CHRISTINA CHENG

ER: What do you do?

CC: I’m a freelance multimedia reporter/journalist, lifestyle blogger, men’s stylist, social media coordinator, copywriter and mother. I create content; tell stories, share experiences and live life through my many passions.

ER: Why East Room?

CC: East Room has become my home away from home. It has given me a safe space/outlet to buckle down, remain focused, get creative and turn my ideas and thoughts into solid form. I’m a night owl who tends to pull all-nighters a few days a week. As someone who holds many titles and has many passions, 24 hours in a day just isn’t enough, and East Room allows me to squeeze in more hours to make magic happen. The walls of East Room have heard all my ideas, even the wildest of them and they’re safe there.

ER: What are three things you need to do your job?

CC: I need my MacBook, my iPhone, and a few runs a week with my Nike Running crew to distress, regroup, and feel inspired.

ER: Do you feel like a freshman, sophomore or senior in your field?

CC: One thing I fear is stagnancy. If one remains stagnant, they are not growing, evolving; being challenged or flourishing by any means. In my creative field/journey, there is always going to be change and advancements. My fields of interest feeds the future. I will (and I hope to) always be relatable to a freshman in some areas, a sophomore in others and a senior in few. To me, success is to never stay sedentary and to constantly create and flourish with opportunities at hand with creative, like-minded individuals. This right here is being a freshman, a sophomore and a senior.

you can follow Christina here. You can find out more about East Room here.

As told to: Olivia Seally / Photos by: Michael Rousseau

AMANDA LEW KEE

ER: What do you do?

ALK: I dream of cool ideas and make them into tangible realities. Creative Design & Product Development

ER: Why East Room?

ALK: I enjoy being in the company of like minded people. A creative, healthy and productive environment goes hand in hand with working outside the box and pushing new boundaries. A community is only as great as the contribution of it's members. The East Room is a beautiful space filled with friendly talented individuals.

ER: What are three things you need to do your job?

ALK: Inspiration, collaboration, technical skill.

ER: Do you feel like a freshman, sophomore or senior in your field?

ALK: I start the day feeling like a freshman ready to take on any challenge or lesson that may come my way. Mid-day I feel like a sophomore researching, referencing, problem solving, and developing skills. By the end of the day I feel like a senior. I reflect on the trust I have in my intuition, the craft and skills that I have honed, as well as my support network of mentors, friends and family. But on my better days I'm a freshman in every aspect, always ready, always learning, and never jaded.

you can check out Amanda's work here and follow her here. You can find out more about East Room here.

As told to: Olivia Seally / Photos by: Michael Rousseau

HUSTLEGRL

My name is Karla, I am 23 years old and my birthplace is the Congo. I've lived in Toronto for about seventeen years.

FF - What were you doing five years ago?

KM - I was fresh out of high school and I took a year off to tour with Drake. It just started with me being a fan and him not having enough online presence so I took it upon myself to start a fan site. So he asked me to come on tour and I already wanted to take a year off because I didn't want to go straight into University, so I took a year off and just hustled hard that year. It was fun! Going from city to city, it's the same show every night but a different crowd and I was eighteen years old and ready to explore the world and it was a really great experience.

FF - What do you do now?

KM - Now I still design, I still do photography on the side, I work on the Remix Project - I am the Creative Arts Programmer here at Remix, and I also DJ. 

FF - Tell us about the Remix Project…

KM - the Remix Project is an amazing arts program funded by the government, there’s three streams: the art of business, creative arts and recording arts, so obviously music, visual art and business. So it’s a 9 month program for at risk youth age 16-23. We only accept 15 students in each stream every year, it starts in February and ends in November. We help them accomplish their goals, get internships and jobs and stuff like that. When you’re here you’re surrounded by likeminded people, it’s not often that you’ll get to meet another creative person that has similar values and morals, so it’s really cool to be in a creative space like that.

FF - How did DJing start for you?

KM - I've always loved music and always tried to think of different platforms to share the music that I love, so I was like hey why not start DJing?! I was surrounded by performing artists and DJs and so I reached out to a friend of mine, DJ Romeo, and working at the Remix Project, we have access to DJ equipment (laughs) so I'd stay after work and learn how to use turntables and the mixer and DJ Romeo put me on to the DJ game. I'm still learning, I need to polish my scratching skills but to get a hang of it it took a month and a half just to know how everything works, but for me to be able to perform and be comfortable with that it took me like three or four months.

FF - What's your goal?

KM - My end goal is to have a creative agency, I would love to be able to have my own creative space and staff to provide marketing and branding services. I want that team to design what we need to do for a client, or come up with a marketing campaign, so I want to have my own Hustlegrl universal empire... Right now Hustlegrl lives on the web and Hustlegrl lives on the streets too, but Hustlegrl needs a home! So I would love to have my own creative space.

FF - If your life was a movie, what would be on its soundtrack?

Destiny's Child - Independent Woman

Rick Ross - Hustlin' 

Eve - Who's that Girl!

you can follow Hustlegrl here.

As told to: Olivia Seally / Photos + Video: Olivia Seally

TYRONE EDWARDS

My name is Tyrone Edwards AKA TRexXx, I'm a blogger, TV personality and Dad. Five years ago I was unemployed, I had no children, I had never been on TV and I was a blogger.

Promoting parties came first… And then in 2007 I created 1LoveTO for the mayor at the time, mayor Miller. He was participating in the 40th anniversary of Caribana and I found out about it the night before and so I wanted to come up with an idea that would speak to the mayor's role in the city and a message that he would be able to stand behind and also a concept that I thought was cool enough to lend my face to. And so the idea is celebrating the diversity of the city, the people that make it up, the idea that we're the world in one city, the idea of really encouraging an exchange versus just tolerating people.

The city needs pride in itself. Civic pride, identity, self worth.

We always used to say that we need exposure, but we have exposure. We don't even really need it as much as we need to understand the contents of this city; like how cool and talented the people are, how much of a benefit it is to grow up in a city like this that is so culturally diverse. I feel like Toronto really needs to expose themselves to each other. And then connect and build.

FF- Who are five people in Toronto to look out for?

TE- Bryan Espiritu from the Legends League is already very accomplished but I just know that there’s so much more that he’s going to do. There’s this young girl named Killa, she’s a DJ but I just know this… she’ll do well in that, some people just have that it factor. She'll be great. Also, I love Shannon Boodram, we have great conversations, she's the shit. Oh! the model Winnie Harlow of course! And then one more… PReign, because he’s a great rapper but overall, he’s a leader. And even though he’s a gangster he’s one of the reason why a lot of people are united and not fighting within Toronto. He’s an influencer, he’s super smart, he’s cocky as shit; he just has all the right ingredients to do amazing things.

FF- Would you say 1LoveTO was the vision that kind of broke you out of the freshmen field?

TE- Yeah, it was one of the first things that I was noticed and recognized and praised for something that came from my mind.. and from my heart. At the time when I did that pitch to Mayor Miller he told me right away you need to trademark this. And I didn't know anything about intellectual property lawyers but, you know, I sourced the information and figured it out and got it done. To be honest, that platform that I created is, I think, the reason why I even got hired on TV. Because there was people at Much following my blog and then when there was an opportunity that they thought I was suitable for they thought of that guy from 1LoveTO.

I didn't go to college with the intent or the idea that I was gonna do any of this but what I did take in college helped out. I mean, first I started out as a kinesiologist, but then when I became a student athlete I actually appreciated learning and the opportunity of going to school for free, on a scholarship for basketball. I really challenged myself and asked myself what it was that I liked… I became an English major, I took some business courses, then a lot of speech courses so I ended up declaring as a speech major, because the courses were more interesting.

The school that I was going to at the time was a private school in Michigan and they had alum that were working for NBC, and there's people that worked on Capitol Hill and DC so I thought some sort of public speaking role might be a good route for me. So yeah, they all kinda just came together in the end.

But what I learned from that was I just needed to do what I felt like doing, like what I was actually passionate about, what I couldn't really go two weeks without doing, without feeling that itch. And

once I started to follow that energy is when, I believe, everything started coming together.

Because it ultimately is who I am and what I've always been interested in. So I planted those seeds and now I'm just trying my best to nurture them.

FF- Do you feel like a freshman, sophomore or senior in your field?

TE- I think I'm a sophomore. I started off in music television with Much Music, where I felt like I was in my junior year, like I was about to graduate. And then I changed my program and went into movies with E!, so a lot like my education, I made the switch before I could graduate. So last year was my first year going to the Golden Globes and the MTV movie awards and really participating in that whole award show season and so I was a freshman, again. And now I'm kind of a sophomore, because there's still a couple things I need to do here… A part of the reason I haven't left Toronto yet is because I understand and feel the pulse of this city. And

there is no Puff Daddy of Toronto,

there is no... well, we'll just leave it at that. There's a lot to be done here.

FF- Do you consider yourself an artist?

TE- In a sense, there’s an art to what I do. And some of my closest friends want me to be a little more strategic and figure out exactly those intricate details of the art of what I do. But I just do. I just make it. I gotta do what feels right. It’s just constantly being humble and being open and wanting more. Wanting more and doing more, you know? My boys and I created this basketball camp years ago called Concrete Hoops and we started off small here in Toronto and then we went to Africa and Brazil but the idea was that we would always be teaching the older guys how to coach as well as play. So they plan and direct and facilitate and create a real infrastructure. Something that can live long after… So that’s what I wanna do with all the other seeds I’ve planted. It’s like.. I have this tattoo on my ribs and LIFE is the prominent thing that you see in big letters. And then around it, it says create… love… live… so I can keep on adding different words. I hate unfinished tattoos but that’s the one tattoo that will always be unfinished because I will constantly be adding to it. And that’s a metaphor for my life, that's what I want to end…

FF- So when it’s all done where do you see yourself? You’re 85, where and what are you doing?

TE- I wanna be in love with one woman, I wanna be in love with my children, I wanna be in love with my legacy, I wanna be able to see my work, I want to create opportunities for other people to do their work.

you can check out Tyrone's blog here and follow him on  twitter and instagram.

as told to: Olivia Seally // photos: Karim Ash