Robert is dedicated to spearheading a cultural renaissance on a global scale, emphasizing the essence of African creativity and ingenuity.
His mission revolves around cultivating a robust community and fostering dynamic creative collaborations with visionary artists who share a profound appreciation for Africa’s promising future. Through his endeavours, he aspires to pioneer a transformative revolution that celebrates and amplifies the unparalleled creative spirit emanating from the African continent.
Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Julien grew up in a household filled with musical influences.
At the age of five, Julien began playing the drums, shortly after that he started writing and recording raps. It wasn’t long before the home studio that Julien created became the neighbourhood recording studio. Being able to create a space, and provide resources, knowledge, and access to equipment was what Julien enjoyed the most. Today Julien does just that through artist management and development, live music production, and public speaking.
Julien served as an active member on the board of The African Nova Scotian Music Association (ANSMA) from 2020-2023. During this time on the board of ANSMA, he curated panels and showcases and fundraised to fuel the organization’s mission. While engaged in his volunteer work, Julien stepped in as Interim Investment Program Manager at Music Nova Scotia in 2022. In this role, he provided information to those pursuing a career in the music industry, in addition to overseeing the distribution of public funds allocated to each of Music Nova Scotia’s Investment Programs, and much more.
Julien is currently the Programming Committee Chair at ADVANCE Canada’s Music Business Collective and also serves on the East Coast Music Association’s African Canadian Music Committee.
In 2023, Julien was hired as ANSMA’s first Executive Director in the organization’s history. In this position, Julien aims to serve the African Nova Scotian/Black community with greater emphasis on youth and career development in music. Following Julien’s time working at Music Nova Scotia, he embarked on a path to start his own music business consulting and management company. Through his company, Julien offers artist management, facilitation, public speaking, grant writing, promotion, project management, live music production planning, and will soon be adding royalty and publishing collection services.
Fikayo Kayode (she/her) is a 21-year-old creative artist from Nigeria. After spending a couple of years in the Philippines, she moved to Canada in 2018 for her undergraduate degree and graduated with a BA in Political Science from Acadia University.
She enjoys reading anything from realistic fiction novels to academic pieces on topics like race, womanhood, and current or past politics and started reading at a very young age. Fikayo developed an affinity towards writing at 14 and would start with short stories and poems. She started to put her craft out there in 2020 when she launched her podcast, “OkayThoughts”. Since then, Fikayo has performed at spoken word events, created a social media platform for her writing and her podcast, and is currently working on a blog.
Slowly but surely, Fikayo is building confidence in sharing and honing her craft as a writer and spoken word artist and allowing her work to speak to her, and for her. She is doing this by taking up more opportunities to share her writing and putting pen on paper whenever she feels inspired to.
Palm Tree Kitchen is inspired by the vibrancy of Caribbean culture, colours, and fresh, flavour-packed island ingredients.
As Halifax’s only rum bar, Palm Tree Kitchen is bringing a splash of the Caribbean to Quinpool Road. Offering sandwiches and handhelds by day, and small plates by night.
Palm Tree Kitchen is a small place that brings big island love. Need a vacation? Come and feel the island vibes.
Lumen Lux is a multifaceted performer who fell in love with the arts at a young age. Beginning her fire journey in 2016, Lumen progressed from spinning fire to eating fire to breathing it. Their many talents also include hooping, flow arts, gogo and burlesque.
Lumen Lux has performed at festivals such as Evolve Music Festival, Fire and Water Cultural Festival, Nocturne, Future Forest, Fredericton Pride and many other events throughout Atlantic Canada
They have done collaborations with many other artists and also work with performing organizations such as Serpentine Studios and Luminosity Circus and has recently started producing her own burlesque and drag shows under the alias Lumen Lux Productions
MichNat Fashion is an Afrocentric fashion brand and the epitome of bespoke and customised fashion.
One of the main goals of Michnat Fashion is to help our clients stay true to their identity by reflecting this in their fashion styles. All garments are carefully constructed with strategic cut-outs to emphasize the natural curves and this great attention to detail makes us stand out and distinct.
The brand was founded in 2020 by Funmi Odeniyi to share her passion for fashion with the world and also use this to promote diversity. Her hard work and unique designs have earned her some recognition and awards since inception.
Funmi is a wife and mother of 4 beautiful kids, She also volunteers as the Treasurer of two organisations – Craft Nova Scotia and The Africadian Empowerment Academy. She helps impact the community by collaborating with organisations such as Halifax Central Library and other organizations to offer free sewing classes to the youths and any adults interested in improving their skills.
Having lost her parents at only 15 years of age and subsequently placed into foster care, Patricia refused to let her past hinder her future.
As a Creative Director and visual storyteller, she firmly believes that everyone has a compelling story to tell. Elevating voices, whether for individuals or for business brands, is where her passion lies and what drove her to start her creative agency. She works to advocate for increased representation of the BIPOC community within the arts.
Now, she is doing projects beyond the Canadian border. She loves to reminisce on the extraordinary experiences, people, places, struggles & successes that have made her who she is today.
Yasmine Wasfy is a fashion/textiles designer who graduated from NSCAD University in Halifax in 2019.
Yasmine developed the concept behind Ange while working with handprinted/ painted silks for her graduation project that hit the runway at her university’s gala in 2018. The project was based on hand-painted sheer white silks and elegant duchess satins.
Yasmine worked as a bridal consultant and this helped her get closer to realise the huge demand for modern, unique and light features in bridal gowns. This led to her going back to her painted white silks and creating something out of them. From that moment, Ange was born!
Serving punchlines delivered timely with rizz and a phenomenal flow, F$rgo is a songwriter, rapper and singer From Ekiti state Nigeria. Born and brought up in the streets of Agege, Lagos state. Check him out…
Luke 2.0, an out-of-the-box thinker with an unorthodox style and sense of humour, adds a touch of personality to each piece of work.
With a decade of knowledge from cartooning, animation, illustration, video editing, graphic art, and logo design; Luke will not hesitate to stop until your expectations are exceeded!
From years of self-education as well as learning skills from film school and working as a tattoo apprentice, Luke has worked on various projects such as cover art and animated music videos for rappers in the Halifax scene, logos for small businesses, podcasters from LA and many more!
Providing a friendly open mind, a strong attention to detail and the ability to take on challenging projects; Luke with bring forth what it takes to help your vision come to life!
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