This is Nikki’s story. I hope it will touch your heart and help you discover the beauty and fulfillment of your own journey or that of someone you love.

Hi mum,

I wrote this this afternoon. It just sort of came out and I’m not sure from where exactly. I think it helps make everything make sense.

Love your Nikki

 

Moments

 

Do you remember the moment that you became you? The you you are today – your optimism (or pessimism), ambition, sense of place and purpose in the world? I don’t know if I’m average or peculiar, but I remember the exact moment that I became me – the core of the person that I am today (and the person that I will be on my 30th birthday, my 50th birthday, my 75th birthday and on the day that I die).

I was twelve years old, in the seventh grade at St. Christopher Catholic Elementary School in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. I was a shy, completely insecure skater kid who despised the fact that I was ‘smart’ and did everything in my power to fly under the radar. I had a hard time feeling comfortable among the other kids but I still had a lot of mates (all boys – mostly fellow skateboarders). My teacher, Ms. Kras (one of two teachers to play an integral role in my story) told me about an opportunity to go to a leadership conference happening a couple of towns over in Fort Erie hosted by the regional Model United Nations organization. I didn’t much fancy the concept of going to smart kid training camp but two of my best mates, Victor and Jason, were also going and my mother saw that it as a rare opportunity thus causing me to become more excited about going.

On the first night of the conference, my compatriots decided to skip the final session of the evening to hang out in the arcade and though I was initially tempted to give in and hang out, I was so completely consumed by my Catholic guilt that I decided to go to one of the evening workshops. I think that was probably the first time that I had decided to pass on a bonding opportunity and strike out on my own, but it wasn’t the last. In hindsight, I think it was the best decision that I have ever made.

I walked by myself to the nearest identified conference room, having no idea of exactly what workshop I was wandering into. A few minutes late, I snuck into the back of the packed room. A younger man, probably in his early twenties, stood at the front of the room in a hoodie and jeans, bouncing slightly. He introduced himself (I wish I could remember who he was) and welcomed us to the “Music for Change” workshop.

I don’t remember much of what was said exactly. Over a decade later and it’s become a blur of civil rights, protest, Rage Against the Machine, listen to music with parental advisory labels, Bob Dylan, music is a weapon of change and (what would become most important) the Beastie Boys. Most importantly though I do remember the overall message of the workshop – that music can change people and that people can change the world for the better.

On the ride back to town (with Victor’s dad), the lads were talking about who set the high score, how fun the hockey game would be the next day and the awesomeness of two arenas in the same building (something we had never seen before). I couldn’t get my mind off the workshop though – he told us to listen to the music that our parents didn’t want us listening to, a request that subtly rebellious 12 year-old me was more than willing to oblige. I made a commitment to start looking into some of the artists mentioned as soon as I could. My spark had been planted and it was set to ignite.

When I got home, I did the same thing that I did most nights – sat in bed reading through old Transworld skateboarding magazines (the only thing other than the Screech Owls novels that I allowed myself to read). As I flipped through the well worn pages, I spotted something that either I had never seen before, or had chosen to ignore as uninteresting – an article about the Beastie Boys’ activism in Tibet. A simple title “Free Tibet” gave way to the most powerful first lines of text that I have ever read, even to this day. The whole article can be read here, but this is the opening paragraph:

“In 1949 The Chinese People’s Liberation Army invaded Tibet, a defenseless, nonviolent country. The invasion was approximately equivalent to a squad of Navy Seals raiding an elementary school. They killed Tibetans and swept the land like a swarm of coked-up locust, trying their best to devour Tibetan culture and erase it from the Earth. The problem persists today; the Chinese government seems to possess amazing concentration and endurance. For almost 50 years they’ve continued these atrocities nonstop. They’ve even added a few more for good measure: mass deforestation, strip mining, and the dumping of nuclear waste. Oh yeah, there’s also no freedom of religion, speech, or press.”

Fair and balanced journalism – definitely not – but it served its purpose. The fire was lit and there was no going back.

On one hand I had never felt more disgusted with humanity, horrified at what humans allow to happen to each other or just plain angry. On the other hand I had never felt more powerful. Everything fell into place. Bad things happen. Terrible things happen. But bad and terrible things don’t have to happen. The Beastie Boys were more like me than they were different – they were skaters at heart and they loved music. If they could use their words, music and actions to make things better for these Tibetans, than I could too.

In that thought, in that second, I became me. Everything since then, especially my current work with Matchless Minds Music, has been centered in that second, in those feelings of frustration, idealism and the need to make things not just different but better.

I started with researching everything I could about Tibet. I made a speech as part of a speaking competition in front of my whole school. Even though I lost the competition (to someone who spoke about a trip to the dentist), this was a huge deal. Normally shy, nervous, unconfident and reserved, my shell evaporated. I was passionate, incensed and articulate. Perhaps for all those years, it wasn’t that I couldn’t speak up – it was just that I never had anything to speak up about. I still had my friends, but I didn’t care as much about fitting in completely – I started to be ok with being a little different if that was the only way that I could achieve my goals.

I continued to speak about Tibet regularly and began to learn more about other issues – especially discrimination against persons with HIV. In high school I quickly joined the Model United Nations club, and for someone who two years earlier would have been hard pressed to say “present” during role call, I was a rather successful debater. I was a bundle of activist energy, flinging myself into petition after petition, speech after speech, but still without a structure or direction.

Then when I was 16 my dad saw this energy and it’s need for some harnessing and brought me to my first Amnesty International meeting. Originally he saw it as something we could do together, (he only ever made it to that first meeting) I on the other hand was hooked. I had found a whole group of people who felt the same way as I did about things and again my world had opened up.

Two years later, having been elected to the board of that local Amnesty International chapter, I was invited to go to the Human Rights College for Youth hosted by AI Canada and to the national Annual General Meeting. For the first time I met other people MY AGE who cared about the world as much as I did – they belonged to similar groups, they listened to the same music (Beastie Boys, Matt Good, Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy) and had the same passions. Again my world broadened.

The following autumn I was off to New Brunswick and St. Thomas University where I enrolled in a first year program called Aquinas that focused on Social Justice and Human Rights. I could finally study what I loved in school. I was also able to share some of the little films that I had made with friends and classmates – rough animations and still images over haunting and poignant musical scores (often self-composed) or songs by some of the artists I admired. I finally found a way to express the things that I didn’t know how to say – and I was able to do that through creating stories around music. More importantly, I found that I was able to use these films to change the way people thought about the world in the same way that listening to the music mentioned in that workshop changed the way I thought about the world.

Then came the skateboard accident that put me out of commission and led to the loss of most function in my left leg (why I have the funny limp). While in the hospital I had a lot of time, probably too much time to think about who the new me would have to be. What I didn’t realize was that this new me, was really just the most important parts of the person I had been all along. The accident took away much of the person that I thought I was – the skateboarding, basketball, road hockey, cricket – but it left me with the person that I really am – the artist, the dreamer, the idealist. During that time, I was lucky to have a number of visitors – friends, professors, school administrators – I think my parents who had come from Ontario were surprised with how much of an impression I had made on people in the short time I was in Fredericton. However, one visit was the most important of all.

One night one of my professors from the Aquinas program, the late John McKendy (the other teacher to play a crucial role) came to visit, as he had done a few times before (and would do a few times later). My parents were out at dinner and I was by myself watching MTV (I was a little embarrassed when he walked in). We were talking and he asked me what I was thinking of doing now. I admitted that though I loved the Aquinas program, I hadn’t been enjoying St. Thomas as much as I thought I would. He asked me why this was the case and I explained that I had come to major in journalism but I hated the kind of person that my journalism classes wanted me to be. Then we started talking about the class, and he brought up the little films that I had shown, and just how much they moved him. He told me that he hadn’t noticed how powerful simple imagery could be when paired with the right music. He made a side comment about how I might enjoy film school (which was incredible given that I had been thinking the same thing but was unsure of whether I had the talent to do it.) His suggestion gave me the confidence to tell my parents that film school was what I wanted and that’s what I eventually did (for a while).

I spent the next 10 months recuperating at my parents’ and though I felt in some regards as though I were a catastrophic failure, I was getting more heavily involved in Amnesty International at the national level and in local Art for Peace initiatives. I still made little films and applied to a number of film programs, ultimately choosing Carleton University in Ottawa.

Once I moved to the capital, it wasn’t long before I fell into a giant swirling world of music, politics, film, activism (and a little bit of school). I had a job with the youth organization TakingITGlobal which allowed me to opportunity to organize a social justice focused youth film festival. I fell into the music industry after helping some friends as I played drums in a number of bands. I continued to volunteer with Amnesty International. Life was great and I felt like I was on the top of the world.

Over a short period I started to get disillusioned with things – my band broke up, the simplicity and idealism of my films made me an object of ridicule rather than admiration among my peers, my contract ended with TakingITGlobal, I pulled away from Amnesty after a number of directional changes that conflicted with my religious beliefs and the rigidness of the music industry that became grating. For about a year and a half, I lost myself, becoming rather cynical I jumped from major to major, never fully feeling satisfied and hating nearly every minute of school. I missed the practical idealism that I felt was being beaten out of me in every class and despised the irrational activism that these same classes were trying (unsuccessfully) to beat in. I was extremely close to dropping out but after some persuasion from friends, I decided to just rush through my degree and get it over with, opting to finish up my last two years in twelve months.

During my last year at schoool I started to get back on track. In a customized program of study, I was able to look specifically at an issue that I really cared about – the impact of film on youth perceptions of the legitimacy of political violence in Northern Ireland. In layman’s terms I looked at whether watching lots of films where people from your community blow up people from the other community will make you, as a young person, want to blow up the other community too. I started to enjoy school now that I was in the driver’s seat. I became an outspoken advocate for education equality and reform. I even started writing music again.

 

As the end of school came upon me, I contemplated a long-term career in the music industry that was the only paying gig this new graduate could find at the time. I discussed my frustrations with a friend who is a natural-born entrepreneur and leader. I told him that I actually really liked the work that I was doing – putting together shows, developing artists – but I hated the context I was doing it in, it didn’t feel real and it made me feel like a sell-out. He asked me whether I would like it if I was able to do it on my own terms, and I replied that I thought that I would. He then asked me what those terms would be and I started sharing with him the thoughts and ideas that would become the core philosophy behind what is now called Matchless Minds Music.

To be sustainable in the music industry, I knew I had to build something from the ground up – something that not only recognized, but celebrated the power of music to change people’s perceptions of the world, inspiring them to build a more peaceful and just society. I had to build something where artists weren’t treated like spoiled children, but responsible adults and where we would always do the right thing, even when it was the most expensive or the hardest thing to do. I had to build a corner of the music industry where artists were free to express themselves and their vision for the future. I drew on inspiration from Tony Wilson and Factory Records, where artists (and the label) have the freedom to f**k off. No ridiculous advances that could never be recouped, locking artists into uncomfortable situations and no albums kidnapped by a label afraid that the music wasn’t commercial enough. This would be a social enterprise record label – a label that could do good by doing well and where money is the means to an end but great music and stronger communities would be the end. I decided that the particular cause that would drive the label would be music education both in the countries we would operate in and in conflict zones around the world. All children should have the right to experience the healing power of music, regardless of the income level of their parents or the circumstances they find themselves in.

I drew out a plan and showed it to my friend Derrick Rand who even though being as fed-up with the music industry as I was, asked to be my initial partner, heading up the European operations for the company. We agreed that financially, it would be impossible to go for it immediately, but that we would revisit things in the fall. About a week after all of this, I went with my friend Vanessa to see her ex-boyfriend’s band’s show. I had never heard of them and with nursing a broken arm, wasn’t really up for a rowdy night out but chose to provide support. When the band, called Hearts&Mines, began to play, I knew that I had found exactly what I was looking for, especially when after the set, the lead singer, Matt Luloff, came over to say hello. We had taken a music class together the year before. I remembered him as the was the only other person in the class willing to say the things that needed to be said and who only said things that mattered. He didn’t care whether his opinion was popular, only that it was well thought out and expressed articulately and as such I had a lot of respect for him. His music wasn’t any different – unapologetically political and emotionally charged.

We didn’t talk for long, but I told him I’d come out to his next show, which I tried to (but it was full due to being booked on the same roster as the Ottawa Jersey-Shore-look-a-like convention’s favourite band). I was disappointed, but came out to the next show a month later. It was at this second Hearts&Mines show that I fell in love with music and its power all over again. It was clear that if I was to make Matchless Minds work, I would never find a more perfect band to build it upon. I had to help these guys get their music out as far and wide as possible – it was too important not to be heard. I also found a kindred spirit in Matt, someone who understood the need for the music industry, but who hated how shallow it had become (and who also disliked Nickelback and loved Matt Good as much as I did).

Today, I’ve been managing Hearts&Mines for the better part of a year – they’ve released a brilliant debut album and are changing lives one show, one song, one note at a time. Matchless Minds is up and running with a roster of truly wonderful musicians and people that I am happy and proud to invest in and it is now Matt Luloff who is my partner in this enterprise. I’m departing for Scotland in September to build Matchless Minds in the UK and Ireland and to do my Ph.D. in Terrorism at St. Andrews. I will be continuing to look at the role of film in constructing perceptions around political violence (and hopefully  expand my research to look at the role of music too).

My days I don’t think have ever been longer or busier and I’ve certainly never faced more rejection than I have since starting Matchless Minds late last year, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt more fulfilled. Matchless Minds – the social enterprise label with the tagline “Changing the world one note at a time” – is really the culmination and realization of a journey that I’ve been on for the better part of 12 years. It is exactly who I am – a believer in the power of music, a language more universal and stronger than any other, to create the sparks that change the world for the better.

I still have my skeptics, their voices keeping me awake at night. There are those who think I’m wasting my (supposed) intelligence (though I maintain that I’m not actually smart, I just work ridiculously hard on things that I love). There are those who think that this will never work – that I’m too young to run a successful company, that our financial model is too generous to our artists and not generous enough to us. There are even those who think I’m play acting, that I’m doing this because it looks cool or that I want to be interesting or some other equally ridiculous measure of societal acceptance. They don’t keep me awake at night thinking that they’re right but because they are dismissing the one thing I love more than any other thing in the world and allowing me to be the best version of myself that I have ever been. Such dismissal makes me angry but for those who truly know me can attest that anger is a good thing. It will keep me working harder to prove to myself that I am exactly where I belong. I know that Matchless Minds will be successful, even if I might be the only one who’s never questioned it. History is made, mostly, by the young and those who are not afraid to try things differently. No one has ever made history maintaining the status quo.

Matchless Minds isn’t about me wanting to rule over anything or anyone. It’s not about any desire for fame, fortune or status – I would really rather not have any of those things, I’d stay anonymous if I could. I’ve built Matchless Minds because it is the only logical thing for me to do – the only way that I can share the true breadth of my talents and my passion. I’m doing this not because I want to but because I have to – there is nothing else I have ever done (and I have tried a lot of different things) that has ever felt like a truer version of myself than this. There is nothing that has ever made me feel happier than I feel when I see a group of guys (or girls) that I care about changing people’s minds with their music and knowing that I was able to play even the smallest part in making this happen. It’s not that I can’t do anything else (I’m capable of performing a number of useful functions) it’s rather that I’m incapable of being this happy doing anything else. I can’t think of a more logical, or fulfilling way to spend the rest of my life.