TORONTO, ON – Dr. Amara Pope is a second technology Canadian-Trinidadian girl. Beneath thirty, Pope has accomplished her PhD., MA and Joint Honors BA all whereas working at a number of jobs to pay for her schooling. Nothing was given. The onus was on her to succeed. She does.
Pope brings laser focus and private readability to her PhD dissertation, “Canadians Redefining R&B: The Online Marketing of Drake, Justin Bieber, and Jessie Reyez.” The subject stems from the affect music had/ has (though not totally realized on the time) on this little lady rising up in a predominantly white place.
Right this moment, Dr. Amara Pope is a passionate and assured advertising supervisor, the primary in a loving working-class household to graduate with a PhD. Music turned an essential a part of her life rising up, the understanding of why and the way important got here later within the journey, with Pope’s insightful PhD dissertation.
Dissertation Findings on Canadian R&B
Pope’s nicely researched work uncovers the lacking historical past of Canadian R&B which had been excluded from Canadian media prior to now. She options tales with Crack of Daybreak, Oscar Peterson, Jackie Shane, Eleanor Collins & others. The paper critiques the group of music via racial and nationwide divides with insights from interviews carried out with music professionals and advertising executives.
Pope explores how Canadian music was completely represented by white rock and folks artists & R&B music was completely used to group Black U.S. artists. The intensive dissertation argues that R&B exemplifies a multicultural Canadian id by investigating how Drake, Justin Bieber, and Jessie Reyez broke into the music trade to symbolize a number of but equally Canadian R&B artists.
Pope analyzes the rising recognition of up to date Canadian R&B within the digital period by analyzing Drake’s, Bieber’s, and Reyez’s performances throughout BLM and the COVID-19 pandemic once they all launched new music. The researcher takes an in depth have a look at the rise of Canadian hip hop and R&B music, particularly via the struggles of many racialized and immigrant Canadian artists who work collectively within the periphery of Canadian society to interrupt into mainstream media.
Pope explores how these Canadian artists collaborated with many U.S. artists to ascertain what she calls “Canadian R&B music”, a mix of R&B, hip-hop, pop, soca, reggae, and plenty of immigrants sounds, kinds, and cultures. The dissertation appears at how Drake, Justin Bieber, and Jessie Reyez reinforce, complicate, and or problem dominant beliefs of “Canadian-ness” and “R&B-ness.”
At a younger age Pope relocated from Scarborough, On. with its numerous ethnicities to a small city in Elmira, On. the place hers was the one “brown household.” They had been often called the “brown” household within the nook home. She embraced her Trinidadian tradition with power, understanding and a way of empowerment. Rising up watching Canadian media, Pope displays on a predominately “white” Canada however didn’t query it till her post-secondary research.
After her dissertation she realized that musical artists like Bieber, Drake, and Reyez resonated along with her youthful self and allowed her to embrace completely different components of her id in ways in which her rapid environments didn’t allow. Whereas writing her paper it turned obvious simply how private it had turn into. The complete affect of her analysis was solely uncovered when the mission was accomplished.
Pope uncovered a deep curiosity in exploring the power of musical artists to create experiences that she will take pleasure in together with different listeners. These experiences champion a way of being distinctly “Canadian” and create an area that enables herself and others to higher perceive and replicate on their very own id the place they really feel heard, seen, and embraced. The most important takeaway on the finish of the Mission…Dr. Amara Pope is actually a proud Canadian-Trini from Elmira, ON. who can confidently embrace all intersecting, difficult and difficult elements of her complicated id, in no small half due to Canadian R&B.
“I’ve typically heard that it isn’t till you’ve gotten performed a mission that you just actually perceive its objective, and now I perceive why that’s so. “Dr. Amara Pope