Melissa Vincent

Melissa Vincent is a writer, researcher, and moderator based in Toronto and London. Her work broadly investigates justice-oriented questions of intimacy, relationality, and community formation as it relates to music, technology, and culture.

She is a PhD researcher at the London School of Economics in the in Data, Networks and Society program, and was an inaugural research fellow at the Collaboratory for Black Poiēsis at the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto.

She has been nominated for a Digital Publishing Award by the National Media Awards Foundation in the category for Best Science and Technology Storytelling for her essay, Ethical AI Has Not Solved Tech’ s Problem With Racism. Her essay, How Metal Heals: On Screaming as an Act of Radical Reclamation, was included in the Invisible Publishing List of “Best Canadian Music Writing” and has been included in the syllabi of cultural studies courses at New York University, McMaster University, and Toronto Metropolitan University.

She’s a frequent on-air music correspondent for The National, the flagship news and current affairs television program from Canada’s public broadcaster. She has moderated panels at over 50 conferences and festivals around the world, including MUTEK (CAN), Eurosonic (NL), Linecheck (IT), Music Tech Summit (CAN) and Elevate (CAN), among others.

Her work has appeared in a few of the usual suspects: Pitchfork, Billboard, The Fader, NPR Music, The Globe and Mail, CBC Music, Elle Canada, Canadian Business, and among others.

In the past, she's led editorial direction for content platforms operated by Universal Music Canada, Blue Ant Media, and Banger Films, and produced a podcast to support the launch of This Is Pop, an 8-part music docuseries on Netflix. She was recently in the writer’s room for a documentary on the illustrious Jackie Shane.

She is a Prism Prize juror, a SOCAN Songwriting Prize Panelist, and a member of the Toronto Music Advisory Committee, and the Mayor's ArtworxTO External Advisory Committee. In 2019 she was selected to become the Polaris Music Prize jury foreperson and join their board of directors.

These recent projects do good job of capturing the direction her work is moving towards right now:

‣ Contributing book chapter In What’s Left of Metal: A Compendium, forthcoming for Revol Press

‣ Researcher and interviewer for the Kronos Quartet Oral History Project with the Library of Congress.

‣ Senior editor at 3, a new St. Joseph’s Communication quarterly magazine for global thinkers who live beyond borders.

‣ Story consulting for a podcast on the oral history of Black community spaces, Toronto Public Library

‣ Curating and producing the inaugural symposium, Calling the Conjurers: An Otherwise Symposium for Technologies of Black Life and Study in Toronto

‣ Providing editorial direction for a multi-part profile series on industry trailblazers Women In Music Canada

‣ Creation of longform liner notes for the reissue of a spellbinding 1982 electronic jazz cult classic — The Night of Power (Laylatu'l Qadri) by Abdur Razzaq & Rafiyq, Seance Centre

‣ Research and production for hundreds of metal-themed trivia questions for the Banger Films- produced trivia show, Metalheads

‣ Design, curation, and moderation for a “collective brainstorm” about technology and culture titled Art Forms of Dimensions of Toronto held in collaboration with the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto

‣Editorial production and audio design for the contribution to the Bones Fanzine on Money, “Meditations of Desire’s Tip Jar,” Further and Further

Previously…

‣ Creative Strategist at Kijiji (Nov 21’ - Aug 22’), Media Strategist at Pigeon Row (Nov. 20’ - April 21’), Content Strategist and Book Editor at Shed Creative Agency (Sept. 19’ - Aug 20’); Managing Editor at BeatRoute (Aug 18’ - Mar 20’); Editor-in-Chief at A.Side (Jan 18’ - Aug 19’)

Disclaimer: This entire website is a grift to redirect you to my yearly Spotify playlist which should tell you everything you need to know. 🌪️