Rising Star Fenom

Fenom a.k.a. Rhonda Thompson, is featured in a full page spread in Mariatalk, Manitoba Francophone Music Scene magazine (Spring 2008.)Fenom is featured with her long braids. There is a soulful look to her. She does not look very happy. Her music career appears to be taking off though. She is listed as a singer/rapper. Fenom is also a part of Bonafide. Fenom has talent and stage presence and she is beautiful. I heard her a couple of times and she holds your attention.

Winnipeg grows a lot of talent but I when you are a minority the path to success is even harder as it is for most minority population trying to make it to the top of their game no matter what that game is.

Fenom said she is not prepared to jump fence yet listening to the advice of Canada's new R&B Diva, Jully Black, who once told her "if everybody runs there is no industry left".

Canada has to do more to achieve equity for artists from minority backgrounds. As Tonya Lee Williams, also known as Dr. Olivia B. Winters on the soap opera "The young and the restless", said Canadians people of colour in the art world are treated differently and not given as much support as white artists. Most of the time artists of colour do not get what they deserve, the grantors or the powers that be always seem to hold back. "It's easier to throw a bone than to do something useful. Don't give $5,000 when you should give $50,000. Why are we getting less?"

The same thing is happening in Winnipeg. Time and again the big funding goes to artists who are white while artists of colour get no grant or a small pittance that do not go very far.

We need change in the way funds are allocated. We need culturally sensitive people doing the decision-making around here.