d'bi.young anitafrika's story goes to show that every artist needs nurturing

The award-winning artist, playwright and dub poet d'bi.young anitafrika broke onto the Canadian theatre scene when they were cast in Trey Anthony's play Da Kink in My Hair. But their life in the arts started way before that. They were only three years old when they realized they were destined to be a griot (a storyteller).

In an interview with Q guest host Garvia Bailey, anitafrika credits their mom, the pioneering Jamaican dub poet Anita Stewart, for inspiring their passion for storytelling and nurturing them as an artist.

"I actually had a blueprint," anitafrika says. "My mother was the blueprint…. She took me to the library every Saturday. My mother taught me how to read when I was two. She gave me a lot of autonomy…. So the environment was there for me to be nurtured, and my mother provided a mirror of possibilities for me."

Though anitafrika was raised to freely express themself without shame, after they moved from Jamaica to Canada at age 15, their natural artistic vibrancy and exuberance wasn't always understood or encouraged.

"I experienced deep, deep self-loathing because I couldn't understand what was so strange about me," they say. "Racism was something I'd never encountered before. I had encountered classism because I grew up working class … [but in Canada, there was] a real rejection and a real demonization of Jamaican-ness because remember, this is 1993."

Luckily, anitafrika was able to find "femtors and mentors" to help guide them through the difficult periods of their life. While studying at McGill University, anitafrika met educator and journalist David Austin, who helped them overcome their self-loathing and lean into their talent for storytelling.

"He was specifically talking about the way that I had been speaking," they say. "So five years into being in Canada, I had this unrealistic accent, which was my attempt at covering my Jamaican-ness. I had this unrealistic persona that was, again, an attempt at survival in a hostile environment…. Somehow he had seen through all of that and had seen into this young person who had the gift of storytelling, who had a gift of communication, but was burying those gifts."

This year, anitafrika is celebrating a major milestone as their critically acclaimed Sankofa Trilogy turns 20. The three solo plays of the trilogy — blood.claat, benu and word! sound! powah! — follow three generations of Jamaican women from their experiences of growing up to motherhood.

You can catch anniversary stagings of The Sankofa Trilogy, which has now been adapted into a multi-cast production, from Aug. 13 to 17 at The Theatre Centre in Toronto.

The full interview with d'bi.young anitafrika is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with d'bi.young anitafrika produced by Liv Pasquarelli.