NXNE is a chance for artists to showcase their talents, share their music with fans and colleagues and get their message out there. I was lucky enough to have a sit down with one such artist, Empire ISIS, and believe me, her message is definitely worth hearing.
I met up with Empire ISIS and her crew at the Hyatt, in Toronto, where the conference was being held, and my first thought was, wow, is she ever tall. However, it wasn't her physical height that made her seem so daunting, but the way she carried and presented herself. She was strong, she knew who she was and how she wanted to be perceived. “I'm so sure of my energy that I'll burst into any room, anywhere, with anyone in it... and be myself. Look into people's eyes, give them my vibe, feel their vibe, feel what they're about, ask the specific questions that can help me understand who I'm around right now, where they're from, what's their experience.”
And she has to be in order to make a name for herself in a genre that is so male dominated. She's had to constantly prove herself no matter where she goes, be it Caracas, Rio or right here in Montreal. But despite the road blocks, the difficulties and the up hill battles that it has taken her to get this far, Empire ISIS is not one to be meek and back down, especially since getting her message out there is so important to her.
Brought up by a Ugandan stepfather and a British mother in French Canada, Empire ISIS quickly learned the value of personal identity and cultural fusions. In her own words, “my whole life has been about cultural mash up and trying to learn to see past who we are and how we've been brought up, to understand the person next to you.” To do this, she set out in 2001, camera in hand to film documentaries in Jamaica, Trinidad, Venezuela and many other Latin American countries, to try to “crack the social code”, figure out why people say the things they say, why it's ok to use certain words in some countries but not in others. And everywhere she went she would invariably end up singing.
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