African drumming and dance school founder Sanaaj Mirrie honoured at Juno Awards
March 22, 2023
How often have you seen an award winner bring someone else on a major platform to say that individual is more deserving of the accolade and they should have it?
The selfless act occurred on the first night of the 52nd Junos in Edmonton when Kevin Drew, the recipient of this year’s MusiCounts Inspired Minds Ambassador Award, asked Sanaaj Mirrie to join him on stage.
Declaring the award is for community leaders who are helping children to have music in their lives and he was just receiving it to remind people of the importance of helping others, the singer/songwriter/producer presented his statuette to a stunned Mirrie who, a decade ago, started Afiwi Groove that is an Afro-Caribbean dance and drumming school in Pickering.
Mirrie and Drew met in 2013 when the MusiCounts TD Community Music Program was launched to provide musical instruments, equipment and resources to community groups or non-profit organizations who deliver music programs to young people.
At the time, she was the Executive Assistant to then TD Vice-President of Corporate Citizenship & Community Relations Scott Mullin who won the Harry Jerome Diversity Award in 2015.
Mirrie accompanied Mullin to a meeting with then MusiCounts Director Allan Reid and Drew who conceived the idea for TD to collaborate with MusiCounts to increase access to music programming in communities.
The Canadian indie rock bank founder was honoured at this year’s Junos for his philanthropic contributions to music education in Canada and his integral role in expanding MusiCounts instrument grant program from exclusively schools to include community groups across the country.
Sanaaj Mirrie proudly shows off the MusiCounts Inspired Minds Ambassador Award (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
To date, the program has supported 271 community organizations across Canada with $3.9 million in instruments, resources and equipment. When the Field Trip music festival started, Drew requested everyone on the guest list donate $20 to MusiCounts. Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised through that fundraiser.
To honour Drew’s efforts to support youth music education, $30,000 worth of MusiCounts Band Aid Program instrument grants will be awarded to Canadian schools this year.
In 2021, Mirrie received $20,000 through the MusiCounts TD Community Music Program to purchase drums for her school.
Last November, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (CARAS) that oversee the Juno Awards, contacted her.
“They said the person who fundraised the money was getting an award at the Junos and they were looking for an organization to talk about the impact of the funding,” recounted Mirrie. “They wanted to know if I could make my space available for filming. They later cancelled, but got back to me at the very last moment to see if I would do it.”
She obliged.
“I gathered all the kids together and told their parents this was an opportunity for our school to reach a wider audience,” Mirrie said. “About 10 crew members showed up with cameras. As they were filming our instructors and the kids performing, a guy walked in and introduced himself as Kevin Drew. The film crew asked him if he wanted to drum with the kids and he politely said ‘no thanks’. I turned to him and said ‘I respect that’ and then I said ‘I know you’. When I reminded him of our meeting 10 years ago, his response was, ‘Get out of here, I remember you’.”
As they were talking, Drew looked down at the floor and asked why it was in a state of disrepair.
“Prior to the pandemic, I was renting spaces.” she said. “I told him I took a risk, leased the space for five years and I didn’t have any money to do repairs. I also mentioned that I had applied for grants and was praying they would be approved.”
Drew suggested Mirrie reach out to people with money.
“I said ‘no disrespect’, but you -- as a White man – have access and privilege I don’t have,” she said. “He gave me some names, none of which I knew, and we continued to talk. I told him I worked at a shelter downtown for Black youths and we exchanged numbers.”
The next day Drew called Mirrie to say she was going to the Junos.
“When I asked why, he said that what I told him the day before touched him because it was the truth,” she pointed out. “He said he had access that I don’t and here he was telling me to find people with money. He also said he called Reid, who was now the CARAS President and he remembers me and that it makes sense to bring me to the awards since they were highlighting the Afiwi Groove School. By taking me to the Junos, it was his hope that someone would see me on a big stage and support the work we are doing.”
Mirrie, then a single mother of two, left TD in 2018 after 10 years to focus on Afiwi Groove School that connects Black youths to their roots and identity through African dancing and drumming.
“When she told me that is where she wanted to be, I called MusiCounts the next day and told them I think we have a wonderful example of why,” said Drew. “It’s not who, when, where or what. In that moment, Sanaaj solidified why. We can do the work at MusiCounts, but we need to shine the spotlight on those people who are out there doing the real work. Also, as someone on both sides, she was perfect to show people why funding is needed to keep going.”
Sanaaj Mirrie with Kevin Drew and MusiCounts President Kristy Fletcher (Photo by Nick Merzetti)
Drew’s kind gesture uplifted Mirrie who has endured some challenges in the last few years.
“Just before the pandemic, I used a foodbank so that I could pay my instructors to teach the kids,” she said. “I was on the verge of eviction because I poured my money into the school and didn’t have enough to pay rent.”
Through the arts, Mirrie has a lot to be thankful.
It helped enhance her mood, decrease anxiety and facilitate opportunities for emotional expression after she migrated from Jamaica in the summer of 2000.
The transition was not easy.
“I didn’t want to be in school, I asked myself if I belong here and I was just going through a lot and really struggling,” Mirrie, who started her Canadian education in Grade Nine at Jarvis Collegiate Institute, said. “A lady introduced to me to African dancing at the school and I fell in love with it. When I asked where I could learn more, she told me at Driftwood Community Centre in the Jane & Finch community where I resided. I transferred to C.W Jefferys Collegiate Institute for my last year of high school just to be near that program.”
After graduation, her intent was to pursue dance studies.
“When I looked at York’s program, I found it too Eurocentric,” she said. “I took some courses and the teacher kept telling me to lower my tailbone. I told her this is who I am. I got in for Law and did Community Development studies that the university let me know I was doing well in. They told me to make it my major which I did and that is when I made the connection between the arts and community.”
Mirrie graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies.
An older sister, who was then a Vice-President at TD Bank, encouraged her to pursue a banking career.
“She told me I didn’t come from Jamaica to be an artist,” Mirrie recounted. “Now, she is so proud of me and one of my biggest supporters.”
While driving home from work in an ice storm in 2013, her vehicle ended up in a ditch near Taunton Rd. and Church St. in Ajax
“That is when I decided to take a rest,” she noted. “People reminded me I am a mother of two and I would be crazy to leave my good paying job and start a dance and drumming school. I took the risk and started with my niece and her cousin, who did the drumming, and my niece’s friend.”
There are 50 children enrolled in the program.
After a two-year break, Mirrie returned to TD as a part-time teller before resigning in 2018.
She rented space at ballet schools before closing when the pandemic hit in March 2020.
“When I got his building, I realized a lot of parents were not bringing their kids back to the program,” said Mirrie. “When I asked why, they told me they could not afford it. That is when I turned to the MusiCounts TD Community Music Program for assistance.”
The social entrepreneur and artistic director recently took over the lease for an adjoining space at 1895 Clements Rd.
“My hope is to use the two buildings to create Afiwi Cultural Arts Centre that is going to be a space for community gatherings and social events,” Mirrie, who has travelled to Haiti to help build a school and to Ghana, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana and Cuba to learn more about the culture in the respective countries, added.
