A night with Toronto’s next pop sensation

The pop heiress to Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes is Jessie Reyez, a 27-year-old from Toronto. She has all the right credentials: last year, she was at the top of Rolling Stone’s list of “artists you need to know right now,” and in March, she won a Juno for Breakthrough Musician of the Year. It took 10 years of backup dancing, busking and bartending before she ended up on the charts, but her voice, which sounds like a cross between Amy Winehouse and Macy Gray, is an undeniable force in pop music. As a songwriter, Reyez has never shied away from sharing intimate details from her life with fans. Her 2017 single, “Gatekeeper,” chronicles the sexism she’s faced working in the industry, and her new EP, Being Human in Public, is as close to a confessional booth as an album can get, making her music feel both honest and authentic.