February's Last Fridays' Event

Like all of our previous Last Fridays' events, Friday February 26th held in honor of Black History Month, was spectacular. The event was held at the Daniel's Presentation Centre. We had some new and some familiar faces in the crowd which made a great audience. This month we filled our tummies with Jerk chicken and rice and more performers than usual. The evening started with the Regent Park House Band da Youngstas. They were followed by Da Newz poetry of Kim Miller and traditional African drumming by three members of Matadi, a Toronto based drumming collective. Toronto artist's Ekko Effect livened up the crowd with some energy filled rapping. He was followed by rap artist Kris P. The first half of the evening was brought to a close by the soulful R&B singing of Toronto artist Steve J'lin,

In the second half of the evening, Raswell and Ekow of the band Subnodes, reignited the crowd with their unique brand of progressive hiphop. The multi-talented duo's performance consisted of rapping, guitar and key board playing. For the final songs they invited members of the Youngstas to come up on stage to jam, and that they did, including Oshane who took up the challenge with a free-styling rap.

The final two artists of the evening was Dennis Passley and no other than the great Glen Ricketts. Glen is a two time Juno Award nominee (the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy Awards) for R&B/Soul Record of the Year (1986 & 1987). Glen entertained us with his stories about hanging out in Regent Park and the music business and sang some of his hit regaae songs. The February Last Friday closed with soulful saxophone playing with Tenor Sax player Dennis Passley. Dennis invited the Regent Park band, Youngstas, to provide back up. All and all the February 26 Last Friday was another great evening of food, poetry and music.