Subway buskers vie for right to record
TTC-Universal contest gives musicians a chance to get in studio with label
Every three years, Toronto’s transit authority auditions buskers for licences to play in the city’s subway system. This year, the stakes have been raised as local musicians are competing for what’s branded as “the gig of a lifetime”: the chance to record a song with Universal Music Canada.
Universal teamed with the Toronto Transit Commission to offer the contest, which will see one busker record a mutually selected song, which the entertainment giant will put onto an Apple Music Playlist for at least six months.
The artist will still have to pay a Toronto Transit Commission licence fee that is around $200, and, if the song is an original composition, Universal will assume the rights to it.
Many of the city’s subway musicians do play their own music. But several told the Star, they’d be willing to give up the rights for a chance at exposure.
“There’s something called sacrifice. Why do we forget about that?” musician Adam Solomon said to the Star this week from Bloor-Yonge station. Solomon, who was born in Kenya, described the songs he plays as African renaissance blues, “very close to a Mississippi kind of blues.” He sings across languages, in English, Swahili and Mijikenda (a Bantu language from the coast of Kenya), and has released many CDs, both as an individual and as part of various musical groups.
Only once he’s deep into conversation does he reveal he is a Juno Award winner. When asked about it, he simply says that was long ago. (The award was given to Solomon with a group of other Canadian musicians of African origin, back in 2005.)
He’s been playing in the subway for 20 years. “We hope that things will come and shine for us, because we’ve been here for a long time.”
Entertainment lawyer Julie MacDonnell reviewed the rules and regulations for the Star, and said the deal between Universal and the winning artist looks fairly typical for contests such as this.
“People have to understand what the contest involves; it’s not like they’re getting an actual recording deal out of it. It’s basically for exposure,” she said. “It would be typical that Universal would own the masters (recordings).”
However, she said it’s unclear from the contest rules just how much revenue from streaming would go back to the artist. Universal Music Canada spokesperson Ashley Ballantyne said details of the prize would be discussed with the winner as part of the final terms of agreement. Ballantyne added the artist would win the right, not the obligation, to record.
“The contest winner also has the option to collaborate with an entertainment lawyer to negotiate their agreement and to explain to them all of their rights and obligations if that made them feel more comfortable,” she wrote in an email.
It’s unclear if the costs of working with a lawyer would be covered.
MacDonnell told the Star that collaboration with an entertainment lawyer, at minimum, would cost $1,250 plus tax for an artist in Toronto. “That would be at a ‘junior’ lawyer, or highly discounted, rate,” she said.
She said other parts of the contest struck her as worth questioning. Transportation for artists isn’t covered, despite it being a transportation company contest. (Stuart Green, a TTC spokesperson, did say they’d cover TTC costs for musicians coming from within Toronto that didn’t require the transport of special gear.)
The winner may also have to join relevant unions, MacDonnell added, which could come with additional costs or restrictions on the artist.
Musician Dieufaite Charles, around the corner from Solomon at Yonge-Bloor, said the Universal contest could be a game-changer for him. He sees the subway system, where he’s been playing for six years, like a gallery, a hub of connection, interaction and chance.
“This is where the producers, the event planners, anybody, everybody, passes through,” he told the Star, taking a break from playing guitar in the early afternoon.
For some subway musicians, the songs they might forfeit rights to carry heavy emotional weight. But to Charles, it’s worth it to get his songs out to a larger audience.
He was once playing at Spadina station, he told the Star, when a woman came and sat beside him. Charles was playing one of his own songs, called “The Source,” a tune in Creole, the language of his native Haiti. The woman started crying.
When he finished playing, she asked him what the Creole song meant. “In this life, we have to go through struggle in order to reach our destination,” Charles told the Star. “And this is what the song was about.”
Just then, Charles said, the woman came out with a surprising admission: “This woman was about to jump in front of the train.” Charles gave the woman a hug, he said, and the pair talked for a while. He gave her a CD of music to listen to later, and told her that she, too, would reach her destination someday.
“I’m into deep soul, emotional music. I would say spiritual music,” he said.
“That’s something that can really help people along the way.”