CREDIT: JOHN SING
Haviah Mighty guest lecturing to MIA students at Fanshawe in 2019.

The biggest night in Canadian music is set to air this Sunday, and Fanshawe College will be well represented.

Four Fanshawe alumni are nominated at Sunday’s JUNO Awards across three categories, and an additional three are connected to four other nominations.

Viewers can also look forward to a star-studded performance in honour of the 30th anniversary of Rap Recording of the Year category. Joining the performance are six Canadian heavy-hitters along with Fanshawe music industry arts (MIA) grad, Haviah Mighty.


Mighty attended MIA at Fanshawe from 2011 to 2013, and has returned to lecture for the program several times. In March 2019, she performed at Fanshawe's London Downtown Campus as part of Fanshawe Live during JUNO Week.

“To see they're up there performing for that, that's going to be pretty amazing,” said MIA Program Coordinator and JUNO-winner, Dan Brodbeck. “First of all, it's calculated, it's kind of well played out. She very much knows what she's doing. It’s obviously an honor to see somebody like that.”

Mighty, along with five other artists will pay tribute to the 30th anniversary of the JUNO Rap Recording of the Year category and the influence the genre has had on the Canadian music industry.

According to Brodbeck, Mighty showed signs of stardom all the way back when she was first studying MIA at Fanshawe.

“The raw talent, when you saw her up there for the first time, it was pretty jaw-dropping,” said Brodbeck, reminiscing on Mighty’s performance at a Share the Land concert over eight years ago.

Joining Mighty on stage will be four-time JUNO Award winner Kardinal Offishall, two-time JUNO Award winner and multiple JUNO Award nominee Jully Black, two-time JUNO Award winner Maestro Fresh Wes, nine-time JUNO Award nominee NAV, and hip-hop pioneer Michie Mee.

Fanshawe will also be well represented during the awards portion of the night, with four grads nominated for awards and three more tied to other nominations. The MIA program has often churned out success stories, and according to Brodbeck, that’s no accident.

“The program is the best of its kind in the country,” he said. “It was the first of its kind in the country. At first, I think when you go back to the first few years of that program, you see a lot of people that went through that are the cornerstone of the music business in Canada. It was the only place to go. So I think we have that kind of legacy.”

The following Fanshawe grads are up for awards at Sunday’s ceremony:

• Dubmatix (Jesse E. King, Recording Engineering 1993) - Reggae Recording of the Year
• George Seara (Recording Engineering 1997) - Recording Engineer of the Year
• John “Beetle” Bailey (Recording Engineer 1990) - Recording Engineer of the Year
• Half Moon Run (Devin Portielje, Music Industry Arts 2009) - Group of the Year
• Justin Meli (MIA, 2015) engineered “Dizzy” which is nominated for Alternative Album of the Year
• Darren McGill (MIA 2015) worked on “This Place Sucks Ass” and “Pray for It” nominated for Alternative Album of the Year and “A Beautiful Place to Drown” nominated for Rock Album of the Year. 
• Jesse Slack (MIA 2011) co-wrote a song on “Jade Eagleson”, nominated for Country Album of the Year

You can catch the show at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, globally on cbcmusic.ca/junos and streamed live on CBC Music’s TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages.