Sol Guy is an MC with the Rascalz and manager to K’Naan, but it’s his humanitarian work that brings him to Toronto this week to speak at the TEDx Conference.
Taking place today at the Glenn Gould Studio, the conference brings together some of the city’s biggest leaders and change-makers from around the world.
What will you highlight during your speech?
I’m really interested in the relationship that exists between arts and culture, business and social change and the continued evolution of it. And currently I think we’re in a very unique time as media relates to business and its relationship affecting the world.
What’s prevented this from happening?
The things that will pop out and lead us in a new direction have yet to be pinpointed. There are so many people ready to do so many amazing things. Yet there’s not enough unity around it. I think you have to change the language and change the approach with which you decide to engage in these things. If you have the courage to do that we have the chance to do something pretty amazing.
Your War Child-organized trip and documentary in Africa in 2000 was a pretty life changing trip for you.
There was nothing there that was as I thought it should be. I’d never been anywhere where there was a war. And I’d never been anywhere where the people who had been through so much were such amazing human beings who were willing to forgive and go forward. It forced me to examine my value system and where I wanted to focus my energy.
Is that what inspired you to form online community, 4Real?
I felt very disconnected from the people I met there. I took that experience and I started to how I could improve upon it. When entertainment and activism meet, it’s usually a nauseous train wreck. We wanted to bring different celebrities around the world and connect them with these young people doing amazing things to change their communities and make it about us going there as anything but a student.
