Huda Hassan

The brilliantly unbothered singer chats about the upsides and drawbacks of her hometown, modeling for Rihanna, and navigating a music industry dominated by men in this Rising interview.
On Valentine’s Day of last year, Ebhoni found herself in no mood to celebrate. Though she had already collected attention in Toronto for her upbeat SoundCloud R&B tracks—not to mention hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube for her covers of artists including Beyoncé and Keyshia Cole—the fallout from the br...

In a dimly lit, intimate venue in downtown Toronto, several Black Muslims, decked out in extravagant Eid outfits, gathered to celebrate their first IRL #BlackOutEid moment. The night was serene and filled with poetry, Afrofuturistic DJ sets, and servings of chicken and mac and cheese, before turning into a joyful Eid fashion show.
Eid, one of the most important Muslim holidays, occurs twice a year — once after Ramadan, and the second time after performing Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). #BlackOut...

Itah Sadu, co-owner of A Different Booklist, sees continued vitality

despite a neighbourhood’s ongoing change. For Quill & Quire, I talked with Itah about Bathurst street, a historically 'ritualist locus' for Black migrants, and the importance of centering books and activism in a changing city.

Huda Hassan is a writer and researcher living in Toronto. She is currently completing her PHD at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Her work considers the meeting points of race, religion, and gender. Her writing calls upon her own experience of being a Black Muslim woman in a rapidly gentrifying city, and often, having to work in predominantly white academic spaces.
VSP chats with Huda about her favourite places in Toronto, and more specifically Scarborough ...

Friday, June 15 marks the last day of Ramadan this year, a sacred month for Muslims to fast from sunrise to sunset. Ramadan occurs on the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, once a crescent moon has been detected. Muslims worldwide, if able, practice good deeds to become a better Muslim, and abstain from pleasures, sin and food as an act to become closer to God. Ramadan has long been understood to me as a month-long opportunity to pause.
I grew up fasting. As a child, I was told I only had t...

It is nearly impossible to log onto Instagram, Twitter and Facebook without stumbling across footage of another murdered Black body. You’re met by desperate pleas, or hashtag movements urging for media and state intervention into what could be another overlooked Black death. Navigating the Internet-while-Black means continuously running into graphic reminders of the wretchedness of being Black and (almost) living.

Paradoxically, the places on the Internet that are home to the visuals of Black...

For the past five centuries being black has meant collectively experiencing grief in ways that the rest of society does not understand and cannot fully comprehend.

The Twilight Of The Angry Black Woman

Dangers of stereotypes in pop culture

Join us for a screening of Raoul Peck's evocative documentary I Am Not Your Negro, followed by a panel discussion moderated by TIFF Artistic Director, Cameron Bailey. The panel will feature Juno Award–Winning rapper and songwriter Shad Kabango, Canada’s Poet Laureate George Elliott Clarke, and journalist, cultural commentator, and PhD student Huda Hassan.

Let’s say we’ve just met at a cocktail party. How would you describe, in a nutshell, what you do?
I’m a writer, doctoral student and an activist. My work intervenes gender and race.
Where did you go to school and what did you study?
I’m technically still a student! I’m a PhD student at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at University of Toronto. I did my undergrad at University of Toronto, where I studied philosophy, African studies, and political science. I also completed a Masters in Hu...

Who taught you femininity? How do you know femininity? Who called it femininity? Were they femininity? How do you know femininity? What do you call femininity? What is femininity?
These are some of the questions that Kim Ninkuru, a multimedia artist who focuses on movement-based performance and visual-digital art—compels viewers to consider through her work. Currently based in Toronto, but previously from Montreal, Ninkuru is a Black woman of trans experience who often exhibits her art on Ins...

Banning Shisha In Toronto Is About A Lot More Than ...

A new video has emerged of Victoria’s Secret models rapping the lyrics to Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” backstage during the recent VS show in Shangai—including her usage of the “n-word.”

The video first appeared on Karlie Koss’s blog, showing several models dressed in pink robes backstage, gleefully reciting the lyric “I don’t wanna choose / And I’m quick, cut a n—a off, so don’t get comfortable.” According to Jezebel, the line in which they actually use the n-word appeared in the Kloss’s origina...

On Saturday, Drake buried his long-time friend Anthony “Fif” Soares, who was gunned down earlier this month just east of Toronto, in Scarborough, Ont. While the tragedy required the famed rapper to become a pallbearer, Toronto Police Services (TPS) want him to also take on the role of an anti-violence activist and aid to the ongoing murder investigation—a request that reveals that even at the height of his fame, Drake is still susceptible to the unfair expectation of a moral duty to a city th...