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A digital news director, editor, writer, content strategist, and cat dad with over a decade in the game. I cover music, sports, pop culture, style, and local news. You might've seen my work in Complex, GQ, ET Canada, Sharp, Variety, The Toronto Star, The National Post, among other places.
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The Edmonton Oiler is a big Ross guy.
TORONTO - In recent weeks, Adam Copeland has been experiencing a phenomenon he says hasn't happened since the '90s: teenagers are recognizing him in public.
The extremely Pacific Northwest ensembles include pieces from Seattle's own Filson.
When pro wrestler Kerry Von Erich died by suicide in 1993, it left a mark on Sean Durkin. The Ontario-born writer-director was 12 at the time, but he's been thinking
The Dallas Stars center has been strutting into arenas in a custom duck brown two-piece-complete with the Detroit workwear stalwart's iconic leather patch.
TORONTO - Trailblazing director Ava DuVernay said Thursday she was "overjoyed" to learn the Hollywood actors' strike had ended while she was in Toronto to help salute Viola Desmond, calling
The Grammy winner spoke to GQ about repping his hometown, Dallas's vaunted blues scene, and what to expect from his next album.
Coach Prime is rising fast in the silver fox power rankings.
The Toronto Maple Leafs superstar opens up about wanting hockey to evolve, being the NHL's fit king, his close friendship with Bieber, and his future in music.
Noah "40" Shebib has been watching a lot of lately. David Lynch's mystery-horror drama, about a small town shaken by the murder of a homecoming queen, is full of haunting, dream-trance journeys into the otherworldly. But Drake's right-hand producer can't stop thinking about how much it reminds him of his hometown of Toronto.
"If I was somewhere else, I might be doing something completely different. But because of these individuals that performed tonight, I am where I am," Drake told the sold-out crowd at his All Canadian North Stars show last month.
Nature is healing. Pop-punk is cool again, guitars are high up in the mixes of mainstream hits, and Gen Z idols like Olivia Rodrigo and WILLOW are reinventing the genre with more emotional maturity and fewer dick jokes. (Though some occasionally still slip by thanks to Machine Gun Kelly, pop-punk's jester prince.)
What does Black History Month mean in 2023? For Shad, it's about telling a fuller story. "To me, what Black History Month means is shining a light on a lot of our history that's been erased or downplayed," the Toronto rapper and Emmy award-winning host explains to ET Canada.
Dvsn have got some explaining to do. After dropping their polarizing new single "If I Get Caught" last month, the OVO Sound duo found themselves in the Internet's doghouse, with many on social media decrying the song as "toxic" and calling for a return to "romantic R&B."
"This is the most important night of my life," Drake told the sold-out Toronto crowd at the kick-off concert for his October World Weekend festival on Thursday night. He's the biggest artist in the world, so you'd imagine he's had many Important Nights™, but it didn't sound like he was hyperbolizing.
The first time Iman Vellani grabbed an issue of at her local comic book shop in Markham, Ontario, she was floored. It wasn't just that the titular superhero was a Muslim Pakistani girl, like herself. It's that the character was a Muslim Pakistani girl she could actually relate to.
Music
"If I was somewhere else, I might be doing something completely different. But because of these individuals that performed tonight, I am where I am," Drake told the sold-out crowd at his All Canadian North Stars show last month.
The year is 2042. You wake up, dress your better-looking avatar in its cleanest metaverse fit, and head to the virtual boardroom. At work, your mind wanders to date ideas that could rekindle the spark with your robot partner. Maybe you'll take the hyperloop to L.A.
It's got to feel good to be Murda Beatz these days. The 28-year-old has a career trajectory that sounds like bedroom-producer fan fiction: Unassuming kid from small-town Ontario starts making beats and DM'ing them to rappers. Migos take a chance and fly him out to be their live-in beatmaker.
I ggy Pop doesn't play punk - he is punk. Every lyric howled by the 72-year-old blazes right through five decades of cliché, a fireball of authenticity from an era when everything seemed original. As the Stooges' feral frontman in the late '60s, he set the template for punk rock well before the Sex Pistols discovered hair gel.
It's been 25 years since Choclair told us he likes "chillin', 'Monday Night Raw' watching" on Rascalz' legendary hit "Northern Touch". And while a lot's changed since then - smartphones, global warming, an impending AI apocalypse - some things remain exactly the same. For one, the Toronto rapper is still a devout wrestling fan.
He's the front man of the goddamn Smashing Pumpkins, one of the biggest bands of the '90s, who've sold millions of records and contributed a trove of unimpeachable hits - "Today," "1979," "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" - to the rock canon. And yet, despite his accolades, Billy Corgan is still just a rat in a cage.
You can say the artists we featured on this list last year did pretty well for themselves. Smiley got a Drake feature and became OVO Sound's newest signee; Chiiild made his U.S. late-night debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!; Mustafa became a bona fide star, opening Virgil's final Louis Vuitton show and topping year-end lists everywhere, from the New York Times' to ours.
"I get approached more on the street now, but I'm not Leonardo DiCaprio or anything," says Mac DeMarco. "I'm just some jackass from Canada." He's not exactly wrong. With his gap-toothed grin, bum-chic aesthetic, toilet humour, and propensity for getting naked on stage, the 26-year-old is indie rock's reigning court jester.
Jack White rolls down the window of his luxury SUV as Lady Gaga walks away. "Hey," he calls. She turns around, to which he, bearded and ruddy-faced, goes on: "Just wanted to take another look at you." It's hard to picture, but this bizarro version of A Star Is Born almost existed.
In a recent interview with the Globe and Mail , Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson revealed the band is "basically done." In honour of the iconic trio's career, here's our feature on them, which originally appeared in our December 2012 issue.
Houdini's hustle knew no bounds. The first time we spoke, he called me directly on my cell, minutes after I sent him an email asking what his plans were for 2020. I wanted to feature him in Complex Canada's annual 20 Artists to Watch Out For list; he wanted to make sure I was a real person.
Dylan Sinclair has been thinking a lot about his surroundings lately. "Environment is a big thing for me," the 20-year-old R&B singer tells me, sitting in a bright room in Toronto 's Harbord Village area. "A sunny day like this, the outcome of a song would be totally different than on a rainy day."
The most effective way to smash through a plateau? Evidently, it's getting a divorce. At least such was the case for Mark Ronson. While facing the Sisyphean task of following up the two biggest hits of his career (and of this century) - the 11-times-platinum "Uptown Funk" and the Oscar- and Grammy-winning "Shallow" - the British super-producer also found himself dealing with the dissolution of his five-year marriage to model Joséphine de La Baume.
Sports
If the hockey world ever undergoes a vibe shift, Auston Matthews wouldn't just survive it-he would be the whole damn face of it. The Toronto Maple Leafs superstar is about as atypical as NHLers come: half-Mexican, from the desert, infatuated with streetwear, besties with Justin Bieber.
"Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-AHHHHHH!!!" Dalano Banton is flying high, doing his best Bobby Shmurda impression after hearing his name get called on NBA draft night in July. He's just been picked in the second round by the Toronto Raptors, the team he grew up cheering for, becoming the first Canadian-born player to be drafted by the franchise.
Will WWE icon Edge retire this Friday? The Rated-R Superstar says he's still mulling it over - although his present WWE contract will expire that night. There's been rampant speculation that the 49-year-old Canadian wrestler, born Adam Copeland, will hang up his tights after Friday's SmackDown show in his hometown of Toronto when he squares...
The Canadian sprint star chats about everything from Toronto hip-hop to Sonic the Hedgehog to wanting to become the world's fastest man at the Tokyo Olympics.
Big, bold, risk-it-for-the-biscuit shots. That's Denis Shapovalov's calling card. The 21-year-old wunderkind has become Canada's highest-ranked male tennis player (currently 17th in the world) via ballsy diving backhands and between-the-legs volleys. If the reward is high, our guy is not afraid to roll the dice.
This story originally appeared in a Fall 2018 issue. But as the Leafs re-start their season this weekend, it's time to get reacquainted with Auston Matthews. Auston Matthews is under the media interrogation lamp again.
Most NBA players spend their off-seasons in tropical locales, rolling around on pristine beaches and sipping on fine wines, their minds as far away from their jobs as possible. But on Tuesday, the Raptors' Pascal Siakam chose to be in Toronto, handing out free laptops to kids in one of the city's most underserved areas.
Scroll through Serge Ibaka's Instagram account and it won't take long to spot his go-to caption: "#mafuzzy." The Toronto Raptor treats the hashtag like Frank's RedHot - he puts that shit on everything. And yet, hardly anyone - not even his teammates - knows what it means.
In the mercenary world of professional sports, it's rare to see a local kid rock his hometown's uniform. Rarer still if that sport is soccer and that hometown is the Greater Toronto Area, which hasn't really been known for its footy scene. Until now, that is.
Most front-office execs are just that: front-office execs. But Masai Ujiri? He's a bona fide folk hero. Since joining the Toronto Raptors as the team's general manager in 2013, he's woven himself into the city's collective consciousness through his unflagging work on and off the court.
Norman Powell is in a Toronto studio, about to get a portrait taken, but the Raptors guard isn't quite ready for his close-up. "Wait," he says. "I wanna get my chain." A stylist hands him a glistening gold necklace, which he proudly dons, the diamond-studded letters "UTG" dangling over his sweater.
Nick Nurse is not your typical head coach. Ahead of our chat earlier this week, he put a Toronto Raptors leadership meeting-which sounds like a pretty big deal-on hold in order to call me and ask if it's OK if he's ever-so-slightly late for our interview.
Don't get it twisted: Fred VanVleet is competing for an NBA championship next season. He wants this to be clear. The Toronto Raptors are coming off a so-called "rebuild year" that saw them obliterate expectations, finish fifth in the Eastern Conference, and put up a stouthearted fight against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Style
It seems Salehe Bembury has been leaving his fingerprint on every major brand lately. And we mean that pretty literally. The red-hot shoe designer's now-signature thumbprint pattern, after all, is a constant through line in his work, present in all his recent collaborations-from New Balance to Crocs to his latest: a capsule collection with Canada Goose and the NBA.
Don C loves Toronto. The streetwear designer has visited the city countless times-and not just on tours back when he was Kanye West's manager. Prior to the pandemic, the Chicago native would regularly fly out to the 6ix for its famously uproarious Caribana festival. Good memories were forged.
Fresh off taking the wock to Poland, Lil Yachty is taking his modeling talents to the University of Toronto for a new OVO apparel collection. The Mableton, Georgia rapper has been recruited by Drake's fashion house to star in the campaign for their latest collab with the Canadian university.
There's something disconcerting about watching the rock idol of your teens hawk his own jewelry line. Surely, Brandon Boyd, lead singer of Incubus - the late '90s neo-alt heroes from whom I learned that "What I'm looking for / Cannot be sold to me" - is aware of this hazard.
Finding a pair of skull-buckle boots on Queen St. W. is about to get a lot harder. Alternative fashion boutique Hell's Belles shut its doors today, marking the grim death of an iconic storefront that helped launch Toronto's goth scene in the early '90s.
It's hard being the best-looking guy on HBO. You constantly get asked about your appearance, when all you want is to be taken seriously as an actor (not to mention as Lord fuckin' Commander). Kit Harington admits he's uneasy about the inordinate amount of attention the media pays to his iconic mane and smouldering good looks.
On any given tunnel walk, you're bound to find the Toronto Raptors' homegrown rookie Dalano Banton rocking some drippy clothes with the words "In Your City" on them. That's the name of a streetwear brand the Rexdale native and his childhood friends launched together a few years ago.
Canada Goose, purveyors of power parkas made for impossibly harsh climates, may not initially strike you as the ideal brand to link up with the NBA. But they do have a history with the league.
There are plenty of exceptional Black-owned Canadian streetwear brands, restaurants, art studios, and health companies that are well worth shopping at.
Pop Culture
What New Year's resolutions could you possibly have when you're Simu Liu? You've just come off the most successful year of your life, debuting as Marvel's first Asian superhero and throat punching the assignment. Your movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , set pandemic-era records at the box office and got greenlit for a sequel.
Ryan Gosling is not being serious. He swears it feels like he's unintentionally yelling at me, even though he's speaking in his trademark laconic drawl - the one that's made him the go-to leading man for near-silent, damaged loner roles. I tell him his voice sounds fine. He disagrees.
Shamier Anderson is known for going to inordinate lengths to prepare for his movie roles, from immersing himself in the Fruit Town Piru gang to sleeping in the Moroccan desert. "My preparation process is always rooted in anxiety and not wanting to f**k it up," the Scarborough-born actor tells ET Canada.
Cannabis-infused beverages have been legal north of the border since the start of the year, but according to some analysts, they still face "an uphill battle for a home inside Canadian coolers." Seth Rogen respectfully calls cap on that.
Let's get one thing straight: Matty Matheson is not a celebrity chef. Or at least he'd rather not be referred to as that. For one thing, he thinks the "celebrity" qualifier sounds hella dumb-just call him a chef! For another, while he's known for his unhinged cooking shows on TV and YouTube, he's by no means making that celebrity money.
The first time Iman Vellani grabbed an issue of at her local comic book shop in Markham, Ontario, she was floored. It wasn't just that the titular superhero was a Muslim Pakistani girl, like herself. It's that the character was a Muslim Pakistani girl she could actually relate to.
A version of this story appears in Sharp: The Book For Men Spring/Summer 2019, on newsstands now. Sam Rockwell's feet hurt. The actor just wrapped a dance rehearsal in Midtown Manhattan that ran way past schedule. He's playing Bob Fosse - the legendary dancer-turned-choreographer-turned-speed freak - in FX's limited series Fosse/Verdon.
It's easy to write off cartoons as mindless entertainment for kids, but a new series on the CBC Gem streaming service takes a look at the world of animation from a surprising perspective. "Stay Tooned" is a six-part series starring Eric Bauza, a Filipino-Canadian voice actor who's given voice to such iconic cartoon characters as Bugs...
A version of this story appears in Sharp: The Book For Men Fall/Winter 2018, on stands now. While the rest of Hollywood got gussied up for this year's Oscars, Michael Shannon threw on a puffy jacket and watched Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water - a film he starred in - win Best Picture on mute at a Chicago watering hole.
Think your job is stressful? Just be grateful you don't have Trevor Noah's. For the last year, the guy's had the thorniest task in comedy: taking over The Daily Show from Jon Stewart, America's revered (ex-) satirist-in-chief, during one of the most insane presidential elections in modern history.
You may have been wondering where Mike Myers has been. The comedian has become somewhat of an International Man of Mystery as of late - not counting his voice work in Shrek, the last time we saw him in a starring role was in 2008's The Love Guru (and according to box office receipts, most of us only saw him in the poster for that).
The year is 2042. You wake up, dress your better-looking avatar in its cleanest metaverse fit, and head to the virtual boardroom. At work, your mind wanders to date ideas that could rekindle the spark with your robot partner. Maybe you'll take the hyperloop to L.A.
Full disclosure: I was hungover when I spoke with Hannibal Buress. But before you hurl accusations of unprofessionalism my way, know this: it was a very last-minute interview opportunity, and the Foo Fighters played an epic three-hour show in Toronto the night before. So, yes, I had the shakes.
Norm Macdonald is the Lil Wayne of comedy. He slurs his words, he's gone a bit off the rails over the years (and was briefly reported dead), he hasn't had a hit in ages - and yet, he's still considered one of the best in the game.
If there were a camera filming him right now, John Krasinski would be looking directly into it. Checking his phone in the back of a car in L.A. and finding his name trending on Twitter, he'd turn and break the fourth wall - like he did as Jim Halpert so many times on NBC's The Office - to give us that patented "You seeing this?"
News
Noah "40" Shebib has been watching a lot of lately. David Lynch's mystery-horror drama, about a small town shaken by the murder of a homecoming queen, is full of haunting, dream-trance journeys into the otherworldly. But Drake's right-hand producer can't stop thinking about how much it reminds him of his hometown of Toronto.
Harding Blvd. just hasn't been the same since the neighbours from hell moved in. "The devastation and damage they've caused is incredible," says longtime resident Jane Flanders, 55. "I have to clean out half a recycling bag full of feces from my front lawn all the time. ...
Nazrul Islam loved being a chef at Richtree Market. For the 25 years he worked with the company, he never once took his unionized job at the Eaton Centre for granted. "It was my first job in Canada and it had good benefits," said the 57-year-old man who came from Bangladesh.
To family and friends, Dylan Palumbo was known as a class clown. So when they first heard about his murder, they assumed it was a cruel joke. "We were hoping it was an elaborate prank," said high school friend Chris Orbz, 28. But there was no humour in Palumbo's girlfriend's voice when she broke the news to Orbz.
More than 500 Canadian men feel they weren't warned properly about a prescription baldness medication they say has left them impotent, even years after they stopped taking it. Two class-action lawsuits, one in Ontario and one in British Columbia, have been filed against Merck Frosst Canada, makers of finasteride - the key ingredient used in Propecia, a hair loss drug, and Proscar, a prostate drug also used to treat baldness.
He lost everything to the July 8 flood except for a tiny tent in his backyard. Now he's lost that too. Ken Hills, 60, says the portable canvas shelter that has served as his home for the last two weeks was blown beyond sight during last Friday's severe thunderstorm.
The North Toronto Cat Rescue is a feline promised land. Hundreds of salvaged strays saunter throughout the Markham bungalow, coexisting harmoniously in a cage-less setting. For six years the shelter has served as an animal welfare wonder-house, where street cats are trapped, neutered and contained rather than released.
For 17 years, Ricky Chu served the lauded dim sum at Lai Wah Heen restaurant with a smile. The unionized job at the Metropolitan Hotel eatery fed his kids, after all. "Before this job, I didn't have benefits," said the 60-year-old Chinese immigrant. "I didn't have anything. Only the wage."
Forget Whole Foods. When Marianne Kalich wants organic eggs, she fetches them right from her backyard, where six chickens currently roost. It's the ultimate way to eat locally. But it's also illegal. "It's important when I'm eating a protein source that I know where it's coming from," says the 56-year-old Mississauga vegetarian, who keeps a chicken pen behind her house.
You are what you Tweet. Or at least that's the case for Zach Bussey, who's been surviving for the past 8 months on social media alone. The 27-year-old is in the middle of an experiment in which he feeds, clothes and amuses himself solely though all the promotions and sponsorships he can find on the Internet.
Custom Content
Now, VanVleet wants to empower others to bet on themselves too. His campaign for UGG Canada was co-produced with Toronto-based agency YUTE Studio, who recruited local BIPOC youth to lead the set design, cinematography, and photography for the shoot.
Change is something that's been on Pascal Siakam's mind a lot. Maybe that seems obvious, given his play lately: The Toronto Raptors power forward has undergone a Super Saiyan transformation over the last couple months.
Ah, 2020. The year that will forever be remembered as the juncture at which the world got flipped, turned upside down, leaving nearly every facet of our lives looking drastically different than it did last year. In a weird way, the fashion and sneaker world is one of the few things making this shit show of a year feel somewhat normal.
We don't know who needs to hear this, but it's never too late to reinvent yourself. Just take it from Briony Douglas. The Toronto-based photographer, visual artist, and director-whose work has caught the attention of high-end fashion labels and sneaker brands alike with its eye-popping mix of surrealism and pop culture-says she only truly began pursuing art five years ago.
Unless your principal residence has been the underside of a boulder for the last decade, you're likely aware that sneaker reselling today is big business. The art of flipping shoes has turned into a shockingly lucrative industry, one forecast by Cowen Equity Research to be worth $30 billion by 2030.
LaMelo Ball is about to enter the NBA, in one of its most unusual seasons ever, as one of its most unusual rookies ever. For starters, he's got a weird jump shot. It's a two-handed thrust that looks almost like he's tossing a chest pass at the basket (until it goes in).
Drake and The Weeknd may be the two biggest artists Canada's ever birthed, but to find success they had to leave the country. There's a reason for that: Making it as a Black artist within our borders can feel like a Sisyphean task, thanks to systemic barriers that have remained in place for decades.
"Who's Sean Leon?" is a question that's become increasingly harder to answer these days. I mean, who isn't Sean Leon? The Toronto creative is many things at once: a rapper, a songwriter, a director, an iconoclast, the visionary behind PUPIL INC., and the star of our lookbook for adidas' new Stan Smith.
The Kermit the Frog media tour continues. After shocking judges as a contestant on The Masked Singer, joining the National Recording Registry, and doing press for the streaming premiere of The Muppet Show on Disney+, everyone's favourite felt fellow is back in a new ad spot for adidas Originals.
In 2021, it's not enough for a winter parka to keep your body toasty and your Instagram feed fresh-it's got to keep your conscience clean too. Case in point: last year, Canada Goose caught the fashion world's attention by announcing its Sustainable Impact Strategy and HUMANATURE platform, stepping up the brand's long-term commitment to "keep the planet cold and the people on it warm."
an epic series of exclusive virtual concerts with performances from world-class artists presented by the beer of Canadian nightlife, Miller Genuine Draft (MGD), in partnership with Universal Music Group.
For the eighth straight season, Canada has the most players in the NBA outside of the U.S., with a record 25 currently rostered on teams. At this point, there's no denying it: the Great White North's basketball pipeline is exploding, with the country churning out top-tier talent at a historic rate.