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Music

88 Days Of Fortune

THEESATISFACTION, LES FEMME FATALES, AYO LEILANI, ABSTRACT RANDOM and others as part of 88 DAYS OF FORTUNE THIRD ANNIVERSARY at CineCycle (129 Spadina), tonight (Thursday, June 28), doors 9 pm. $12. TZ. See listing.


Much like its diverse inhabitants, Toronto has overlapping identities. But despite hosting one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations, its spaces for queer people of colour have historically been scant.

“Especially if you’re into hip-hop,” says Ayo Leilani, who sings in Abstract Random and is a founding member of 88 Days of Fortune, a queer-friendly network of alt-y, arty POCs who like to party.

In the cozy Blansdowne loft space that serves as 88 Days HQ, show posters are tacked next to bright paintings by Francesca Nocera, Leilani’s partner, Abstract Random band member and fellow founder. Brendan Philip, also with 88 Days from the jump, is crouched over planks of plywood. They’re constructing a stage for the collective’s third-anniversary party, featuring Seattle-based Sub Pop headliners THEESatisfaction.

The DIY stage-making sums up the crew’s renegade approach. No stage, no support, no outlet for their people? Whatever. They’ll build their own.

“We started out just wanting to perform – everywhere,” says Philip, who’d been playing guitar and singing at small rap parties before linking up with Leilani through a mutual friend, fourth founding member KJ Simpson.

“The opportunities for emerging artists are nil unless you’re doing open mics or [in debt to] some sketchy promoters,” Leilani explains.

88 Days of Fortune was originally conceived as a cross-city mini-tour. By the second show – in the back of Heartbeat 960’s retail space on Queen, where Nocera was working – things had taken off.

“We were throwing these crazy, friendly, free parties,” Leilani says, noting that they were on Ossington before it got co-opted.

Over time, more members were added – the core group vets inductees through a blind vote, says Nocera – and 88 Days grew into what’s now a 20-strong coalition of multidisciplinary artists, including the newest, youngest addition, local fly girl duo Bizzarh. They all perform regularly. In April, Abstract Random opened for Shabazz Palaces.

The artists benefit from 88 Days’ built-in network of like-minded collaborators and supporters. Nocera, Leilani and Philip say they’d love to see it grow into something resembling a label.

“At first we were just throwing parties, and there was no need to label them a ‘safe space’ because we were all friends and everyone knew who was dating whom,” says Leilani. “But when we began to apply for funding and grants, we started to think about [labels and definitions].”

Keywords lifted from 88 Days’ mission statement: grassroots, youth-led, queer, trans- and straight-identified, stereotype-challenging, urban arts. It’s all partly box-checking, Leilani acknowledges, intended to appeal to tokenist funding policies. “We don’t throw our parties like that. It’s just humans. But whatever we can do and stand by [as a collective], we will.”

Philip brings up the idea of visibility as a transformative quality. “[At first] we were a strange group of people in this city. But there’s a lot happening [that] we were kind of the prototype for – this scene-mixing, cultures-mixing thing. At one time Scarborough kids just stayed in Scarborough, skinny jeans were a no-no.”

“Even being queer in a hip-hop scene was a no-no,” Leilani interjects.

Likening 88 Days to Broken Social Scene’s model of an interdependent core and satellite artists, Philip says they resist definition. What’s clear, however, is their intent: to turn the idea of being queer (or queer-positive), brown (or not) and, above all, hip-hop-identified on its head.

music@nowtoronto.com | twitter.com/nowtorontomusic

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