Art on my Mind 2025 Showcase

Kadiatu Barrie is a community resource engagement worker and part of the New Narrative Team at YAAACE (Youth Association for Academics, Athletics and Character Education), offering various supports to youth aged 12 to 29. As host and program coordinator for the Street Voices’ Media training workshops, Kadiatu uplifts and centres overlooked narratives and underrepresented voices. Kadiatu was also the founder and one of the hosts of Let’s Talk Big Tingz, a podcast exploring topics relevant to Black and Muslim women and girls. In 2022, Kadiatu was Community Coordinator for the CBC’s Jane and Finch Community Bureau.

Nathan Baya is an artist, songwriter, and performer born and raised in Toronto. Baya’s parents immigrated to Canada from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a heritage that has left an indelible impact on his musical sound. Known for his electrifying performances, Baya has taken the stage at over 100 venues including for the Toronto Raptors, Afrofest, Nuit Blanche, Rise Edutainment, and the Toronto Biennial of Art. He appears in the Wagner & de Burca film, RISE, which was produced by the Art Gallery of York University (now The Goldfarb Gallery). Additionally, Baya was the opening act for Koffee at the 2020 Manifesto Festival.

Fusing spoken word and hip hop’s cultural expressions with Colombian Afro-Indigenous música de gaita, two-time Juno-nominated multi-instrumentalist and lyricist Beny Esguerra and New Tradition Music delivers urgent calls for justice, environmental healing, and respect for ancestors and land treaties through interactive multi-arts performances. Beny Esguerra arrived as a child to Tkaronto (Toronto) from Bacatá (Bogotá) as a political refugee with his parents, who were involved in cultural work and human rights activism. Today, he is an award-winning multi-instrumentalist/producer, spoken word poet, arts educator, and community worker. In 2021, he was chosen as the laureate of the 2020 Ontario Arts Foundation Arts Educator Award. Most recently, his songs—from the Juno-nominated album Northside Kuisi—have been nominated for collaboration of the year at the 2022 International Indigenous Hip Hop Music Awards and have won Music to Life’s Hope Rises II song writing contest and international call for songs for social justice.

Toronto-based singer Kibra is quickly making a name for herself as one of the most exceptional voices in Toronto’s R&B scene. Kibra has experienced numerous career-defining milestones that have propelled her artistic development. One of these turning points was when she was asked to be an ambassador for Destination Toronto and performed for Sofar Sounds to a packed audience in Brooklyn. Representing the best of Toronto’s arts scene, Kibra gave a showstopping performance, demonstrating her vocal agility and emotionally charged lyricism. Posted online, Kibra’s performance was viewed 165,000 times. Another defining moment was when RNB Radar posted her live performance of Laydown, garnering over 1 million interactions and 28,500 likes, making it their most-liked post featuring a Canadian artist.

Toronto-born, Jamaican-Trinidadian artist and mother, Sydanie, is levelling all expectations and setting the bar for women in Toronto’s hip hop scene. Not confined to the restrictions that any genre could impose on her creativity, Sydanie is creating a diverse array of texturized, unique, synth-driven sounds while unapologetically carrying her Southside Jane neighbourhood in tow. Following features on The Fader, Vice, and being longlisted for the 2019 Polaris Prize, the self-proclaimed supernatural rapper has gone on to relaunch the MOCHA Project, her grassroots community arts project for mothers of colour.

DJ CUR8’s love for hip hop culture and B boying transcends the dance floor, extending to his roles as mentor, teacher, and DJ within formal institutions of education. DJ CUR8 also holds the distinct honour of being lead writer for the hip hop curriculum called Rhymes, Rhythms & Re-Education, the first-of-its-kind resource guide for educators introducing teachers and students to a world of creativity, self-expression, and anti-oppression pedagogy. His work for the past 15 years has included implementing hip hop leadership/mentorship and educational programs for urban BIPOC youth within the Toronto District School Board. His community programs engage youth in critical thinking and artistic development by incorporating hip hop’s core elements, history, and culture, employing B boying/B girling, graffiti art, DJ-ing/production, and MC-ing to explore complex social justice issues with young people in and beyond the classroom.