Toronto’s Regent Park singer-songwriter Mustafa wins alternative album of the year at Juno Awards 2022
At last weekend Juno Awards 2022, Regent Park community singer-songwriter Mustafa de Poet won the award for alternative album of the year. Mustafa’s 2021 debut album When Smoke Rises is a meditation on the grief he experienced after losing several friends to gun violence. At the event, Mustafa said backstage. “I am because of Regent Park. I am nothing without my community,” he told media backstage after accepting the award on opening night. “Every experience, every death, every building that was buried, every argument. It shaped me and it shaped the way that I write, and it’s the reason that I write.” At Sunday’s Juno Awards broadcast, he went a step further to bring visibility to Regent Park, pulling up to the red carpet with an entourage of friends from his area, including rapper Lil Berete. Later that evening, for his live rendition of “Stay Alive,” those close confidantes joined Mustafa on stage to sing the final chorus of the song with him, smiling and slinging their arms ar