On Sunday, June 25, 2023, after missing her performance at Nelly’s first Hot In Herre festival in Toronto despite covering it, I had the good fortune of documenting Ashanti’s performance at the TD Toronto Jazz Festival, otherwise known as Toronto's International Jazz Festival, thanks to the Toronto Downtown Jazz Society, a Canadian registered charity, and TD.

On Saturday, June 24, 2023, in collaboration with the good people at Festivals of Vaughn, I documented the first Hot In Herre festival, which took place at Toronto’s spacious Downsview Park. 

During the winter of 2008, after documenting an event at the El Mocambo in Toronto for Project T-Dot, my documentary project on Toronto’s hip-hop culture, community, and history, my longtime friend and colleague Neil Donaldson, also known as Logikal Ethix, recommended that I apply to cover Canadian Music Week to meet potential colleagues and clients in some of the industries that I wanted to be established in, and to document American and Canadian hip-hop culture (and other musical cultures).