Mission
CanJam’s mission (as its name implies) is to celebrate Jamaican and other urban
forms of music within the Canadian context. To celebrate such artistic form of music
we highlight creative expressions from Reggae, Dancehall and R ’N’ B. In addition,
we work hard to not only develop the required audience to foster a creative career
but to assist in promote our highlighted artist to set the stage for future
monetisation so that each talent could seek to build livelihood on.
Main Purpose
CanJam’s main purpose is to create and develop audiences for emerging urban
artists. The audiences that we develop will in turn create the foundation for artist to
build their careers upon. In addition, CamJam serves a vehicle for the community to
celebrate the GREAT contributions of the Canadians that perform music and various art
forms from the African/Caribbean Diaspora. We hope to not only present exciting
emerging artists but to assist them as they seek to monetize their talents.
Brief History
In 2016, our team began to design CanJam. The team included founders Michael
Dockery and Beatrice Moria Laidlow as well as digital specialist, Gloria Greyson. The
team launched CamJam in August 2017. The launch occurred at Mississauga’s
Lakeside Park in Clarkson. The first year highlighted 50 emerging artists including
Kirk Diamond who was to later earn a Juno award for best reggae artist. In 2018,
CanJam increased it performers list to 55. The list of performers included Korrection
who later won a Juno for Best Reggae Artist. And in 2019, CanJam highlighted over
60 artists. Consistently, we have help the CanJam festival during the Civic Long
weekend to correspond with Caribana offer our performers to both local and the
international audiences Caribana attracts.
Cultural Diversity
The very nature of the African and Caribbean Diaspora allows it to create diverse
creative forms including (Mento, Rocksteady, Reggae, Dancehall, that will also
absorb influence of jazz, rand and hip hop) that is the expression of a multitude of
ethnicities and ideological dialogues that formulates both the historical and current
artistic narratives within the Diasporic cultural exchanges.
