MUSTAFA ANNOUNCES DEBUT WORLD TOUR, SHARES LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO FT. DANIEL CAESAR AND MORE

MUSTAFA ANNOUNCES DEBUT WORLD TOUR LOST IN THE DUNYA WORLD TOUR LAUNCHING FEBRUARY 11TH - TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE ON DECEMBER 13

SHARES LIVE SESSION PERFORMING SONGS FROM DUNYA FEATURING DANIEL CAESAR AND MORE

WATCH / SHARE DUNYA LIVE PERFORMANCE HERE

DUNYA OUT NOW VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

BUY / STREAM DUNYA HERE

Mustafa offers sweeping, guitar-driven folk that is rich in simplicity and radical for its intimacy. He illustrates the world with a sentimental pen, allowing listeners to feel his memories rather than merely witness them.” Exclaim!, Cover Story

There's a singularity to Mustafa's music, captured with lyrics that reflect a subject matter never before explored in Canadian folk. Each Mustafa project is a colossal offering, and beyond the revelatory nature of his songwriting, the music itself is sonically riveting.”
CBC Music, #1 Canadian Album of 2024

Across 12 songs, Mustafa introduces listeners to a host of characters — childhood friends, overseas cousins — each a finely drawn portrait of contrasts and multitudes, of the impossible distance between a hometown and a homeland, of the tension between the dunyā and al-Ākhirah.” Toronto Star, Cover Story

“There is the music within the notes and the music beyond them. A voice hums, fingers on strings strum, and for an album-long moment, the ballads in Dunya by acclaimed artist and poet Mustafa shift from mere musical composition to a maxim of a home long sought but rarely held.” The Globe and Mail, Cover Story

“[a] distinctly modern take on folk music” - The New York Times 

“quietly awe-inspiring elegies and remembrances” - NPR, Best Albums of 2024

“Mustafa preserves and celebrates ‘the ordinary life in the hood’ through disarmingly raw and blended genres and stories.” - Paste Magazine, 100 Best Albums of 2024 

“a powerful treatise on faith, rage, and despair.” - Rolling Stone, 100 Best Albums of 2024 

“Dunya depicts the man’s mission to hold cherished people and traditions close while the larger facets of reality he can’t control shake his foundations.” - Vulture, The Best Albums of 2024 

Photo Credit : Jack McKain // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

After playing select dates in major markets in support of his 2021 project When Smoke Rises, singer-songwriter Mustafa announces his debut world tour to launch in February of 2025. The announcement comes in conjunction with his debut album Dunya being celebrated as one of the best albums of 2024 by CBC Music, Rolling Stone, Exclaim!, The New York Times, Vulture, NPR, and NME among others. Tickets go on sale this Friday, December 13th at 10AM local time at http://mustafathepoet.com/tour.

Alongside the tour announcement, Mustafa also shares a live session featuring performances of songs from Dunya with album collaborators like Daniel Ceasar, Micah Preite (guitar), Kibrom Birhane (masenqo, krar), and Monica Martin (backing vocals). The session showcases performances of “What good is a heart?,” “Leaving Toronto” and “I’ll Go Anywhere.”

WATCH / SHARE DUNYA LIVE PERFORMANCE HERE

Upon Dunya’s release in late September, the album received critical acclaim by the likes of Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, The Face and Kinfolk, the latter two of which feature Mustafa on the covers of their current issues. Though the upcoming live dates serve as his first official headline tour, Mustafa is no stranger to pulling music lovers into his orbit for transformational poetic reflections on faith, personal and familial relationships, and the stark realities of growing up in Toronto’s inner city. 

In 2024 alone, he produced two installments of his Artists For Aid concert series, which have taken place in New Jersey and London this year and feature the likes of 070 Shake, Blood Orange, Clairo, Daniel Caesar, Earl Sweatshirt, Faye Webster, FKA twigs, King Krule, Nicolas Jaar, Nick Hakim, Omar Apollo, Ramy Youssef, Stormzy, 6lack, Yasiin Bey and more across the two events, in addition to Mustafa himself.

Speaking about Dunya, Mustafa shares that he is “trying to preserve and celebrate the ordinary life in the hood,” a notion that is beautifully exemplified in a song like “SNL.” But Dunya, which roughly translates from Arabic to “the world in all its flaws” is also an interrogation of his faith and lifelong relationship with Islam, something that Mustafa has referred to as “​​the longest, most peculiar relationship in my life.” This examination is evident in “I’ll Go Anywhere,” which on surface examination reads as a folk song, albeit one that interpolates a melody his parents sang to him as a child and prominently features the oud, a string instrument originating from the Middle East that folds seamlessly into the record’s unique, rich atmosphere paired with vocal contributions from Rosalía. This effortless mixture of disparate elements that seemingly shouldn’t work together, but ultimately do, speaks to the power of Mustafa’s work as an artist.

Find tickets, watch Mustafa’s live performance session, and listen to Dunya above and stay tuned for more from the artist coming soon. 

BUY / STREAM DUNYA HERE

UPCOMING TOUR DATES // TICKETS
2/11 - San Francisco, CA @ Palace of Fine Arts 
2/13 - Los Angeles, CA @ Palace Theatre 
2/15 - Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center 
2/16 - Chicago, IL @ Old Town School of Folk 
2/18 - Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark 
2/20 - Brooklyn, NY @ Crown Hill Theater 
2/23 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian Church 
2/24 - Washington, D.C. @ Lincoln Theater 
2/26 - Somerville, MA @ Arts at the Armory 
2/27 - Montreal, QC @ Le National 
5/9 - London, ENG @ Barbican 
5/10 - Paris, FR @ Cirque d’Hiver 
5/11 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso 
5/12 - Brussels, BE @ Church Notre Dame de Laeken 
5/14 - Berlin, GER @ Hiemathafen 
5/16 - Copenhagen, DK @ DR Studie 2
5/18 - Stockholm, SE @ Sodra Teatern 
5/23 - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia @ ____
5/25 - Port Sudan, Sudan @ _____

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GEOFFROY SHARES NEW VERSION OF LATEST SINGLE, FEAT. FRANKIE STEW AND HARVEY GUNN

Photo Credit : Alex Dozois // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Geoffroy closes out another stellar year of music and shows by releasing a new version of  "No Calls Before Noon," featuring a collaboration with UK rap/producer duo Frankie Stew and Harvey Gunn. The song originally appeared as the focus track from the Deluxe version of Geoffroy's 2024 LP Good Boy, and caught the attention of the Brighton pair who appears on this collaborative version, adding a powerful new dimension.

Frankie Stew's introspective lyrics perfectly accentuate the song's emotional tone, but also highlight the underlying theme of gratitude that permeates the track. "Look at what I've achieved, nearly makes me weep," he says, as if rapping into the handset of a rain soaked telephone booth. "Makes me wanna just be less deep...be more free, I've got so much to be happy for, d'you know what I mean?"

LISTEN / SHARE “NO CALLS BEFORE NOON” FT. FRANKIE STEW & HARVEY GUNN
BUY / STREAM “NO CALLS BEFORE NOON” FT. FRANKIE STEW & HARVEY GUNN

MORE ABOUT GEOFFROY + GOOD BOY
Geoffroy is an essential and emerging voice in Canadian music. Now three LPs into a career that has solidified him as one of Quebec’s best artists, the Montreal-born songwriter and producer takes the next step internationally with the release of fourth full-length Good Boy.

Almost 10 years removed from his first release, this project was sparked with the intention of creating Geoffroy’s most authentic work to date, blending organic instrumentation and electronic elements into a bright and rich album filled with diverse sounds, a collection of songs that moves beyond the brooding depth that has defined recent works. 

Each past album that Geoffroy has released reflected a different tone and period in the artist’s life and his evolution and experimentation with different sonic palettes. In this case, Good Boy sees Geoffroy look back and collaborate with longtime production partners Clément Leduc and Gabriel Gagnon, but also incorporate a diverse collection of new background musicians and singers that brings the album to life in vibrant colour. 

WATCH / SHARE “NO CALLS BEFORE NOON” (OFFICIAL VIDEO) HERE

That diversity was driven by a gradual shift in Geoffroy’s influences, having spent recent years immersing himself in the worlds of cumbiamusic and a range of other latin and african rhythmic styles, that melded with his traditional singer-songwriter form to create something that feels truly international. 

In fact the record’s narrative was inspired by a trip to Mexico where he befriended - and ultimately adopted - a shelter dog named Papi, bringing him from the streets of Mexico City to Montreal. Papi serves as the mascot for the LP, but more importantly acts as an overarching metaphor for being lost, but ultimately found. 

Asked to reflect on the change in perspective that accompanied the transition from his previous musical era into this one, Geoffroy spoke to the clarity he experienced in terms of his own agenda in the creation of music. 

Live Slow Die Wise had a slower pace and I was eager to step away from the nostalgia and melancholy I had visited and analyzed plenty in the past,” Geoffroy reflects. “I did what felt natural, a feel-good album (I think) that shed the weight of the other ones. I feel I’m getting closer to the sound I’m looking for, though I might be chasing something that’s faster than me.” 

BUY / STREAM GOOD BOY DELUXE LP HERE


TOUR DATES // TICKETS HERE
12/12/24 Quebec, QC - Grizzly Fuzz
12/13/24 Quebec, QC - Grizzly Fuzz

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TAURO, THE DUO OF CYNTHIA TAURO AND BRENDAN CANNING, SHARE VIDEO FOR LATEST SINGLE

WATCH / SHARE “YOU GOT SOMETHING” HERE
BUY / STREAM “YOU GOT SOMETHING” HERE

TAURO IS THE COLLABORATION OF PIANIST SINGER SONGWRITER CYNTHIA TAURO AND BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE’S BRENDAN CANNING

“You Got Something” Video Still

TAURO, the collaboration between jazz pianist and singer-songwriter Cynthia Tauro and Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene), are sharing the new video for “You Got Something” which pays serious homage to a late 90s aesthetic. Director Bea Santos had a particular vision upon hearing the song: 

“From my first listen, ‘You Got Something’ instantly evoked the gritty, iconic feel of late 90s trip hop music videos. I knew that I wanted to make something fun that matched the fresh and idiosyncratic talent of Cynthia and Brendan, and looked and felt like it could have been on the Wedge (IYKYK). Some of the sequences in the video are an ode to the work of video artist Chris Cunningham and videos from artists like Massive Attack and Portishead. Ultimately, I wanted to create a moody, DIY vibe that underscored the song's melancholy and introspective mood.”

WATCH / SHARE “YOU GOT SOMETHING” HERE
BUY / STREAM “YOU GOT SOMETHING” HERE


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MORE ABOUT TAURO
Cynthia Tauro has been active in the Toronto music scene for the better part of the last decade, playing primarily in the jazz circuit. Shortly after completing her degree in jazz performance at Carleton University, she released a debut full-length titled Moments. It was met with modest acclaim but more importantly it introduced her to some heavy hitters in the scene like Guido Basso, Robi Botos and Terry Clarke.

Fast forward a couple years and a few hundred gigs later, including a stint in the stage production of Mama Mia, Cynthia was looking for some new and untapped avenues to explore. She sparked a friendship with Brendan Canning in 2022 at Field Trip Music Festival in downtown Toronto and immediately felt a spark as the music of Lucy Dacus played in the background. The conversation quickly turned to writing songs together and it was clear a path was being laid out.

Cynthia began coming over to Brendan’s home for impromptu jams while the two tried to figure each other’s musical worlds out. In Brendan’s words, “It wasn’t until Cynthia started playing what she called ‘intervals’ that I truly started to see where we could connect on a deeper level.” Those ‘intervals’ would eventually become the song “Great Minds”.

This fruitful partnership is already scheming for the future. Multiple recording sessions with Spencer Muscio (Jessie Reyez), Kintaro Akyama (Birds of Bellwoods), Juwayon Clarke (Daniel Caesar), and Little Scream mean there’s more music on the way in the very near future.

WATCH / SHARE “GREAT MINDS” HERE
BUY / STREAM “GREAT MINDS” HERE


MORE ABOUT BRENDAN CANNING
Brendan Canning is the co-founder of multi JUNO Award winning, 2x Polaris Music Prize nominated internationally acclaimed group Broken Social Scene who have just celebrated their twenty year anniversary. He has three solo albums under his belt and has been part of numerous bands over the last three decades including hHead, Len, By Divine Right and Cookie Duster. Canning's film credits span Half Nelson, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the Netflix series Spinning Out and more.

Quietly, he’s known as the “Butter Tart Guy” from the 90s smash hit, “Steal My Sunshine” and also the DJ who’s played every bar, warehouse, backyard, booze can and roof top since 1998. Today he splits his time between Tauro, Broken Social Scene, composing for film, and music director at the Drake Hotel in Toronto.

Photo Credit : Kate Dockeray // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES


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