Dartmouth music maven aims to elevate rising BIPOC talent

A new entertainment company is hoping to create more opportunities for creative people in the BIPOC community.

Founded by Dartmouth-based Dena Williams, Vitamin Dee Entertainment is a community-focused business that strives to elevate and promote more diverse talent in Halifax by creating opportunities and spaces for artists to share their work.

“I just had this vision (and) I just saw something huge and was like, ‘I want to make that happen,’” explains Williams about where the idea to form Vitamin Dee Entertainment came from. The notion may have been born in 2018 but it wasn’t until May 2019 that Williams formed the company — partly inspired by her own experience as a struggling performer in the industry.

“Because of the structure and just the way things were, it didn’t work out and I was really bummed by that,” explains Williams. “So when the idea of Vitamin Dee had come, that was the main goal — to create opportunities so that nobody else had to sacrifice their dream and try and figure something else out simply because of a lack of industry structure or resources.”

Since then, Williams has been busy crafting unique events, including last summer’s Pull Up on Portland in partnership with the Downtown Dartmouth Business Commission (DDBC) and the MacPhee Centre for Creative Learning.

That successful event gave local talent from the BIPOC community the chance to perform in storefronts along Portland Street while BIPOC entrepreneurs were invited to showcase their wares.

While the pandemic has created many challenges for Vitamin Dee since that community event, Williams is now presenting her latest project on March 12.

The Orange Corner will be a virtual live performance featuring some of the city's hottest hidden talent in the music scene. Hosted on the online platform Side Door, The Orange Corner will provide a spotlight for local BIPOC acts General Khan, Eriana Willis, Mahalia Smith and Kxng Wooz.

“Most of the people that are part of The Orange Corner, I was looking to have as part of the line-up, but there were a few more that I wished could have been a part of it,” admits Williams, noting that timing and details created some challenges for artists.

She is still thrilled with the line-up and looks forward to providing a platform for such upcoming artists as Kxng Wooz.

“He was just named the artist-in-residence for Music Nova Scotia earlier after the summertime,” says Williams. “So that was a great opportunity to have him be there and  share a stage — even if it is a virtual stage — with some artists who are still in their emerging stages or in the middle. I tried to curate a line-up that would have artists that were in different timelines of their career.”

In partnership with BNV Media, Keandre Johnson and Zawadi Creatives, The Orange Corner was conceived to be an intimate, casual showcase for the rising BIPOC artists.

“The idea came from a conversation really,” recalls Williams, who says she had been conceiving the idea during the pandemic while she was working with BNV Media on another project. “I hadn’t told anybody about it at the time, but when I went to go see this studio for a podcast, (BNV Media) were talking about how they’d like to do some kind of tiny desk thing and whatnot and I was like, ‘oh, I want to do something like that!’”

Once The Orange Corner debuts at 7 p.m. on March 12, Williams hopes the showcase will act as a sort of catalyst for her business. While she can’t announce any future live events at this time, she does admit Vitamin Dee Entertainment has a few irons in the fire.

“Hopefully you’ll see the name once again very soon,” says Williams. “But I am really excited for what is to come — just collaborating and partnering with lots of great folks and trying to create more experiences for our community and trying to create more opportunities for BIPOC creative people.”

For more information on The Orange Corner or Vitamin Dee Entertainment, visit the website.