons, I don't know what they were called, they're not, they weren't chalk, it was almost a waxy kind of thing crayola no, I wish they were that neat.

Speaker 3: 25:11

No, they were fatter and they left a mess, right so. But that's what we used, okay. So I said, okay, fine, I like to color. I had coloring books at home all the time, so I started to color them in and they had a nice one of the colors was one of the crayons I'll call them. That for now was a really nice rich brown. I thought this is great, right, because my grandfather had raised me to know that these people at that time in the Bible had to be dark brown Period. Right, so I'm coloring away and showing myself thoroughly. In the Bible had to be dark brown period. Right, so I'm coloring away and showing myself thoroughly.

Speaker 3: 26:01

And the next thing I know, the paper is snatched out from underneath my hand and the teacher is holding it and she proceeds to lose her mind. Right, what have you done? You made them dirty. How could you do this? And I didn't really grasp at first what she was talking about. Right, she went on and on about how awful that was, and I'm thinking I must have smeared outside the lines because, like I said, this stuff was really messy. It would get on the side of your hands and smudged very, very easily.

Speaker 3: 26:40

So she went off, tore my paper into confetti and, and you know, slammed her hand down and said now do it right. And she went and she got another blank paper and put it down, right, I said okay. I went to the sink, I washed my hands, made sure they were clean, right. And I said, okay, this time I'm going to make sure that I do it right. So I go to reach for my brown crayon. She took it. So I took the only one that was appropriate, which was the black one, and I proceeded to color in the thingies black. But, honey, if you thought she lost her mind before this woman went ballistic, right you?

Speaker 3: 27:34

made them black, right, and she proceeded to go and somewhere in her rant I realized that she was saying that they were not black, they were white. And I said, no, miss, like I remember her name, I said no, no, they're not. No, they weren't. Yes, they were. No, they weren't. Yes, they were. And we're going back and forth and while I'm doing that, I'm thinking this is crazy. She's an adult, she's arguing with me like this, right, and she says they were not, no. But I said my grandfather told me that they were, and he's a minister, he would know better than you. And she was your grandfather is wrong. Don't you tell me that. I was like, yeah, so she just backed off, but she was livid, she was just absolutely livid. And I again I thought, okay, so this is the way grade one is right.

Speaker 3: 28:36

We went away for Christmas holidays. When we came back in January, she's being overly solicitous to me and instinctively, just inside, I knew something's up here, right. So we always had a period of time when I guess a sort of substitute for a nap in a way, but a period of time when we would sit quietly at our desks and she would read books, right. So she made a great announcement. She said all right, class, from now on we are going to have a very special story time. And she said we're going to do this very often because it's one of my favorite books. And she got a stool, she put it in front of the class and she said you, pointing to me, sit on that stool. So I sat on the stool.

Speaker 3: 29:33

She pulls out Little Black Sambo and it was a particular edition that had just the worst caricatures, right, visually, of what this little boy is like. And I'm not going to get into it because I honestly don't remember what the story was about. If I vaguely remember, there was something about a tiger turning into butter or something like this. But you can easily find online now if anyone wants to know details. So I'm sitting there and she's reading and going up and down the aisles and showing the kids these caricature pictures, right. And she's saying things like now look, class, you see her swollen lips Well, they're just like these here, right. And you see her hair. You see how it stands out from the head and it's dirty and it has all this garbage in it. And I'm looking. She brings the pictures and shows me as well. I'm looking at the pictures and this poor creature in the book has got tin cans, bits of bones, you know, from chickens or T-bones, all kinds of flotsam and jetsam in his hair. My hair is very neatly braided. It has either a ribbon or it's got a barrette, and there is no comparison. So I'm thinking this woman is mad, right, she's just out of her mind if she thinks my hair looks like that, right, and she proceeds to go on about that. You see the dirty skin, don't let that get anywhere close to you, girls and boys. And she goes up and down the aisle, she goes over, and all the time, all the time.

Speaker 3: 31:25

Right, that was the beginning and that went on. I would say she would do that at least once a week for the rest of the year. Right, she would be doing that when I would get home or whatnot. I would say to my mom you know, this teacher doesn't like me and I don't really like grade one either, but I didn't really know what was going on so I didn't bother giving my mom any details. It was like we had a house right at the end of the street. It was a dead end street and that end was the school in the schoolyard. So I could easily run home and run back again, ok, which turned out to be fortuitous, because they wouldn't allow me to use the toilets in the school. So a few times I had to run surreptitiously home and then run back right, and it was very fortunate that the woman who would look after me while I was in school because my mother was working, that woman had a child who was an albino actually and who was partially blind, and so she was home all the time, right, so there was someone always there. But this I didn't have anything to compare it to and I really didn't know what was going on. And she never got inside my head. But I would realize later that my body registered things and that made me realize the body actually has its own intelligence, it's not necessarily having to be connected to the head. So, anyways, she would do this thing inside the classroom.

Speaker 3: 33:20

And then I remember that year it got very, very hot very quickly in the spring and it stayed hot. And of course these are the older schools that were very solid, brick, right, with no air conditioning, and when it was hot and the air was still, it just we just baked inside. It was so hot that when the kids came out to go to for recess, no one would play. You could literally see the steam coming up from the pavement which was the playground. But along the side of the school were what I called skinny bathtubs. They were shaped like very thin, narrow, long bathtubs and there would be five or six spigots for you to press down and get water right.

Speaker 3: 34:17

And so I can remember lining up to get a drink of water and I'd be there and I would realize a number of you know much time has passed and I'm still not getting near the front.

Speaker 3: 34:30

And then I started watching and paying attention and I realized that the teachers were having the kids who had already had a drink come back and get in the front of the line. So I complained about that and they just thought it was just your imagination and you know this sort of thing. And basically they wouldn't allow me to drink out of the water fountain and basically they wouldn't allow me to drink out of the water fountain. So I decided that I wasn't even going to give them the satisfaction of lining up. I would wait until they rang the bell. Then I would run over to get a drink and get in the classroom. But there was always a teacher waiting. I mean, you know, kids think they think of something first, right, and the adults don't always know what they're doing, but there was always someone there to prevent me from being able to get water.

Speaker 1: 35:21

Okay, so this is this is racism. Oh yeah, this is obviously this is racism.

Speaker 2: 35:29

No different.

Speaker 1: 35:30

Right, and so I want to know how did that impact your later work as a cultural historian and artist?

Speaker 3: 35:56

is the constant ignorance that I ran into in school, after having been taught and given information that a lot of people did not have access to by my grandfather, was definitely something that fueled the idea of getting that information into the schools right and trying to correct in the minds of people the lies that they had been told to support the fantasy of white supremacy. So I would say that was one of the core things, and even before that point because I didn't start out wanting to be a singer, to tell you the truth, but I was always singing and singing and the arts generally were a way for me to cope with extreme stress. A lot of practicing. You know, I rarely had any friends at school because of the circumstance, except for that two-year period when I was seven to nine downtown, I had lots of friends, but before that, at the school I just described to you, and then the school I went to afterwards when my parents had to get a white man to front for them to buy a house in the Riverdale area, I really didn't have friends there either because of racist attitudes. So yeah, teaching, getting the information out, I used to believe that you could actually educate white people out of their racism.

Speaker 3: 37:38

I don't think I believe that anymore. I'm talking as a collective. There's always going to be a few individuals who are going to be mature enough to face that very, very challenging understanding that they've been lied to Right, and not just lied to, but when they actually look at what the history says, they're going to have to acknowledge that they were, that we are who they kept saying they were Right. So it was almost a two-pronged thing. It's the recognition that you've been lied to. We are who they kept saying they were, so it was almost a two-pronged thing. It's the recognition that you've been lied to and you're not supreme, you're not superior, and then finding out that the people you've been putting down actually have the right to say that. We don't say that, but we have the history.

Speaker 2: 38:36

We have the achievements and we have the evidence to support that. We have the history. Yeah, exactly, we're speaking with Tiki Mercury-Clark on Speak Up International. And do you know, tiki, quite a few statements from your bio piqued my interest, and I'm particularly curious about the one when you said that you began communicating with your ancestors. Expand on that for me. What does it mean, this communicating with your ancestors?

Speaker 3: 39:11

Yeah, they actually began communicating with me first. Actually, it's more they communicate with me. It actually started during the period when I was most happiest, right down from when I was seven to nine, you know, going to church and and, unfortunately, often getting into I can't say arguments, but maybe slightly heated discussions with my Sunday school teacher, because I would ask questions that they couldn't answer, wouldn't answer, and their response don't ask, which was like no, I can't do that. I was, you know, I was raised with a grandfather who encouraged your thinking, you know, and critical thought. So the idea of just take it on faith was just not possible for me. But I was always drawn to issues of spirituality, always asking questions about life, the purpose of life, where do we go, were we someplace before we came here, etc.

Speaker 3: 40:32

And I can remember a couple of times watching different movies that happened to be on TV, and those were special occasions actually, because we were not allowed to just turn on the TV and have it running. What we watched was very severely monitored by both my parents, severely monitored by both my parents, right? One of the reasons being is there was still such rank racism and negative stereotyping that they wouldn't let us watch a lot of things, so even a number of cartoons that still had a lot of basically the same the same thing as the little black Sambo, except that it's it's moving right in a video format, but that used to be a part of cartoons on a routine basis, or the kind of stereotypical shows like Amos and Andy and things of this nature. My parents would not tolerate that, so we were. You know, certain things we were allowed to watch, and it was according to their understanding of where they were at the time. And after watching sort of biblically themed movies, which often, of course, would get into things a little bit deeper than what would happen at Sunday school. Right, I just found that I was. It resonated with me longer than a lot of other shows. Okay, I couldn't, you know, I would watch a Western, for example, and I would get thoroughly frustrated because I was always on the side of the Indians, as we called them then, right, which makes it an exercise in frustration, because I was never rooting for the homesteaders, right, it was like go back to Europe, you know. So, yeah, it didn't work out well, but it was a while before I would start to see movies that I could enjoy that were Westerns but for some reason, despite the fact that they were misrepresenting what Jesus looked like and what have you, I was seeing beyond that and behind that and it was good to see people who were wrestling with some of the questions and issues that I wondered about. So at that point I knew that there was something developing in me.

Speaker 3: 43:03

I can't really say, I can't describe it any other way but there started. Occasionally I would start to see figures. How do I explain this? Where our bedroom was, when I say our, my brother and I had twin beds. We shared a bedroom. So this is, you know, I was like seven and he was four right when my parents' bedroom was, if you open the door to their bedroom, you saw a closet and then also a shelf above the closet.

Speaker 3: 43:51

Sometimes, now, I was always a night person. I was born nocturnal. I mean, I say that people laugh, but it's true. My mother said many times, you know, from when I was four weeks old, she would come and check on me in the middle of the night and I'd be wide awake. I wouldn't be making any noise or anything, but I would be awake, right, wide awake. I wouldn't be making any noise or anything, but I would be awake, right, and I would start to get sleepy around 5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning and if she let me sleep, I would sleep the required number of hours. But that was my natural circadian rhythm, right. So I always had a problem because usually I would go to bed and I would just lay there for hours and end up writing things in my head and doing different things, because I'm just sitting there and I would start to get really sleepy around the time they wanted to wake me for school. It played a half with my health and whatnot, but it was at that period that I would be awake and I would be aware that someone was watching me and I would look over and I would see, because my parents would leave their door open a little bit and I would see someone sitting on that shelf watching me and I didn't have any fear.

Speaker 3: 45:13

And I didn't have any fear after the first time. The first time it happened, I was like something's there and I didn't know and I made noise and looked at my parents and what have you. But after that it kept coming and I realized that there was no danger here, but I didn't know what it was, who it was or what it meant or anything like that. Um, and it's unfortunate that my father's mother had passed by that point because she apparently had the gift right. She was born with a call over her face and she was, you know, very inclined in that way and I had nobody there to talk to. So I remember there was another incident where I saw them in the tree in the backyard just hanging out in the tree right, and I would wave and they would kind of wave back, um, and then sometimes they would talk to me. They would normally be giving me advice, especially if I was going to do something that I shouldn't be doing right, or something that was dangerous, they would warn me. I'd like to say that I listened all the time but I didn't. But they were there and so that, yeah, I started talking to them.

Speaker 3: 46:34

And then over the years, for a period I my father had my father had when we moved to in the east end after this period there was one time that I was in the living room and I was looking out in the backyard we had two lilac trees and I was actually talking to them. I didn't realize he had come into the room and I was just sort of talking to them. He said who are you talking to? And I said there's some people out in the trees right, and he lost it. He says we have no crazy people in this family. Don't you ever talk like that again.

Speaker 3: 47:16

You know it's like this, and I watched them. They kind of faded Right and I for a while didn't deal with that issue at all, actually for quite a while, until I was almost in my 20s, which is not to say they didn't try to talk to me, but I just didn't move any further. I didn't know they were the ancestors. Actually, at that point I just knew they were these people that hung around me. There's actually a number of times, too, I can remember being on stage and I can remember going out onto the stage and beginning to sing, and then the next thing I remember is walking off the stage, and it's always some under very difficult circumstances or something extraordinary happened during those performances, but that has happened quite often Speaking of performances and music jazz, gospel, classical music which one are you drawn to the most?

Speaker 3: 48:33

The most, oh my goodness, the most, oh my goodness. Well, I can? I can say that the least is european classical music in terms of what I'm drawn to.

Speaker 3: 48:49

There's aspects of it that I like, there are certain composers that I like, but it's been. It's rigid. You know, it's very rigid in how it's formed, how it's taught. I had constant arguments with teachers who I wanted to play it as I felt it. It would be note perfect, but it would not necessarily be along the lines of what was written in terms of, say, tempo or mood.

Speaker 3: 49:28

The song actually may feel better to do a part that they said should be slow when it's written slow, and I want to do it, part that they said should be slow when it's written slow and and I want to do it otherwise, right, uh, so because of those kinds of constrictions and things, um, it isn't something that I, and also because of the, you know, the political and the social assumptions that are built into this music, how it's taught, how it's presented as being superior to everything else, how it, you know, et cetera, all that baggage comes with it and makes it very distasteful to me, which is not to say that I don't love aspects of it. And there are people, there are jazz musicians, who actually incorporate the two and I like that. Right, I, I am, I'm a song stylist. Okay, I'm a song interpreter, so I can't Wait a minute.

Speaker 1: 50:28

So wait, what is a music?

Speaker 3: 50:31

Song stylist yeah, dialist, yeah, dialist. Yeah, the song stylist is, yeah, a strong interpreter. I have my own approach to how I'm going to present the song and you know there are people who you can hear them and know right away who. It is OK. You know when you listen to, okay. You know when you listen to Nancy Wilson. You know when you listen to Ella. You know when you listen to Sarah okay, these are song stylists. They take a song and it doesn't have to be jazz, okay, or, as Duke Ellington said, we shouldn't be calling it jazz, we should be calling it Negro classical music. Nowadays we would say African-American classical music. He was prescient in understanding how naming it jazz, allowing it to be called jazz, would allow people to remove it away from our authorship, right from our authorship, right. So, but when you are a song stylist, you can take the song for the song.

Speaker 3: 51:44

It doesn't matter whether it's done as jazz, whether it's done whether it's blues, whether it's rock, whether it's, you know, whatever it could be a folk tune. We're usually driven by the lyrics, more so than vocal gymnastics, although they're often will go together, but it's the lyrics that attract us, and yeah, that's me, tiki Mercury Clark.

Speaker 2: 52:17

you are truly amazing and fascinating me with the stories that you're telling, particularly the stories about your school experiences as a child in this beautiful country that we call Canada, in Toronto.

Speaker 3: 52:36

No, you ain't heard nothing, believe me.

Speaker 2: 52:40

And so then, what if you had the opportunity to talk with a graduating class of teachers in the year 2024? What three nuggets would you want to leave with them about being, or becoming, a truly genuine caring adult? Because that's what I see a teacher's role is is a caring adult. What would you three nuggets?

Speaker 3: 53:13

Okay, the first. Well, actually there's no particular order, but one thing that I think is very important is that they be grown up. I think is very important is that they be grown up, and I say that because it's actually I should. The better word would be that they'd be an adult. Right, because you can be grown up physically, but you really are not yet an adult. You need to have emotional control. You have to be emotionally mature to be an effective teacher, to be a teacher that would not be damaging to children.

Speaker 3: 54:02

And I've run into, not just in my life as a child, as a student, but when I've been in the schools for a number of years and when I'm doing a double performance. I do one in the morning and one in the afternoon. So I spend that lunch period or that period in between, often with teachers in the teacher's room. And it's very clear as it was clear to me even as a child, but it's very clear that many teachers are too immature for that position. They don't have the emotional control to deal with students who are a handful or who just just challenged them a lot of times. If they're the kind of, if they're the kind of, if they had the kind of schooling where everyone was basically well behaved and didn't challenge anything and and, and you know, asked questions they were supposed to ask and everything was like conservative and nice, um, they have a difficult time handling a generation that doesn't act like that. Okay, so you really need to be able to be emotionally in control of yourself so you don't become abusive, right? I've seen teachers who have responded like children to children, right, and that that doesn't help them at all and that sort of leads to a second thing I think they should ask themselves why they wanted to be teachers. It's been clear to me after meeting so many of them and speaking with them and interviewing them and all kinds of things, there are many people who became teachers because they never wanted to leave school. They liked school, they loved school, they loved the environment and they didn't want to leave, and so they became teachers. That really is the reason why that's not good enough, right, that's not good enough. And those are the teachers who really will start to lose their minds and not rise to the occasion, especially if they are also immature, if the students are a challenge in some way. So you have, they need to ask themselves, yeah, why they became. You also have, and I know this for a fact. There are teachers who were bullies, who became teachers to be bullies. Okay, yeah, there's that. I don't know if there would be a third. I don't know if there would be a third.

Speaker 3: 57:03

One of the things I know that is sort of I've wondered about is a number of I guess about maybe seven, eight years ago, but don't quote me on that Sociologists are now saying that adolescence actually extends now until 29. Right, especially for those people who go right from high school to university. You know they don't have a job in between, they're still at home. Adolescence in terms of maturity, emotional maturity, goes right to 29 now.

Speaker 3: 57:41

So I wondered to myself it's possible to go through high school, go to teacher's college, right, go to university and be teaching before you're 29, which is amazing, because they're saying that. You know we have adolescents, that, and sometimes they are very clearly adolescents. So I don't know how to you know, I don't know how to put make that as sort of another point, but for sure anyone wanting to be a teacher needs to ask themselves why, because if you're actually doing it for your own internal reasons, that's not good enough, apart from if that internal reason is you love to teach, you love to inspire, you love to open up minds. If you're doing it because you're comfortable and that's where you were in your favorite years and you just want to extend them, that's not good enough, of course. If you're doing it because you're a bully, that's not a good reason either, right?

Speaker 1: 58:54

No, because I guess you're just perpetuating the madness as it were.

Speaker 1: 58:56

We have really enjoyed our conversation with you, Tiki, this evening. We have learned so much about you, your story, you living in downtown Toronto, going to school in North York, having to deal with crazy teachers, the blatant racism that you had to deal with as a child which kind of helped you as a cultural historian and an artist. You had grandparents and parents that were very strict, as mine were. My mother was that strapped, very strict, and I don't think it was a bad thing per se. It really taught us growing up up that there were consequences when you happen to not follow the rules.

Speaker 3: 1:00:16

That depends on whether there's a balance of an abundance of love as well. If it's just the strap and you don't have the positive things, then it's very damaging.

Speaker 1: 1:00:35

Oh no, I think in my household there was definitely a balance. My mother loved me as a son, son, but she would not tolerate. No well, you know this. You know this blatant. I'm going to break the rule anyway and I'm going to do what I want to do, not in her house, that's not how it worked.

Speaker 1: 1:01:01

But the love oh, I know with unequivocally that my mother, she loved me and my brothers and, yes, I do agree with you that there definitely has to be a balance between the two, or, yes, it can be damaging.

Speaker 3: 1:01:21

Yeah, well, she's just protecting you.

Speaker 1: 1:01:24

Yeah well, she's just protecting you. Oh, you know, I think most parents in their own way, good or bad, they think that they are protecting you. And I love the fact that you are a singer. You love different types of music. We never did get to actually hear you sing, lift Every Voice and Sing, by the way. That would have been quite interesting. Maybe we'll have to have you come back and we'll have to get you to actually sing that song, which is very dear to me.

Speaker 2: 1:02:04

I've heard her sing it, so you're missing out.

Speaker 1: 1:02:06

So you're right, you will have to have her back so you can hear okay well, in that case, then you know, I'll just get on the phone with her and then she can sing it to me and not she just doesn't sing that song.

Speaker 2: 1:02:25

She does all kinds of strange things with that voice and that song.

Speaker 3: 1:02:31

That's okay elton, you need to buy my three cd box set, because I do have one there oh, you do where would he?

Speaker 2: 1:02:39

get them.

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

Tell him quickly where he could get that and the name of your, of the, of the stevie lift every voice and sing the roots of gospel music.

Speaker 3: 1:02:50

Okay, yep, it's a history lesson, starting from about 10 000 bce, almost to well the last century and it describes how spirituals came about with influences that created them, how the music was used as a resistance music, and part of what I do in there is I do a version of Lift Every Voice and Sing.

Speaker 1: 1:03:16

And so I can get this. You can contact me. Oh you All right, so I guess we have your email address, and do you have? Is there a website? Could this?

Speaker 3: 1:03:31

also be found on like Amazon or something site is wwwtkemercuryclarkcom. T-i-m-e-r-c-u-r-y-c-l-a-r-k-e. No hyphen.

Speaker 1: 1:03:53

Okay, all right. Well, people, you heard that, so you know. Run to this, run to the website, grab yourself a copy of History in the form of music and be educated.

Speaker 3: 1:04:10

You'll hear an overview of it on there, but I don't sell it through there yet. I'm getting ready to redo my website and I hope to be able to do that then, but they'd have to contact me directly.

Speaker 1: 1:04:24

But the email is there to do that then, but they'd have to contact me directly. But the email is there, rita, is there anything that? You would like to say before we say you know good night.

Speaker 2: 1:04:38

Well, I will just let tiki know that this far exceeded my expectations and I I want to thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3: 1:04:44

You were truly amazing oh, thank you, I appreciate it. I really enjoyed it and, uh, I'd be up to do it again sometime we're gonna hold.

Speaker 1: 1:04:54

you see, you should never said that, because now we're gonna hold you to it, and then, when you think you can wiggle out of it, we're gonna say oh no, no, no, we have it recorded, oh yeah, right. That you would be willing to do this again. Okay, well, you know. Thank you so much and you have a great evening and let's do this again soon.

Speaker 2: 1:05:19

Thank, you All right.

Speaker 1: 1:05:25

Thank you for listening to Speak Up International. If you wish to contact Tiki Mercury Clark, please be prepared to submit your name, your email address and the reason why you wish to contact Tiki Mercury Clark at wwwtikimcuryclarkcom. Tiki Mercury Clark has other social media platforms you can use to connect to Tiki Mercury Clark listed in the description section on Spotify and other platforms. Are you interested in the opportunity to be interviewed and have your cause promoted by Speak Up International? We invite you to connect to us by sending a message that includes your name, company or organization name, the valuable service you offer to your community, and your email address to info at speakuppodcastca. Worried about your confidence as an interviewee? Don't fret. Speak Up International can provide you with the necessary training so you shine during an interview. To receive training information and a 10% discount about the Speak Up International's training program, email us at info at speakuppodcastca. You can also reach us using Facebook, instagram, twitter and LinkedIn To connect to our podcast. Use Spotify or your favorite podcast platform and search for Speak Up International. You can also find our podcast using our web address, wwwspeakuppodcastca. Our lover has the woman with her finger pointing up, mouth open, speaking up.

Speaker 1: 1:07:25

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