Rhythms And Resistance
Caribbean Canadian Music With a Cause Remembered By Stephen Weir Standing inside the Friars Museum beside the two curators of the new free exhibition - Rhythm and Resistance - I listen as they tell the history of the Caribbean music scene in downtown Toronto. I am being schooled about what made Toronto the North American hub for Calypso, Ska, Rock Steady, Reggae, and now Hip-Hop music. The Friars is the only museum in Canada (or even the world) that is housed inside a drugstore. The store has a micro-museum on its second floor and is l ocated at the epicentre of what was once Toronto’s Music City – Dundas and Yonge Streets. The store is located where the Friars Tavern and later the Hard Rock Café stood. South of Dundas Square, it was a Jazz and Blues club until it closed in 1976. Two years later the Hard Rock Café took over the building and it truly did what the name suggested – it rocked loud and hard until 2017 when the structure was re...