Ebonnie Rowe

Ebonnie Rowe - photo credit: studiostudio

Ebonnie Rowe is all about elevating the artist, but this week it’s all about elevating her. The PhemPhat Entertainment Group executive director and Honey Jam creator and engine has just been able to let people know that she has been appointed to the Order of Canada, a secret she has kept to herself for two months.

On Monday, June 30, the morning of the Toronto mixer at The Mod Club to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Honey Jam, the finely curated annual showcase of up-and-coming female artists from across Canada — some of whom have never stepped foot on a stage or recorded a note — the Office of the Governor General put out the press release announcing Rowe as part of the 2025 list of honourees “to recognize outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation.”

That evening, the party became as much a celebration of Rowe, the self-described “mama bear” for the hundreds of Honey Jam alumni who have auditioned and been selected to perform, including Nelly Furtado, Jully Black, Melanie Fiona, Lu Kala, Haviah Mighty, as it was about the artist development program that offers a safe platform for female singers and rappers.

Rowe has received awards before from the YWCA's Women of Distinction for arts & entertainment to Women in Music Canada’s 2025 Entrepreneur of the Year, and The Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment Canada’s Women To Watch spotlight, but this, this is something exceptionally special, Canada’s second highest civilian honour.

The Montreal-born, Toronto-based wonder woman fights every year for the financial support to put on Honey Jam and its companion workshops, panels, trips, and other music industry initiatives, which sometimes feels like an uphill battle, but she always manages to get it done and put on a stellar showcase with performers sometimes as young as 12 and from as far away as the Yukon.

This year, the 30th anniversary concert, billed as Inspirations, July 30 at Massey Hall, isn’t showcasing newcomers, rather it is stacked with alumni from coast to coast performing a range of genres: hip hop, jazz, pop, dance, folk, gospel, classical, R&B, rock, country, dancehall, and, for the first time, soca. Tickets are $30.

Honey Jam Canada presents In Conversation with Sadboi, May 12, 2025 — photo courtesy of HJ.

For Karen Bliss’ Crushing It column for Women in Music Canada, Rowe talks about how she perseveres and what she needs to keep the non-profit youth organization going.

Congratulations on being appointed to the Order of Canada. Incredible. Congratulations. There's really no higher honour for a civilian in this country.

Until it happens, I can't really believe it. I've known for a couple of months, but I had to be on this embargo.

You’ve received other awards. Was this even on your radar?

Years ago, the manager of one of the alums, Elise LeGrow [Asher Ettinger], said that he wanted to nominate me so he asked me. It's like asking if I want to come to Mars on a rocket that you’re going to build. It's like, “Sure-sure, okay,” and I just forgot about it. It was never in a million trillion years.

Must have blown your mind. How were you told?

I got an email from someone from the government. “Is this the email where we can reach Ebonnie Rowe? We'd like to contact her as soon as possible.” And I was like, “What the fuck?”

How much money do I owe [laughs]?

Exactly. I was like, did I send in my taxes? What could it possibly be? It never occurred to me.

You thought the email was legit, not a phishing attempt?

No, I didn't know. There's no detail. Is this junk? Is it real? Then, I called the woman and I was just nervous. What could it possibly be? And then she said what it was, and it was just jaw-dropping. The first thought was that I want my mother to be alive [gets choked up and pauses]…

I get it. My mother died last July and wasn’t here to see me get my award [also tearing up].

It's sadness that my father is not alive and wishing that when the ceremony does happen that she’s here. She has cancer. I don't know from day to day what's going to happen with her health. I kept the news [of the appointment] to myself because of the embargo until the official announcement was made by the Governor General.  I told them about my mom's failing health because they said the actual ceremony in Ottawa could be a couple of years from now and I want it to happen while she is still with us and for her to be able to attend.

When I told her she said, "Congratulations!  So proud of you!" 

Your mom has been at all the Honey Jam concerts and launches. I even remember seeing her during COVID at the 25^th anniversary launch at the El Mocambo [2022]. She sees how hard you’ve worked all these years to pull these off.  That 25^th anniversary year was so different and difficult with the ever-changing social distancing and limited capacity rules. How has this milestone been, planning your 30^th anniversary?

I was actually just thinking about that the other day because for our 25th anniversary, we had COVID; this year, we have Trump.

The Trump trickledown is impacting me and others in the non-profit space, working with multicultural, diverse group of artists. The anti-DEI, companies that have US parent companies that are then using it as a reason to cut their financial support. Secondly, the tariffs, which has thrown the economy into a clusterfuck, so everyone is holding onto their money. And then, I decided to go to a venue [Massey Hall] that's about six times the budget. We've got the usual suspects of [government funding bodies] FACTOR [Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings] and Ontario Creates that support us annually. We didn't lose people that support us annually.  It's the new people that I thought would level up our budget to meet the Massey Hall moment and nobody has any money.

Each year you are starting from scratch. How do you get through noes and pull off an incredible event year after year, plus the auxiliary events?

First of all, I take “no” as a suggestion. I'm a Leo; I'm an alpha. I'm a boss. I have deep passion about things. Honey Jam is my baby. It's the only child I have. I've got that mama bear energy and I've got B-D-E, big dick energy [laughs].  I'm not going to give up. I am relentless. I have tenacity. I have commitment. This isn't just a little fun thing to do. This is everything and I pour everything into it.

What do you do when you’re in a meeting and you start hearing “no”?

That's a daily basis thing. Not so much at a meeting, but just interaction. So, you approach someone, and they'll be like, “Oh, we'd really love to help, but we don't have any budget. Okay, bye.”  “Wait, wait, wait, there are other things that are currency for us other than actual money. Let's discuss. Would you be interested in buying tickets for staff or circulating the information to staff? Do you have any events coming up that you might need an artist to perform at where we can also promote Honey Jam? Would you be willing to promote it on your socials?” Just a laundry list of things that would never occur to them that would be valuable to us. I do that every day.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Women In Entertainment event, that was an opportunity where, as soon as I heard that that happened last year and it had come to Canada, I was stalking them. What can happen for Honey Jam? Is there an opportunity for an artist to perform? So we have Rachelle Show perform at the awards. That was huge for her to be able to be in the room and have Margaret Atwood sitting there and all of those luminaries watching her perform. These things don't happen if you don't ask and create these opportunities.

And, a lot of people have contacts. Access is a huge thing. People who have contacts and the privilege that comes with that don't understand the value of it and don't understand that everyone doesn't have it. They make an assumption that you know this person — and I don't.

I want to say support from other women does not always happen. There's a mean girls club. There are gatekeepers. It's a real thing. People just think women support women or everybody's going to support this and it's not that way. And I want to give appreciation to Robyn [Stewart, Women In Music Canada’s executive director]. She will always take the call. She will always make the time. And more than that, she will reach out to me and send me an email that says, “Are you okay? How is everything going? And how can I help?” That is what community means. And she will advocate. She will do her job of what women's organizations that talk about supporting women do. But for many people, it's lip service and they mean, “I'll just hook up my friends.” So it’s extremely refreshing to have that experience. Sharing contacts, there's so many people that will never do that. So, it's really important to me to say that and to give props to Women In Music.

More than any other person in my circle, you message me to see if I know someone and have their contact. I do that too and it is disappointing when you can’t get that introduction.

And asking for a co-sign, right? Because now it's become the Hunger Games. Non-profit and charitable organizations working with diverse youth — basically anything multicultural — are all in survival mode trying to get a piece of what is a shrinking amount of available money.  These people are inundated. They’ve got gatekeepers. It's all about relationships to get them to do the co-sign and do an e-intro: “This is Ebonnie; I support what she does. Please make time to meet with her” or “I'm gonna let her take it from here,” or whatever it is that you want to say. It’s extremely valuable and it takes five seconds to do.

How can you not support someone putting on an event for young women wanting to jumpstart their music career? And you have a 30-year track record.

Even for the last few years, as marketing budgets start to shrink, people want the shiny thing. It's not a meritocracy in terms of is this a worthy thing to support. There are a lot of worthy causes.  I think it's just business — getting the most bang for the buck. Most of us in the non-profit space that aren't doing the big galas that attract a lot of media and high-profile attendees might not get the same level of interest and support; what we might get is dollars allocated for corporate social responsibility, which is a pool that is shrinking.

What else do you have planned around the 30^th anniversary?

Well, the money has stopped a lot of the things that I wanted to do. A third Trump thing is the harsh border policy because some of the artists might not have been born in Canada. You just don't want to take a chance. And even if they are born here, the border people are just finding reasons. It's so arbitrary to give people a hard time. And then, just the lack of money.  I'd wanted to do some stuff in LA or New York, but just rethinking that because of the border situation.

Can I ask how much you need annually?

$50,000.

That doesn't sound like a lot.

It's nothing. And people have money. You just have to get to them. When traditionally you talk to a company and they'll be like, “Oh, you missed our deadline. It was last year. We've already allotted our budget,” that's all bullshit. If they want to support you, they will, as we saw when [Toronto] Pride lost their funding [from major corporate sponsors] and the City [of Toronto] stepped in [with $350,000] and other companies came in with their superhero cape.

You still did your 30^th anniversary mixer at the Mod Club.

I believe in honouring commitments. I could have put on a sob story and been like, “Oh, this has happened and we can't do it anymore,” but they say treat other people how you would like to be treated. I despise when people tell me I can count on them for this, that, or the next thing and then they flake out. I don't want to be that person. I also want to model to the artists the action of what perseverance means. I always say to the artists, “There's a difference between ‘wouldn't it be nice if…’ and true desire for something and moving the earth to make something happen.” That's the type of attitude that you need in life, but particularly as an artist.

Ebonnie Rowe in the early days of Honey Jam — photo courtesy of HJ

When I asked the performers (alum) this year for their artist bios [full disclosure: I edit and update them for PhemPhat Entertainment Group] what they like best about Honey Jam, almost all used the same words: “community,” “family,” “supportive,” and many mentioned making lasting friendships.  Those things are important as a new artist trying to navigate this business. When did you start witnessing that?

The bond immediately happens because it's not a competition. If there was a winner, there might be some cattiness, but I believe everybody wants each other to win. It happens every year. They just cleave to one another through the experience, through life and I'm happy to know that it's had that.

And once, we post who the artists are going to be, their followers go up. Other artists will follow them. When we have the workshops, alums will come and they'll talk. I'll see them with their phones out as they're following each other. I see them at each other's shows supporting each other. Co-writing too. And, maybe somebody helping with the other person's outfit.

Often, if someone got their start on an Idol type talent show, they later erase that from their bio or if I’ve asked someone if they’d like to audition for America’s Got Talent or The Voice, through my connection, they say, “No, no, that's not for me,” but there's a different view of Honey Jam. It doesn't have that stigma. Why do you think that is?

Because of the organic nature of it and because it's not exploitative. It's not manufactured.

It's not a competition. It's real. The genuineness; the authenticity.

You’ve talked about the music industry sometimes being predatory and not always a safe space for young female artists.  We didn't have the #MeToo and Time's Up Movement [calling out sexual abuse in the entertainment industry] when Honey Jam started.

We didn't have the internet at the beginning. There was no social media. There was no way to Google people and know who's authentic and who isn't. That is what started the educational component [of Honey Jam] in 1996. The concert started in 1995, which was just supposed to be a one-off. These are young girls, they're teens, and when I saw men at the first show approaching them with a ‘Baby, I can make you a star’ type of vibe, the girls were so wide-eyed. I'm just back there watching all of this. You have no idea who these people are. It’s very hard for people that are of a certain age to understand what things were like before social media and before the wide use of the internet.

Right now, every artist can be a producer. Any individual can be a producer. Maybe not a great producer, but you can fool around with beats and make demos, once you have a laptop and buy the software. That did not exist. 99.9% of the producers back then were men and they charged a lot of money. So, if you're a young girl wanting to put something out there, you don't have a job; how are you coming up with that type of money? And so, some would fall into that trap of — I don't know what words to use — coercion to do things that they might not want to because of not wanting to miss an opportunity, and being spoken to like, “Well, nobody else is gonna help you or you're not gonna get another chance.”

And so, when we first started the workshops, all of the panelists were women. And we only wanted people associated with Honey Jam who had no other motives than to share knowledge and to help the artist to win.  Back then, I'm funding it. There's no honorarium [for guest speakers]. You're getting a smile and a Rice Krispie square [laughs]. So everyone who participated was only doing it out of the goodness of their heart and because they wish there was something like that when they were coming up, which of course there was not.

You’ve told the story before, how Honey Jam came out of your stance against misogyny in hip-hop. I think people assumed the showcase was for Black artists in hip hop and R&B, but you never had those restrictions. When did you see it opening up at auditions?

At the beginning, it was all about hip-hop and R&B. I am Black; people who came out were Black. There was no long-term plan for Honey Jam. It was just supposed to be the first year and then things just changed organically. We never said no other genres ever, but when you see something as an outsider and you don't see yourself, you assume it means you are blocked. That happens to Black people all the time, so it happened in reverse. There was a woman who worked with us as a volunteer, Erica Savage [now a top LA-based music lawyer], who told me that some white girls would ask her, in an almost afraid type of way [if they could audition]. I think Eternia, the hip-hop artist, was the first white artist and then Nelly Furtado — and Nelly Furtado broke the dam.  After her, the diversity of auditionees was immediate. There was no part of me that was like, “Oh, no.” Things just happened naturally.

Would you ever do a Honey Jam concert tour, take a half a dozen or more alum across the country?

That was a dream at one point. It's about money.

What else would be on your wish list, if you had the money?

If I had money to do anything that I wanted to do, having access to high-level producers and helping the artist get their music out and all of the things that go along with that.

Would you ever create a Honey Jam record label?

Yes, if there was the money to go towards things to elevate the artists so that they can sustain and make a good living from music. That's what I would want money to be able to do. And that's extremely expensive. For all artists, the biggest expenses are touring and production; studio time and production. That's something that I would like to do.  And to be able to go to other countries. And to do little showcases and performances and grow the fan base.

When you reflect on the 30 years, what do you zero in that makes you most proud?

Sisterhood. Community. And I am proud of the accomplishments of the artists. Whenever I go on Instagram, I get whiplash about all the different things that they're doing.   

Canadian Music Hall of Fame recipient Deborah Cox with Honey Jam founder Ebonnie Rowe and some Honey Jam alumni at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage in 2022 — photo courtesy of HJ.