Divine Success

A few days ago I was strolling down Queen Street in Toronto when I bumped into DJ Paul E Lopes. It was an interesting coincidence because the day before this I had gotten an email from fellow Exclaim! editor, David Dacks about the name of this blog being Vibes & Stuff. He was suggesting I might have to battle Paul E Lopes for the name as he once hosted a hugely influential college radio show of the same name on Toronto's CIUT 89.5 FM. When I mentioned this to Lopes he kinda laughed. No battle took place as Lopes gave his blessing as he has moved onto other things. And of course, the name was inspired by A Tribe Called Quest in the first place.

However, we started talking about Bump n Hustle, a night specializing in the best funk, soul, house and Latin vibes that has now been going on in some shape or form with Lopes' involvement in Toronto for over ten years. While it is now primarily a DJ-based event with Lopes and DJ Mike Tull flinging down the tunes, it was initially more a showcase for vocalists alongside the house band Panic. Glenn Lewis would be the most immediately recognizable name to emerge from those nights with considerable success years later. People who hate on him now for sounding like Stevie Wonder would have had a field day with his patented "Ribbon In The Sky" performance.

Anyway, soon the discussion moved to the insanely talented Michelle 'Boo Boo' Brown, as she was one of the first vocalists to be featured at Bump n Hustle in the early days. After changing her name once to Divine Earth Essence, she's now changed it again and is known as Divine Brown. Right now she's having a lot of success in Canada with her single Ol' Skool Love. The track has become pretty inescapable in Toronto whether you're listening to the radio or passing by stores walking down the street. Her long-overdue album that dropped last week is even doing pretty good on the Soundscan charts as the second highest debut behind Oasis.

All of this makes me wonder about the state of Canadian R&B. It's been very rare for homegrown artists like Brown to make a dent while still based in the country. The usual model that the most successful Canadian R&B singers of the last decade such as Deborah Cox, Tamia and the aforementioned Lewis have taken is to make the move down south because the perception is that it isn't going to happen here with Canadian labels. Brown's success is an encouraging sign to be sure. It'll be interesting to see if this translates into something bigger for the scene as a whole.