Margins Magazine - Volume 3 Issue 1

MARGINS
MARGINS
Our grand launch was last year's Frosh concert. We really wanted to start with a bang and that's why
our event was called “Begins with a Bang”. We called on four big Toronto artists, hoping that we can
showcase to our Scarborough community students what Toronto music is like. It was so important to
me that before we put on the headliners that everyone [could] see that Scarborough also has it going
on, you know? So we called upon local talents to open the show. It was really important to me that
we had familiar community acts as well as well known Toronto acts.
ZH: It was a great night, I had a good time.
RT: Honestly, it was a bang. Putting it together was such a
challenge because it seemed impossible until three days before.
You were my friend through the whole process. You were
also a performer so I'm sure you saw me in all the stages of
“everything's fine” and then the high pressure like, “Oh my gosh,
it's showtime we gotta go”... you saw me in all the phases. It was
great to organize, to bring on Houdini, Ramriddlz, Yung Tory, as
well as 3M French. I got news last month that Houdini passed
away and our whole team was just shook.
I look back now and I think we were lucky to get him. Even in
previous years, special shoutout to my colleague, Guled Arale,
who found a way to bring Smoke Dawg on campus as well. He
also passed away so you know, it always comes back to Toronto
talent and that’s why it's so important to spotlight the community
because life is too short and unpredictable, we need to give our
artists some love while they’re creating, regardless of status.
ZH: Very, very true.
RT: You gotta love the art from where we got it and we’ve got tons of it.
"We called
on four big
Toronto
artists, hoping
that we can
showcase
to our
Scarborough
community
students what
Toronto music
is like."
ZH: I absolutely agree! You were so great during that event, every step of the way you were
amazing. You were so kind and hospitable so I really appreciated that, my best friend who was there
appreciated that [as well] so I can't thank you enough.
RT: I think that's like the hardest I've ever worked on anything. That was probably the most
complicated event I've ever worked on. That’s just starting off, we're hoping that we can do more
moving forward.
ZH: Speaking on this progress, in your role as an Operations Manager of Radio FWD, how
have you seen the station, the studio and its cultural presence grow and evolve over time?
RT: I feel very privileged to be in this position and it was definitely tough to navigate myself to get
here. In terms of seeing culture change, we’re at a turning point in campus life right now, especially
because of COVID-19. There's a lot of reliance on online events and holding down the fort until
campus is open again. A huge thing that's been happening more of is online parties so we’re planning
more of those. We are supporting more short films.
It’s tough to speak on how our cultural presence is changing, I mean we rebranded two years ago
and I feel like our new brand is more fitting to what we're trying to accomplish in terms of cultural
presence. I really think our “Begins with a Bang” concert was exactly what we needed to show our
community what we are trying to showcase more of this year. We are working towards having more
international and Indigenous acts as a part of our programming and this has also been an important
topic of conversation between our radio station and our university community, including respective
student experience departments.
How is it growing and evolving? I feel like it's in a constant state of evolution and I think that's what
Radio FWD is all about. We are constantly growing, evolving, changing, and trying to keep up with
things as we move FWD. Cultural presence is something that we can only follow and try [to] keep up
with. It's tough to say if we're really a part of that culture yet, but we're trying to build and grow that
[in order to] strengthen our presence on campus and in our community.
"We are constantly growing, evolving,
changing, and trying to keep up with
things as we move FWD."
ZH: How has Radio FWD adjusted its programming over the summer months with COVID 19
and with classes beginning online in the fall?
RT: We're moving a lot of radio shows into online podcast formats. We're even trying to do more
training using online broadcasting software [and] trying to create training protocols at the same
time because there's a lot that goes into broadcasting on your own at home [while] making sure that
everyone who's in the show can also be on the same broadcast. Some folks want to use Zoom, but
we also want to teach people how to use other platforms as well so we're working on training people
to use more online formats. We've hosted a Pride party with the UTSC Women and Trans Centre
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