Huda Hassan

For The West End Phoenix, I investigate Doug Ford's claim to close ties with the Black communities of Toronto's west end.

For my first cover story with The West End Phoenix, I interviewed local photographer, Yannick Anton, about reviving and reinventing formal portraiture with affordable family portraits in Toronto's Kensington Market.

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...

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.

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

In Mychal Denzel Smith's memoir, young black identi...

Trust No Aunty: Maria Qamar has the aunt-idote f...