Darcy Ataman: Making Music Matter

Stuart Murray  00:00

This podcast was recorded on the ancestral lands on Treaty One territory, the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and the Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Metis Nation.

 

Matt Cundill  00:19

This is Humans on Rights, a podcast advocating for the education of human rights. Here's your host, Stuart Murray.

 

Stuart Murray  00:31

On this episode of Humans on Rights, I would just ask all the listeners just to take a moment and relax, because I have a more than usual lengthy introduction to my guest, and so here we go. Darcy Adaman, founder and CEO of Make Music Matter. My guest has dedicated his work to bringing an alternate form of music therapy to survivors of conflict and trauma. He developed the innovative Healing in harmony program in partnership with Nobel laureate Dr. Dennis McQuaigy, and continues to scale the innovation, which is currently running in 11 sites in eight countries around the world. In 2019 Darcy co-founded A for A Artists for artist records and publishing with legendary producer David Bottrell, creating a groundbreaking publishing model for artists living in extreme poverty and conflict zones. As a music and video producer by trade, my guest Darcy Adam and continues to collaborate with creatives around the world, including a continued partnership with celebrated producer and photographer Platon and the People's Portfolio. Most recently, Darcy completed the score of Platon's documentary film My Body Is Not a Weapon. Now, Darcy graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, and has worked internationally as a music producer, collaborating with countless artists and engineers. He's resulted in several junior nominations. So, Darcy's done some amazing things, and was recognized in July of 2020 He was awarded the Meritorious Service Cross by the Governor General of Canada for his outstanding humanitarian work. And in July 2022 Darcy received the Order of Manitoba for his dedication to enriching the lives of vulnerable populations in conflict and post-conflict zones. He's a contributor to the Huffington Post and various other publications has been a guest lecturer in places such as Oxford, locally here at the University of Winnipeg, and a range of international events. Speaking of the long-lasting impact of music and its ability to re-stitch the soul. Now, one of the things that we're going to talk about in specificity today is an incredible exhibit that Darcy has launched at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and it has a direct relationship to february 24 2020 when Russia launched an unprovoked and unlawful military invasion of Ukraine, and Darcy is going to talk about his trip there with his team of creative people, where he talked to artists, poets, musicians about what it's like to live under the watch of an unlawful and unprovoked military invasion by Putin. So there's my long-winded introduction. Darcy Adam and welcome to Humans on Rights.

 

Speaker 1  03:40

Well, thank you for having me. That was a very generous introduction.

 

Stuart Murray  03:44

Well, there's a lot more to be said, Darcy. You and I have had a chance to talk about a number of things, but let me just kind of get a sense of who you are and how you got involved in these amazing projects you're involved in. I did say in your bio that you graduated from the University of Manitoba, and I believe you graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. Were you raised in Winnipeg? Did you grow up here?

 

Speaker 1  04:07

Yes, that's correct. Yeah, born and raised.

 

Stuart Murray  04:09

And where did you go to school in Winnipeg, Darcy?

 

Speaker 1  04:12

Oh, how far back do you want to go? I grew up in Transcona, so for one point I was in French immersion for a while, and then the University of Manitoba.

 

Stuart Murray  04:24

So, Darcy, at what point, as you're going through high school, learning towards getting to university, where did your interest in music start?

 

Speaker 1  04:36

You know, really young. I think it was just part of my DNA growing up, even though with the family wasn't particularly a musical family, but I have very distinct memories to this day of literally the first vinyl record I ever got as a kid, and I still have it.

 

Stuart Murray  04:54

What is it? What's it called?

 

Speaker 1  04:56

It was the Smurfs, three or four, right? How. I still have it, and I just think memories of my favorite song shortly thereafter. After that was Laura Brown against Queen of Hearts, and then I Have a Tiger by Survivor, and I was still quite young in elementary school, and then it kind of went from there.

 

Stuart Murray  05:16

And at that point, Darcy, I mean, look, my I can remember my first one was, I think it was a K-Tel collection, was my first album, but the notion that you have that influence at that young age, did you get a sense that you wanted to be a musician, you wanted to be a producer? I mean, maybe you didn't understand at that younger age what a producer was, but how did you see music starting to shape your life as you were getting ready for university, and then ultimately to make Music matters.org

 

Speaker 1  05:46

That sort of journey again started pretty quick in childhood, I think, wanting to be a musician at some point, and then ebbing into the producer role, because as a producer you can work with many different artists that way, so your palettes a bit wider, and quite frankly, there was an aspect of, as a producer, I know I'm going to show up every day and do the job in the studio, so I didn't have to rely on other people to also be on the same page, you know, when you're playing in a band, everyone has to be on the same page all the time, that gets quite difficult the older you get. So, as a producer, it was just about myself showing up that I'm quite confident in, and even before I could articulate it, I always had a strong feeling of even listening to music made me feel special. I don't even know why, even as a kid, it just made me feel special, and I want to get closer and closer to that feeling, and it's still something I chase to this day.

 

Stuart Murray  06:52

And did you learn to play an instrument, Darcy? Did you have a desire to play a guitar, piano, or something?

 

Speaker 1  06:58

Yeah, I did a lot of things very poorly that way, so you know, very bad on keyboards, and an even worse singer, even though I had many years of classical training, but it led me to be a really great vocal coach in the US, where I got my break, and then that break, you know, led me to artists, which led me to studios, which led me to, you know, present day,

 

Stuart Murray  07:22

and Darcy, at some juncture, as you're starting to get this sort of sense of the importance of music in your lives, and obviously looking at how it can make an impact on other people's lives, you developed an amazing project that has become extremely important globally, but it under the notion, and I don't know if your first foray was Make Music matters.org which is the website, if anybody's listening to this, wants to go to Follow Ink, it's an incredible website, but How did Make Music Matter become kind of your go-to, kind of the thematic that was going to become who Darcy Adam and was,

 

Speaker 1  08:05

yeah, and it wasn't an intention whatsoever. So during that period I was living in Philadelphia and living with a fantastic recording engineer by the name of Shelley Yakus, who ended up being not only my roommate in Philadelphia, but mentor, so you know, Shelly had recorded countless classic albums, from, you know, YouTube to John Lennon to Tom Petty to Fleetwood Mac, I mean, Alice Cooper, it just goes on and on and on, and I had the good fortune to get really close to him, as, as you know, as, as a, as a friend, mentor, and then just doing projects together, while that was occurring, it was in the, it was in the time period where you had to dial up the internet, and the one computer in the office had the internet kind of deal, and so if you're worth anything as a producer, it usually means you're in the studio 16 hours a day, and, and not really being part of normal society whatsoever. So that's what I was doing in Philadelphia, and to take breaks that just kind of reboot my brain, I would go online, and at one point I discovered things like the BBC News and Al Jazeera, and it was a whole new world, and I started reading about at the time the AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, which was killing roughly about 5600 people a day during the during its apex, and I just could not believe it, like, why isn't this in the newspaper in Winnipeg at home? Like, I was just, I was so, you know, naive to that outside world at that point, and I started to get very obsessed with the subject matter and the injustice gap of it, and I started to do one-off projects under the under the moniker Song for Africa, and it wasn't a formal or. Organization, it was just, it was one-off projects, in the sense of, okay, let's get a.. we did a big CD single for the AIDS conference in 2006 it was, which made it the number two in the country, and then we did a documentary, and each project over the years was meant to be like, okay, I'm taking a year off and going back to my quote unquote regular life, taking a year off, go back to her, and it just never happened, you know. Eventually I got the idea for the Healing and Harmony program, which what Make Music Matter has been built around, and once that occurred, I just, you know, I just never came home, so to speak.

 

Stuart Murray  10:39

So, Darcy, let's just spend a moment on putting some artists together to create the song that you kind of were the notion of what was happening in Africa around AIDS and the impact that it had on you personally. How do you go about putting a bunch of artists together, convincing them to get them into a studio to say here's what we need to do. I mean, I understand there's a lot of humanitarian artists out there, I get that. But how did you do it? Just tell us the process that you went through, and some of the artists that you were able to convince to be a part of this process.

 

Speaker 1  11:12

Yeah, that was my first foray into, frankly, the power of a well-written email, and really that has been the bulk of my life, that you know, that way, and that was during the era of Myspace till 2006 So I just started reaching out to artists in a cold way, and the trick is, once you get one or two that are anchors, that are, you know, that have a lot of cache and celebrities, it will attract the others, so in the first song for Africa CD single and song, I was very lucky to get Ian Desa's email from a mutual friend, I think it was the great songwriter Simon Wilcox, and she just gave me his email and said feel free to try, and I still remember I cold emailed him, explained the project, and said, 'You don't know me, but here's our mutual friend. Would you like to play in an aid song? And he responded within 45 minutes and said, 'Sure, I'm in, and that was it. And we've been friends ever since. And then, once he was there, frankly, I used his celebrity to pull in the other, so to speak,

 

Stuart Murray  12:25

and so once you've put that together, I mean, it kind of elevates, you know, your status within the industry about your ability to bring people together to create something that is meaningful, and where did kind of healing and harmony. I'm just trying to get a sense of the timeline, Darcy, where healing and harmony came along with respect to Make Music Mattered.

 

Speaker 1  12:50

Make Music Matter was built around healing and harmony, you know what? Once that came into play, we did a pivot, and then sort of like a rebranding into Make Music Matter and formalizing as a nonprofit and charity. How that came about, you know, very quickly, because it could be a very long story. Was 2009 in Rwanda, I was again still doing one-off projects, and I was recording an album with David Bottrol in, in Rwanda, just, just having Rwandan artists collaborate with Canadians, that was the idea, while filming a documentary, and in a couple of days, two, two really important things happened, starting in a few days' span. One, I'd learned about a secret sort of offsite prison that the Rwandan government at the time was utilizing to clean up the streets, so post genocide there's a lot, and there's, you know, still is some, a lot of orphans baking on the streets just to survive, because their whole families were decimated, sadly, but optically, you know, that did not look good for trying to rebuild the country, so the government had a secret policy where they'd round these young kids up, throw them in these were secret warehouses with other other adults, criminals, and either sometimes, I mean, frankly, most of the time they didn't survive, so I naively went to this place through some secret contacts, trying to save them, and frankly, and release them, and it did not go well, sadly for myself or those prisoners. I was locked up for a little while as well, and threaten execution, and had to listen, you know, to very young kids having their lives cut short, and then cut to a few days later we had one day off in this five week period, and we decided to give the local kids a fun day of recording, and so we went to this little village in Rwanda, three hours away. In the city, and the whole village had been waiting for us the whole morning, and the school room where we set up and was packed with kids, and there was kids literally calling through the windows trying to get in, and so that was sort of the first aha moment of how special and how music really does traverse any geographical geopolitical lines, and then they were all dressed up in these homemade hip hop outfits, and knew the lyrics, the latest rap songs, even though they didn't have electricity in the huts where they were living, and that was fascinating, but then the kicker was they handed us the lyrics of the songs they'd written for us to record, and it was all very heavy subject matter. It was about HIV, AIDS, what had done to their communities, their rights not to sell their bodies to live another day. These are 1314, year old youth, and we did not give them any direction on what to write about, but that was what's on their minds, and what we realized music was an acceptable way to talk about taboo subject matter. So it was that moment where healing and harmony was born. The idea of it, anyway, then many years to, you know, develop it afterwards.

 

Stuart Murray  16:16

And how does somebody that you know from Winnipeg, I know you spent time in the states, in Philadelphia. How do you find yourself in Rwanda?

 

Speaker 1  16:25

Oh, well, geez, I sometimes wonder how I end up in those areas, quite frankly, quite honestly. But it just really comes down to I'm deeply propelled by, again, sort of the notion, and I'm not the one to have coined this, but the lottery of where you're born in the context of, and all that sort of stuff, and when I see something happen the way I'm hardwired, if I see a news story, I don't think, oh, that's terrible, and then I turn the page, and you know, go to dinner, I, for whatever reason, am deeply hardwired to I see the new story, like, say, what's happening in Rwanda at the time, and I feel it's my personal responsibility to fix it as a human being, so that compulsion gets me to these areas all the time, as I deeply feel like there's no borders, we are all interconnected. If somebody's suffering on mass, chances are someone's benefiting from that, and chances are it's us in some way, and because of that, again, I feel deeply responsible, and I do all I can to do my part in the world.

 

Stuart Murray  17:37

So, you go to Rwanda, obviously you're there to help you know children, others, anybody who you see is being punished. How do you find the ability to operate in a country? You're a Canadian citizen, do you need permission or do you go under the radar? You're putting yourself in a very, very dangerous situation, mentioning the fact that you were thrown in jail and threatened with execution. How do you operate in a country like Rwanda, doing what you're doing? Does the government support you? Are they aware? Do you need some permissions? What enables you to do that?

 

Speaker 1  18:20

Yeah, generally speaking, the way Make Music Matter operates is, is, is operations are through local partnerships and NGOs and their local branches. So all of our operational staff are indigenous to the community, and that's part of our ethos, but because of that, then we get to operate because that local partner already has the status and the acceptance by the government to do x sort of operations and then we partner with them and work through them so it is accepted that that being said that particular incident which was a long time ago you know was part of my learning curve, you know. Since then, sadly, I've had a telephone book of those experiences, and you, you learn that no matter how hard you try, you can't save everybody in the world, and, and in calculations have to be made. So that Rwanda example was, was a really important one to me, because I think what you're driving at is, you know, when that incident occurred and was deeply affecting me for many, many years afterwards, I had offers to write op-eds about it, and things like that, and I was told, without naming names by very credible organizations and people, that if you do that, you are dead, like they, that you know the bad guys will just pay off someone local here to, quote unquote, take you out, so you have to, and then you'll never be able to go into the country again and operate, and maybe help more people. People, so you have to do this weird perverse calculation on where you can best serve, and that's that's always a really hard line.

 

Stuart Murray  20:08

Yeah, so in other words, the advice was you've seen something, you've witnessed it, if you go public with it, in whether it's written piece or any other way that that country, and I guess we can say Rwanda at this point. That's the conversation we're having, that someone there would be offended by what you're doing, by breaking some truths, speaking truth to power, and would put you in further danger.

 

Speaker 1  20:36

Yes, that's exactly it. And again, so those calculations are done constantly, unfortunately.

 

Stuart Murray  20:42

So, then, Darcy, you partner with a local foundation or local organization that is legitimate, that allows you as a partner to do the kind of work that you're doing in those countries. Is that correct?

 

Speaker 1  20:56

Exactly. Yeah, it not only helps logistically, quite frankly, the delivery of your services is tenfold better, always.

 

Stuart Murray  21:06

So, Darcy, how is it that you came to meet with Nobel laureate Dr. Dennis McQueege?

 

Speaker 1  21:13

That's a really important note, actually, to anyone listening hoping to inspire to do this type of work, because before he won the Nobel laureate, he was already sort of a known celebrity, so to speak, in the NGO and humanitarian sector, you know, he was

 

Stuart Murray  21:30

living where, sorry, Darcy, where was he living at? Oh, sorry,

 

Speaker 1  21:32

in Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, so he's in Eastern Congo, where the bulk of the conflict is taking place literally to this day, but since he's also survived multiple assassination attempts, the most public being in 2014 and I was there for two of them. He's understandably very reticent of outsiders, right, because he literally gets death threats every day and lives in the hospital under UN protection, he only leaves to travel internationally, and also because a place like that is so busy crisis managing every day, they don't have time for people that want to come once and then never come back, they just can't, so the way I met him was, I got into the country through General Romeo Dallaire. He was able to help with my visa. He's a great friend and a wonderful hero of this country, as you know,

 

Stuart Murray  22:32

truly is. Yeah, then

 

Speaker 1  22:33

I had a friend who was a researcher at Harvard at the time, vouch for me to get into the gates. She had been doing research there for many years. She had the contacts, she vouched for me, and then I literally just refused to leave. I lived there off and on as a local without electricity, running water, all that for three years, and followed up on every promise I gave Dr. McCoy gave for three years before he granted me the first meeting with them, and that's how I built the bond, was was proving I would be there for a lifetime for the right reasons.

 

Stuart Murray  23:11

Now you used a term, Darcy, that somebody helped to get you through the gates, is that just a generic, or does that reference something specific?

 

Speaker 1  23:20

That's, that's literally like actual the gates, so this, the Pansy Hospital is situated in the middle of a very unstable and dangerous slum, so there is gates, fences, guard towers, you know, all that stuff. Unfortunately,

 

Stuart Murray  23:37

right. Tell me a little bit about Dr. Dennis McQueigy, I know that you brought him to Winnipeg, so I have some knowledge, but for those that are listening, just tell us what a remarkable human being this person is.

 

Speaker 1  23:50

Yeah, he's definitely my greatest hero in life, and the person I look up to the most, you know, for someone that I've known for quite a while now, and sit and text each other for WhatsApp. I am still utterly floored every interaction with them on how special of a man this is. He is a literal genius, that's number one. So he's a literal genius that again won the Nobel, and can't get any higher than that. Who could be living a comfortable life anywhere in the world as a doctor or professor right now? He's done more than enough, and he chooses to again literally live within the hospital grounds, making next to nothing, and has to have guards, the UN guards, even to go to the washroom in the hospital. They follow him everywhere, actively chooses to sort of give up his life that way to serve the most vulnerable, the most poor. It's, it's staggering, because you know the. The difference is he understands the outside world. He travels all the time, make you know, he dines with presidents and world leaders, and at the highest, you know, at the highest level, very good friends with President Biden and Macron from France, and all that. So he goes to these high level things, and then his home is going back to the slum, so he's just a remarkable, you know, human being who, you know, again, as a surgeon, is brilliant, and can I joke, he sees through time, whenever I'm with them, I will say something, and his chest moves are five years ahead, and not only that, it's really the selfless nature of things, like none of the prize money checks are written to him, they're directly written to the hospital. Nobel $1 million went right to the hospital, like there's no, there's no in between, there's no nothing. He doesn't take anything, and I just can't say enough about him. He's one of those people you just have to experience.

 

Stuart Murray  25:58

Thank you very much for bringing him to Winnipeg, that's a journey, and it's always great to have people you know of his stature and his sort of DNA and record, and what he's done in the community to share that, and for you to share him with others to be able to meet him. Can you tell me, Darcy, is there a relationship between the incredible work that Dr. McQuaigy does and music,

 

Speaker 1  26:24

yes, so our our healing and harmony program is their flagship program for their psychosocial pillar. So Dr. McQuaigy came up with this holistic care model, and and part of it was realizing that sadly, all the women that go through the hospital to be repaired physically from the sexual violence that they, that happens over there, you know, he quickly realized they also needed psychological, mental, and spiritual healing in order to go back to their communities and be part of the economy again. It wasn't just physical surgery, and that time very well with myself, and make Music Matter, wanting to operate there in the beginning. When you start something new, you have a lot of naysayers, you know, and you know, especially music. So, when I went around to donors and other partners saying, hey, I got this idea to bring music to an active conflict zone to help. I got ignored and laughed at for many years. So I wanted to go to Pansy because I wanted to at first integrate into a hospital system because then I thought I could track my results and show people quantitative data about what we're doing, and that's how him and I sort of linked up, of like he knew intrinsically how music in Congo is part of the air. There you walk around, you can be the furthest reaching huts in the rural areas, and you will hear people singing and harmonizing like their profession. It's incredible, so he knew that, and I knew I needed him to help again track and quantify results, and that's how that partnership occurred. But to finish, if we weren't effective, we would be gone. There's no room for ego either, and I say this to everyone, either you, you're the best use of X space, or you have to go, so if we weren't effective, you know, he would be nice to me still, but we would not be, we would not be working together around the world, and he would not be, you know, taking my calls still, if again, if we weren't effective,

 

Stuart Murray  28:39

so I want to just sort of go back to something that you and I shared one of the numerous times that we've had our own personal conversations. Darcy, first and foremost, just let listeners know when you refer to Pansy, what are you referring to there?

 

Speaker 1  28:54

Oh, sorry, yes, it's the Pansy Hospital in Bukavu, which is a general hospital, but it's well, most well known for repairing women who have survived horrific sexual violence.

 

Stuart Murray  29:06

Yeah, and one of the things that we talked about was that issue, and so any woman who has been shattered through sexual violence, the process of trying to look at how do you repair that person emotionally, physically, mentally? I mean, all of that. That really is, I think, what you and Dr. McQueege are doing. If I, if I understand correctly.

 

Speaker 1  29:30

Yes, correct. Yeah.

 

Stuart Murray  29:32

Can you give us a couple of examples of how that works, Darcy? Specifically, that what you have done on that journey,

 

Speaker 1  29:39

in terms of the model and program itself, what it's meant to do, and it does it very well, is to heal PTSD, anxiety, and depression. So, in terms of trauma, those are the three primary mental health indicators, is PTSD, anxiety, and depression. So, we work to, to, to reduce or eliminate that. Aspect of it, and which is critically important, because in these areas where NGOs operate, there's lots of services provided, sometimes you know, education opportunities, skills training, micro financing, all of that is completely useless if you're so traumatized nothing's going to stick in your head, you can't get out of bed in the morning because you're too traumatized, you know, so you need that other piece to make all the other ones work. So we use a fun way, the creative process to do that. So we actually build recording studios in these areas. So at Pansy Hospital, we have a recording studio right in there, and the women come in, we treat them, we call them artists, not patients. They work with a local music producer alongside a local psychologist in the studio. They go through the process of writing, recording an album like any other artists. While that occurs, we've developed a way to interject therapy in a way that's not particularly noticeable, so therefore they don't come in thinking, "Oh boy, I'm here for my therapy appointment, which still has a lot of stigma. They come in thinking, "I'm in a studio, I'm getting to record, this is so fun. And I guarantee you, in Eastern Congo, we're the only studios around, so while that's happening, we can interject the therapy, and it's, it's extremely effective. The output of that is it's music, so we have recorded albums that get distributed around the world. We have a A for A has a deal with Warner Music Canada. All these albums are out globally on every platform, and what that does is help to reduce stigma, because you know, and I let me just say to the listeners, as a male, I feel awful talking about the subject matter, because I'm part of the problem, so to speak, but it is what it is, but so the music gets disseminated to help reduce stigma, because it's by the women who have gone through this, so you're creating empathy in the community, so they can be allowed back in the community, and for the women or the artists writing, recording, and releasing this music, it helps to shift the power paradigm, that's also very important, because if you've come to say Pansy Hospital, because you need to get this surgery. You're already living in a conflict zone and very poor. Now you've had all your power taken away. You have nothing, no money. Chances are, your husband kicked you out of the home, no fault of your own, but you know you've been ostracized. You literally have nothing. But we try to demonstrate, look, you did the song, the whole world could hear it. Therefore, you have power, and that really helps us start to rebuild people's self-worth and their agency again, and reduces the isolation.

 

Stuart Murray  32:56

Having spent a bit of time on your website, Make Music matter.org There's a lot of information that you were referencing in this conversation, but I guess the question, Darcy, if you talk about these women who are now artists because you've given them the opportunity to become such, is there a way that anybody listening to this might say, 'Wow, how would I go about listening to some of these artists? Where might I go? You mentioned, did you say Warner Brothers?

 

Speaker 1  33:26

Yeah, we're really, really fortunate that, and now he works for Mahesic Matter. The president at the time, Steve Cain, you know, we approached him and he got it right away and gave us a distribution deal, and they've been incredibly supportive, and then a new president recently came in, and she, as well, renewed our deal, and loves us. So, people can go to Make Music commander.org you click the Music tab, and you will see links to at least 35 albums out from places all over the world. Wow, yeah, amazing. Thanks for sharing that, Darcy. I want to pivot to a moment, but you've spent a fair bit of time in your professional career with the process of obviously under Make Music Matter with the Innovative Healing and Harmony program. You seem to have spent a lot of time in Africa. You have recently, and when you and I had a tremendous opportunity to have coffee and talk about, I think it was just before you were getting

 

Stuart Murray  34:30

the order of Manitoba, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken. Congratulations on that.

 

Speaker 1  34:33

Thank you. Well,

 

Stuart Murray  34:35

thank you, Darcy. You, you talked a little bit about a journey that you were looking at going into Ukraine, knowing that on february 24 2022 that Russia launched that unprovoked and unlawful military invasion of Ukraine. What drew you to go to Ukraine?

 

Speaker 1  34:53

It's a few different things, you know. Number one, on my father's side, I'm Ukrainian, which someone from. Winnipeg, not a great shock, I know, but you know that's that's what it was. So I grew up with those World War Two stories, literally, literally grew up on those stories. So you know, the empathy for the home, one of the home countries, so to speak, was really great. And again, when I see something on the news, I whether this is a good or bad trait, it's up for debate, quite honestly, but I can't stop at that's awful. Let's again continue on with our lives. I deeply feel I have to do something, like I feel like it's my responsibility, and so with this Ukrainian artists united project, it was my way of doing something, and, and also, you mentioned I spent a lot of time in Africa, and I, and I have, I, I lost count at trip number 30 something, so you know, and I'll be planning, trying to go again soon, so I spent a lot of time in these areas, and I know, I know, one war is extremely isolating. You do feel like you're the only person going through it, because I have survived many, you know, times when there's an attack where I was, and you have to, you know, hide, run, flee. It's extremely isolating, and you feel like you're the only person going through it, and you feel like, where's the rest of the world? So, when the war in Ukraine broke out, and it was one that the media was paying more attention to, quite honestly, compared to the conflicts in Africa, I thought this was a great opportunity to humanize conflict, because these are all individual people that walk the earth and not numbers and I thought this project, you know, this was an opportunity again to humanize conflict.

 

Stuart Murray  36:51

So, tell us about the process. I mean, you're going into a war zone, you're a civilian going into a war zone. What's the process of departing Winnipeg on an airplane and finding yourself in a war-torn country like Ukraine and engaging with artists? How does that all come together?

 

Speaker 1  37:12

I mean, I have a practical answer, and, and the philosophical one is not great, because, because what you just said, I had a lot of people in my life come up, say the same thing, of like what you're doing, what, and how are you going to do it, and the truth of the matter is these things I'm just very comfortable with, I'm extremely uncomfortable with everyday regular life, you know, the exchange with the barista to get my coffee or going to a grocery store is really a lot of, as really hard for me, or anything to that ilk, but coming up with an idea to go to Ukraine to do an art project, it's the oddest thing, is it makes complete sense to me, and it does, it does not give me anxiety whatsoever, compared to everyday life. So, with that, and I'm used to being in these areas, you know, I was accused of being a spy in Southern Sudan, and had to flee there, so all these things are, I've just grown a pretty good muscle for, so for Ukraine, I have a great friend who's from Kyiv that I met as a translator interpreter in conferences around the world, and so I just hired him and said, "Can you find us artists and we'll figure it out as we go along, so to speak? And luckily, my great friend Jason, the photographer in Los Angeles has the same sort of attitude, you know. We hire, I hired my friend Volodymyr, the, to acquire the artist and to sort of do the logistics, and he hired a driver in a van. We flew into Warsaw and just drove eight hours into Lviv, and I'll be honest, it confused the border guards in Ukraine when they searched our van and said, "You're doing what? And then they said, "Okay, that sounds good.

 

Stuart Murray  39:11

Yeah, let us know when you launch this project. It sounds interesting, right?

 

Speaker 1  39:15

Exactly. So,

 

Stuart Murray  39:16

yeah,

 

Speaker 1  39:17

I know that's not a really great, clear answer, but it's just the proof,

 

Stuart Murray  39:21

yeah. So, tell us a little bit about you. Arrived now, you're there's these artists there, you spend some time with them, you've got an interpreter. How many days were you there? And let's lead into how this has now established the exhibit, Ukrainian Artists United, which is on full display at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. I know you had a spectacular launch in Ottawa. I'd like to hear about that, but how did that get you to talk about, you know, meeting these artists and getting a sense of how many days were you there?

 

Speaker 1  39:54

It was pretty quick and intense, just because of budget, so it was an eight day trip, eight or nine day trip. Up all around, so you know where we were. There was 11 artists we documented, which meant I think a couple of days we had four. The other days we had three each day to meet, and you know it's exhausting, but I absolutely loved it. And the reason is one, I just love interacting with any type of artists is one, but two, you know, you go, you're in a charged area because it's an active war zone, and we have three nights where we had air raid air raid sirens, one being the first night, so being woken up in the pitch dart to an air raid siren was a little disturbing, I admit, so you're in a charged area, and then you're interacting with smart people, but English is not their first language, so everything they're saying is very well selected and chosen. There's such an intentionality to what they're trying to get across to you, and vice versa. So you develop a really intense, intimate bond right away with people, and it's, it's, it's really fulfilling, you know, in that way. And then, after people were, you know, the artists were just so joyous to express themselves in any way. We had this violin player that I, you know, recorded, and she was incredible, and it was late already, and we're frankly tired, and she's so excited. She's like, "Well, I want to sing for you too. And I admit in my head at the time was like, "Oh, I want to go have dinner for good. We, I got enough stuff, but you know, respectfully, you know, you want to do that. And then she was incredible as a singer.

 

Stuart Murray  41:39

Yeah,

 

Speaker 1  41:39

and it's in the piece now.

 

Stuart Murray  41:41

Yeah, wonderful. Yeah, just sort of one of those organic things that happens between artists, right? So

 

Speaker 1  41:45

exactly.

 

Stuart Murray  41:47

And Darcy, what was the feeling that you had when you left these artists as you kind of lifted off from Ukraine, heading back to Canada?

 

Speaker 1  41:54

Okay, I'll answer that, and I have one little anecdote I really want to tell.

 

Stuart Murray  41:58

Absolutely, yeah,

 

Speaker 1  42:00

but the important part, in terms of departing, is the same. The importance of how you depart was the same as how you got in there, and what I mean by that is this project could have easily been done over Zoom. We could have taken photos over Zoom, you know, for example, Blatan did that once, Edward Snowden, because he couldn't go anywhere, so we could have done that. The artist could have sent us files, you know. We could have created these scores for these digital paintings through that, but you have to show up. You have to work with them one on one as artists. You have to demonstrate that you care enough about what they're going through to actually come and live it with them for a while, that is critically important. So, leaving it's the same thing, it's not. Thank you. This was wonderful. Now I can't wait to get this up and have, have some, you know, media attention. You know, you have to stay in touch with them the whole time. So, to this day, this morning, I still talk to most of them, quite honestly, and they want to know what's happening with it, because again, it makes them feel connected to, to, to the world, and in fact, the installation, the exhibit at the Cay Museum for Human Rights has a component where you can then contact these artists, so they're so they remain a part of it, so they're not used, you know, so they actually, you know, get something out of

 

Stuart Murray  43:26

it. Yeah. Fantastic. Was there an anecdote that you wanted to touch back on?

 

Speaker 1  43:30

Yes. Yes, it was the first night, and I love this, because it demonstrates, you know, again, the humanity, and truly the whole cliche of what Musik can do is not a cliche, it's actually true. So, the first night we get in, I had 13 hours of flight delays getting into Warsaw, slept three hours, get up, drive into a new war zone, very tired and jet-lagged. We're working with this rock band the first night, and it's off to a first and shaky start, because somebody in the area sees, you know, you know, the photographer taking photos, and everyone gets very worried that Russia is going to use that to track people and bomb, and you know, so we're in reality very quickly, so I'm trying to bond with this band, and again, English not the first language, and I just talking to him, like, well, what's your, you know, we both look like punk rock, like, what's your favorite group? And he literally took him a little bit, and he said, oh, it's Billy Talent,

 

Stuart Murray  44:39

perfect,

 

Speaker 1  44:39

and I couldn't believe it, it's like, you know, Ian Desa is one of my closest friends, and I showed him the text message exchange of Ian agreeing to play on whatever I wanted for this project, like, whatever you need, Darcy, like, we, I'll do it, and they couldn't believe it, that their favorite band of all time was going to essentially collect. Collaborate with them,

 

Stuart Murray  45:01

amazing,

 

Speaker 2  45:01

because

 

Speaker 1  45:02

with that piece I recorded the drums and chopped up the drums, and then interviewed the gentleman, and then Ian played guitar and bass on top. It's phenomenal. That night, when I got back to the hotel in Lviv, their guitar player for this band, who's a medical doctor as well, is on the front lines fighting. He found me on social media and messaged me, saying how much it means to him when it's helping him to keep fighting and surviving already, like it's incredible.

 

Stuart Murray  45:33

Yeah, and you know, Billy Talent, I know that your relationship is very tight there to be able to have that conversation in war-torn Ukraine with another artist, I mean, it just.. I'm trying to be more creative, but all I can sort of come back to is the name of your organization, Make Music Matter. It does, and it is right. I mean, it's incredible.

 

Speaker 1  45:53

It really does. And kudos to these other artists, and I'm not sure if I should say it or not, but all these guest artists, like guys from Really Talent in the Truths, and you know, do you have some real.. we have a lot of A-listers that collaborated, they all did it on a handshake and friendship, no money, no paperwork, that was it.

 

Stuart Murray  46:16

Yeah, no, and that's.. I mean, that clearly is, is kind of your MO, Darcy. I mean, it's how you roll and how you operate, and why you've been as successful as you have been in some very challenging and difficult circumstances. Tell us a little bit about your launch in Ottawa with the launch of the Ukrainian Artists United Project.

 

Speaker 1  46:34

Yeah, thank you. That was a really fantastic night to me. It was important to have symbolically like a federal launch, you know, since again, you know, the most number Ukrainians outside Ukraine is Canada, specifically Winnipeg. I wanted a federal launch to then ebb into the installation at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, so we had a great event on on the hill with the member of parliament Charlie Angus and Heather McPherson that did sponsor the event, and we had members from all parties that showed up, and seven ambassadors, including the one from Ukraine, who came and spoke very highly of the piece as a, as art, and unprompted in her speech, talked how excited she was, it was going to be at the museum,

 

Stuart Murray  47:25

right?

 

Speaker 1  47:26

So very special,

 

Stuart Murray  47:28

yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And so, congratulations on that, Darcy, that's amazing to be able to sort of, you know, kind of get that launch right, as you say, federally, and then you're bringing it into what the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, located in Winnipeg, is a national treasure. If people go to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in the month of February to see your exhibit that you've curated, along with the CMHR, Ukrainian Artists United, what will they see, Darcy?

 

Speaker 1  47:56

They're going to see 11 different phenomenal artists from Ukraine, like, ranging from, you know, again, violin players, guitar, rock band, a cappella group. I'm trying to remember who, you know, who else, one member of parliament from Ukraine, who's an incredible singer, an art curator, a pen prize-winning poet, a painter, like just brilliant people, you're going to see their moving image, like a digital painting, so to speak, of the photo we took of them, and with that, there's a two minute score that's embedded into their image, half of it is what I recorded there with them, like pieces and samples are recorded with them, then those samples I farmed out to these well-known musicians, and we collaborated to create these scores. So, half the music, and you hear their voice, is from Ukraine, recorded by me there, and then collaborated with all these A-listers from Canada.

 

Stuart Murray  48:57

So it's very immersive. You get a real chance to sort of get immersed in sort of the whole project, you get a real sense of what Darcy Adam and wanted to do and what you actually achieved.

 

Speaker 1  49:08

Yes, yes,

 

Stuart Murray  49:09

yeah, yeah, amazing. So, Darcy, I think it's incredible that you've been able to do this from a very young age to where you are today. You've achieved a tremendous amount. And two questions I had for you before we take the off ramp. Number one is, what would you like people to take away from the exhibit that is currently at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, called Ukrainian Artists United?

 

Speaker 1  49:35

One main intention of the project was again to humanize conflict, to turn statistics back into people you know, that's that's number one, and I get it, as humans, numbers are very, they're easier to digest, but yet they can become overwhelming when they get too astronomical, and that amounts, so I want to take that back and make sure behind each statistic of people that are suffering. Dying, and all the tragedy are actually flesh and blood people with hopes and dreams through the lens of artists, because that's that's how I see the world.

 

Stuart Murray  50:09

Yeah,

 

Speaker 1  50:09

you know, that's number one. And then hopefully to keep it in the news cycle, frankly, longer and as a long-term thing, it's only the, the, the advocacy for it, but it's the realization that you know it's really still just luck that we're not in the same situation, you know. I hope it doesn't happen, but one day we might be in the same position and need some help from the world.

 

Stuart Murray  50:35

Yeah, I just.. sorry, I apologize for interrupting. I just know I listened to, you know, an interview from somebody who was a Winnipeg, or who was in Kyiv, and his comment, as he was driving around trying to find place for his family, was to say, please don't take freedom for granted.

 

Speaker 1  50:54

It's so true, you know, and I've been personally in enough of these situations, mostly in Africa, but know when actual war starts, it is so enveloping, you are so helpless. I guarantee you, like, if there's automatic gunfire, which tragically I've been around, you know, a fair amount, you have no clue where it's coming from, like everything goes from it's fine, and then a millisecond later, you know what's going on, and you have no power over whatsoever.

 

Stuart Murray  51:29

Yeah. No, I say I can't imagine it, because I can't. I just can't imagine it. You've lived it, you know. It's a hard thing to describe, but I appreciate you, you know, taking the time on this podcast to do that, Darcy, and the second question I had for you, if you can answer it, is what is next for Darcy Adam.

 

Speaker 1  51:49

That's a good question. Well, in terms of making Music Matter, the launch event for this exhibit installation that came with Zoom for Human Rights is February 24 the morning of the 27th I go to a reserve in Alberta to open up the next Healing and Harmony site to help further heal indigenous populations. So immediately that's what you know we're doing, and then myself as an artist, creatively, Jason and I already have some ideas for a larger project that's similar, going to different communities around the world, and doing something you know similar with some new immersive technology as well, digitally.

 

Stuart Murray  52:32

And if anybody wants to get involved or support you, or get a sense of what you're doing, again, it's your website is Make Music matter.org It's a very robust website. Darcy Adam and thank you for taking time to speak with me today. Thank you for all the incredible things that you have done to date, and will do to do your part to change the world and make the world a better place. This has been a pleasure, and I wish you well, and I can't wait to go to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, of which a place I know a little bit about and experience firsthand your incredible exhibit, Ukrainian Artists United.

 

Speaker 1  53:11

Well, thank you so much, Sud, for this opportunity and your generosity.

 

Stuart Murray  53:16

All right, we'll be in touch.

 

Speaker 1  53:17

Thank you.

 

Matt Cundill  53:19

Thanks for listening to Humans on Rights. A transcript of this episode is available by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Humans on Rights is recorded and hosted by Stuart Murray. Social media marketing by Buffy Davey. Music by Doug Edmond. For more, go to Human Rights hub.ca

 

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  53:40

Produced and distributed by the Sound Off Media Company,