Project T-Dot and Sony Music Entertainment Canada: Building a Public Archive of Toronto’s Hip-Hop Legacy

Director of Artist Marketing: Carey Riley, Exhibition: *Project T-Dot*, Location: Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2025, Photographer: Ajani Charles

Approximately a 6-minute read.

Outline

Closure, Reflection, and Historical Weight

The Power of Partnership and Institutional Trust

What the Public Never Sees Behind the Work

Innovation, Scale, and Public Accessibility

Full Circle Moments and the Road Ahead

Closure, Reflection, and Historical Weight

My solo Project T-Dot art exhibit at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport ended on Sunday, November 30, 2025; the uninstallation process began the night before.

I will be reflecting on, writing about, and speaking about this exhibit for years and decades to come, given its impact on numerous organizations, the Greater Toronto Area’s hip-hop culture, community, and history, as well as on me and the many colleagues and partners who helped bring it to life.

This project marked the culmination of nearly two decades of documentary work, relationship-building, and long-term vision.

It was not simply an art exhibit, but a living archive and perpetually evolving project installed in one of the most symbolically and logistically important public spaces in the Greater Toronto Area and Canada as a whole.

Its conclusion felt less like an ending and more like a transition into the next phase of what Project T-Dot has become, a phase that includes new art exhibits, other elements, and a new venture.

Producing a public-facing work of this scale, year after year, within an airport required sustained coordination, trust, and institutional alignment across sectors that rarely intersect in this way. That alignment did not happen by accident.

Director of Artist Marketing: Carey Riley, Marketing Manager: Vanessa Adams, Manager, Artist Marketing: Aidan D’Aoust, Senior Manager, Fan Acquisition & Engagement: Dirk McMillan, Exhibition: *Project T-Dot*, Location: Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2025, Photographer: Ajani Charles

The Power of Partnership and Institutional Trust

Sony Music Entertainment Canada was one of the exhibit’s primary sponsors, alongside Nieuport Aviation, and I am deeply grateful for their support.

More importantly, I am grateful for their belief in me, in my vision, in Project T-Dot as a nearly twenty-year-long documentary undertaking, and in the GTA’s hip-hop ecosystem, both its local foundations and its global influence.

Sony Music Entertainment Canada’s involvement was not passive. Their support reflected a long-term understanding of cultural value, historical preservation, and the importance of documenting scenes while their architects are still alive to see themselves represented accurately and respectfully.

That level of institutional trust made it possible to push the exhibit beyond what was initially approved, funded, or even imagined.

What the Public Never Sees Behind the Work

I met Carey Riley through Shane Carter, President of Sony Music Entertainment Canada, after sending him a cold e-mail.

It remains striking to me how profoundly my life and career have evolved since approximately December 2006 (when my career began), often catalyzed by cold e-mails and my writing skills.

The lengthy, unrelenting, and arduous process of producing the most comprehensive documentary project on the Greater Toronto Area’s hip-hop scene for nearly two decades, combined with the complexity of producing my second public art exhibit inside an airport, would not have been possible without Carey and many others.

Carey Riley, Director of Artist Marketing at Sony Music Entertainment Canada, was one of the producers for Project T-Dot at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport and my primary point of contact at Sony Music Entertainment Canada throughout the project.

Carey is a Toronto-born music executive whose career reflects deep cultural literacy and sustained institutional impact within Canada’s hip-hop and R&B ecosystem.

This exhibit featured more members of the GTA’s hip-hop scene than any other art exhibit in history, and coordinating that breadth required discernment, trust, and constant calibration. I simply do not know everything about the GTA’s hip-hop scene, nor could any single individual.

Project T-Dot has always been a long and complicated process of weaving a coherent tapestry from countless lives, contributions, and moments, and my most recent exhibit featured no less than 150 people.

Beyond those I was familiar with and had previously documented, Carey was instrumental in helping me identify which individuals and organizations ought to be included in the exhibit, and why their inclusion mattered.

Innovation, Scale, and Public Accessibility

Sony Music Entertainment Canada extended its sponsorship through the exhibit’s fourth wall prints and installation, courtesy of ICON Digital Productions, as part of the exhibit’s second and third unprecedented extensions, which led to its evolution from a twelve-month-long exhibit to a twenty-two-month-long exhibit.

This process ultimately involved Carey herself being displayed in the exhibit, through a print featuring her alongside David “Click” Cox and John “Bronski” Adams at Paul “Skratch Bastid” Murphy’s Bastid’s BBQ in Toronto during the summer of 2024.

The exhibit’s digital user interface, managed by my longtime friend and colleague Shawn O’Brien via his company soblabs, and delivered via a 55-inch touchscreen explaining who most of the Project T-Dot subjects in the exhibit were, and featuring supplementary photographs and videos, would not have been possible without Carey’s support.

This feature effectively became the first digital, public-facing database of a city’s hip-hop scene globally, and it represented one of several ways I innovated alongside Carey, Sony Music Entertainment Canada, and the broader group of partners involved.

Carey was crucial in introducing me to key figures and organizations I had not previously documented, including Jonathan Ramos, Vice President of Global Touring at Live Nation, as well as Sony Music Entertainment Canada recording artists such as Swavy and Aqyila, and Sony-affiliated recording artists via OVO Sound, including Smiley.

Full Circle Moments and the Road Ahead

I estimate that I assumed no fewer than ten different professional roles in the service of this exhibit.

For the exhibit alone, I would sometimes dedicate more than 40 hours per week, which was quite intense given the fact that Project T-Dot and my recent exhibit were not nearly my only professional projects, priorities, goals, or interests, nor is Canada the only market I work in.

My workload regularly overextended me, and the scale of responsibility would have been far too much to bear without the steady support of Carey, Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Nieuport Aviation, and several others.

I coordinated with Carey at a high volume, often daily, for nearly three years in service of Project T-Dot at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, and at one point, with her direct support, I was simultaneously producing photo shoots for Project T-Dot as a whole and for the exhibit itself in downtown L.A. in 2023.

On Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at approximately 11:30 AM EST, I began leading a private, personalized tour of the exhibit for Carey and members of the Sony Music Entertainment Canada team.

It was a full-circle moment, made especially meaningful by the visible pride and joy Carey expressed upon seeing herself represented in the exhibit alongside so many artists, figures, and organizations she has long admired and helped build throughout her career.

I am profoundly grateful to Sony Music Entertainment Canada for the trust, commitment, and intellectual generosity they extended to me throughout the life of Project T-Dot at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.

Production Manager, First Assistant Director: John Adams Also Known As Bronski, Director of Artist Marketing: Carey Riley, Music Industry Consultant, Artist Manager, Producer, Entrepreneur: David Cox Also Known As Click, Location: *Bastid’s BBQ*, The Bentway, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Year: 2024, Photographer: Ajani Charles

This project demonstrated what is possible when a major cultural institution approaches history, community, and public-facing work with seriousness, curiosity, and long-term thinking rather than short-term optics.

Working alongside the team at Sony Music Entertainment Canada set a standard for collaboration that I do not take lightly, and I fully intend to build upon it.

Project T-Dot is far from finished, my work continues to scale, and I look forward to finding the right moments, formats, and ambitions through which Sony Music Entertainment Canada and I can work together again, alongside other organizations that align with my goals and values, when the next opportunity demands the same level of rigour, trust, and shared belief in cultural legacy.