This artist development company is the 1st built by and for Black Nova Scotian talent

The first artist development company built by and for Black talent in Nova Scotia is launching on Emancipation Day in Halifax.

Maidie Music House is a new project from Katrina Lopes, founder and president of KL Management and longtime manager for Shawn Desman. It's a music company that both comes from and celebrates Nova Scotian Black heritage, and fills a gap that Lopes has seen in the music industry for years.

It's something she started working on a few years ago: Lopes launched a mentorship program for African Nova Scotian and Black musicians and industry professionals in 2022, working with Music Nova Scotia (MNS) and other industry associations to deliver the workshops. It was the beginning of a larger vision, but at the time she told CBC Music that she hoped someone else in Nova Scotia could start a label, management and publishing company that is Black-owned and run.

Three years later, she's stepping up to do it.

"I thought it was funny because at the end [of the interview] I was like, 'Well, someone's going to do something, but it's not going to be me.' And then here I am," she recalled, laughing.

In the end, the African Nova Scotian and Black talent that Lopes was supporting through the mentorship program — which included performance coaching and song camps — still weren't getting what they needed to launch their careers outside of Atlantic Canada.

"I think the Nova Scotia music industry is primarily built around folk music, Celtic music," explained Lopes. "And the ecosystem that's built around those genres is just very different than what is required for an R&B/soul artist, even a pop artist."

She lists off the need for stylists and a support team that is different for artists in genres including R&B, soul and hip-hop, which, compared to folk, also have more spread-out markets across the country for touring — making them harder and more expensive to reach. She added that those genres, and Black musicians, get less industry support generally, which was reflected in Music Nova Scotia's 2022 report "Black Music Matters": the biggest obstacle recorded by Black musicians was a lack of industry support, infrastructure and networks, followed closely by anti-Black racism. It's something MNS has been actively working to change, which has included the creation of an African Nova Scotian/Black music advisory committee.

'This needs to be bigger'

Lopes's original mentorship program was meant to help address these systemic issues, but she kept hitting walls. She met resistance from some industry associations who wanted her to expand the program to all marginalized groups, or even to all emerging artists. 

But that's not who she wanted to help. "The artists I'm managing in Nova Scotia, they're all African Nova Scotian women, as I am myself," she said, listing Jody Upshaw, Reeny, Zamani and Haliey Smith as some of her local roster. Lopes was tired of explaining herself, her artists, and her value.

"There's so many other things we need to be spending our time on, we can't be bogged down with the emotional labour of also racism and sexism," she said.

Her conclusion: "This needs to be bigger, like no one's taking this program seriously and we're just gonna do this ourselves," she said. "We're not gonna wait for people to get it right or to make it better."

"I did it as much for me as I'm doing it for the artists," she admitted. "Because it's like, I also need a space to know that we have each other."

And so Maidie Music House was born, a company named after her paternal grandmother, Maidie Upshaw, married name Lopes, who made sure everyone in the family had to learn at least one instrument (though Lopes's father argues that Maidie made everyone learn at least two).

'[She] lets me thrive rather than survive all the time'

For Jody Upshaw, Lopes's cousin, it literally is all about family. The R&B singer has been performing since she was 11, and mentoring with Lopes for years now. But to have an official House, where everyone's publicly represented, changes things.

"Now actually putting a name on it and putting that out to the world manifests a lot more opportunities for ourselves," Lopes said. "And also it kind of has that layer of trust for us on the inside that we know this is a collective now…. It means something really special to shout that out to the world and be like, 'These are the people that I'm running with right now.'"

In her time working with Lopes, Upshaw has been shaping her performance and music while also giving back to the community: she's currently serving her second term as board member with MNS, alongside Lopes, and Upshaw's first term marked the now 22-year-old as the youngest board member to be elected.

While Maidie Music House has an artist focus, it's also a mentoring space for industry professionals. Shevy Price is a former rapper, founder of Prix Consulting, co-organizer of Coastal Culture Clash and current membership and admin coordinator at MNS, and she started mentoring with Lopes in 2023 to work on artist and event management. She was looking for somewhere to feel both safe and challenged.

"Kat was the person that, for me personally, she allowed me to say who I am as somebody who is an African Nova Scotian woman," said Price. "I am now a mother of two, I'm neurodivergent, I learn differently … she has become a teacher of mine and a mentor of mine that lets me thrive rather than survive all the time. 

"Being able to see artists from my community have this space, have somebody advocate for them, being able to just be themselves around each other, too — I didn't realize how important it was 'cause I didn't know that it was possible."

While the focus is local right now, Lopes said the future is open. "The one thing I can say for sure is that it will always be Black people," she promised.

"We need a win from our community first, and if that takes off, then I probably wouldn't say no to someone who is super talented from somewhere else."

Maidie Music House will launch at a private event on Aug. 1 as part of Crescendo Fest, the first Black music festival in Halifax, which is celebrating its third year and is run by Micah Smith, who is also mentoring with Lopes. Reeny, Zamani, Haliey Smith and Jody Upshaw will all perform, and it will be hosted by The Block host Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe.