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We have show this June in Toronto. The reception is on the 30th if you wanna come say hi :)

More details on the blog

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New feature on activist and artist Kim Katrin Milan on Heartbeats where she discusses public speaking, love and selfies (because she is the queen).

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.

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”The feeling the phrase #blackgirlmagic invokes precedes the hashtag. Always. Not the other way around. It’s somewhere in my sister-friend impulsively grabbing my hand and squeezing it and comparing our love to cocoa butter. It is when we succeed but I also think it can include our messy selves. It is felt. It is a grasping. It is a centring. I don’t hold space for the ways these hashtags get co-opted and saturated into blithe gestures and literal clickbait. I do not have the capacity. I’m not on twitter—yet. Blackness is one of the biggest forms of cultural import and export within a capitalist structure. The gesture of importation is so insidious that most Canadians have a limited understanding of the history of blackness here. Instead I’ve grown up with folks comfortably projecting me into a superficial understanding of an African-American history. It fosters this notion that Canada was and remains a sanctuary in the north. This projection also erases the nuance and multitude of experiences of blackness.

Our magic is complex. Cecil Emckee’s Strolling series or Polygot exude #blackgirlmagic to me.”

 – Jessica Karuhanga

New Heartbeats feature. 

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Our year end things here

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Some emo pics we took a couple of weeks ago. 

Photos by @vivekshraya

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“I don’t know what other cultural movement is doing more to valorise white masculinity than gay men’s culture–and I don’t mean just what is typically called ‘the gay mainstream.’”

New feature on Trinidadian scholar and artist Andil Gosine on heart-beats.ca where he discusses love, relationships and Nicki Minaj.

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.

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Braids. 

Photos by @vivekshraya 

More

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Fall femme shoot with @vivekshraya

Photos by @peperechas

More heartbeats

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Leila spends her time away from her day job in palliative care building her own damn bass. She’s also changing the landscape of cold-ass Alberta, Canada with the @brownblackfierce collective.

She’s the new Heartbeat. Read more about her now.

Photos and interview by Karen Campos Castillo.

[tooattachedpop]

TOO ATTACHED EP “BRONZE” OUT TODAY! Free download.

Featuring samples by Missy Elliott, The Rascals, haunting Indian films and old BBC radio shows.

Photo: Alejandro Santiago

Wardrobe Consultant: Talya Macedo

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Heartbeat’s contributor is queen putting out an album with her brother Shamik (catch up on Shamik’s HDB feature) . Dope music made my sweet brown queers.

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"I’ve heard many others speak about not feeling like ‘real’ writers until Book #3 or #4 or #5. Some of this has to be linked to being a woman of colour in Canlit. We encounter a kind of dismissal that doesn’t happen to white male writers.“

New interview with writer and activist Farzana Doctor on heart-beats.ca where she discusses the whiteness of Canadian literature, her new novel ALL INCLUSIVE, and what she has learned from her years as an activist.

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.

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"People stared at me a lot in Calgary. There were several venues that I wasn’t let into the whole time I lived there. Once I had a show and the bouncer almost didn’t let me into the club until I showed him the flyer which had my name on it. I worked at a restaurant downtown where customers generally made a racist remark at least once a week. I became really numb to it.”

New feature on my younger brother Shamik on heart-beats.ca where he discusses being a multi-disciplinary artist, racism in Alberta and being inspired by Fresh Prince. 

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.

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“When you’re at the top of the food chain, as white men are in the gay community, you’re going to have much fewer negative data points to work with, at least in terms of race. You’re less likely to experience being reduced to a fuckbot as black men are or rendered invisible as many Asian men are.”

New feature on Jaime Woo on heart-beats.ca where he discusses Grindr, video games, and “elevated basics.” 

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.

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“...I do know that I carry some baggage from childhood re: not ‘blending in.’ And I think that maybe I’ve carried that response into adulthood, so I sometimes find myself wanting to be in stark contrast to any super homogenous/white space I might find myself in. This means I’ll be like ‘k, gonna wear Timb boots to the bougie reading,’ or my Kanye and Outkast tees to work. Over the past four years, my style has primarily reverted back to high school; I like ripped things and oversized tees, hoop earrings, Docs and sneakers, athletic wear and 5-panel hats. Authenticity is such a fraught concept, but I idealize my high school self so much because it was the last time I was in a predominantly non-white environment.” 

New feature on Anupa Mistry on heart-beats.ca where she discusses saris, baby blue velour, #bramptongirls and YYZ of course. 

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.

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“Colombian-born (Baranquilla baby) Lido Pimienta welcomed me into her home on a bitterly cold afternoon and I was immediately blown away by her confidence. As immigrants and children of immigrants, we learn to survive by killing that which makes us different or pretending it was never there. Lido’s creative drive seems unaffected by systemic prejudices that aim to keep us in our lane. From drawings to textiles and music (new album out this year!), Lido will find a way.”

Read full interview at Hearbeats

Photos and interview by Karen Campos Castillo

@lidopepper on tumblr

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New feature on Heartbeats featuring Kay Ulanday Barrett.

"To think, colonization and displacement and systemic struggle takes so many things away, but brown people remember how they grew up through tastes, through community and organization kitchens. Self and collective preservation knows there’s magic in food."

Catch Kay in Toronto on February 19 at George Brown College.

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"I think my work answers a call of some kind, giving power back to the female form, which is evident because for instance my father has completely stopped talking about my work. He is quick to tell people that I’m successful but not how or why. This goes against the protocol of women-shaming and body-shaming that is ingrained in conservative Southeast-Asian male culture, because of the nature of my work. It shows power in femininity, re-thinks the male gaze. Sometimes people are not ready for that sort of thing."

New feature on Rajni Perera on heart-beats.ca where she discusses her powerful art, her parents, inspirations, and advice for other POC artists. 

Interview & photos by Vivek Shraya.