'A musician is a person, period': TTC buskers say new stage creates equal platform
K Funk and Lady Ree believe busking has made them stronger musicians
They're familiar faces to subway riders passing through Bloor-Yonge and Finch stations but now Kristin Fung and Sheree Spencer, better known as K Funk and Lady Ree, say they will be more visible than ever thanks to the TTC's new vinyl stages.
"I think there's that assumption that if you're here playing in this space you're less of a musician than if you're playing at Roy Thomson Hall or Massey Hall so I think this is a great way to break that perception," said Spencer. "This is sort of a visual cue, like hey, the TTC values their musicians."
The duo have been strumming their ukuleles underground for a little more than a year now, scheduling busking sessions within their busy professional schedules.
Spencer and Fung do everything from playing at Second City to teaching dance classes, but say that their hours spent in the subway can often undercut their professional credibility.
"I have this fascination of this cross of environments and how environment can interfere and create distance with the work that a musician does," says Spencer.
"People assume if you're playing in the subway you're doing it because you're struggling."
But the new stages are changing that.
The TTC rolled them out at Bloor-Yonge, Spadina, Finch and Main stations on Oct. 14. They consist of a vinyl wrap-around decal stretching from the wall behind the musicians to the floor underneath them, clearly labelled as part of the TTC Musicians program.
"It makes us look more established and more official and that's the thing, we are official, we are established," says Fung.
A Boost For Visibility
The two consider themselves a rare duo.
"I'm Chinese-Canadian, you're Barbadian-Canadian, we don't see a lot of people that look like us in the music industry and so we want to go to the place where we had the most visibility" says Fung.
That public exposure has paid off. They have landed deals with clients such as Tropicana and are often hired for personal events.
"Being here you get to tap into 1.4 million people on an everyday basis and you're in a little bit of a more intimate interaction than you would be if you were in a concert hall," Spencer says.
The duo keep their act stripped down to nurture that intimacy and focus on just their music and melodies.
"You shouldn't have to make a judgement on who's creating the music but just allow the music to speak to you and it will do the same regardless of where you are," Spencer adds.
Braving The Elements
Even though it's just been a year, Spencer and Fung say that being TTC buskers has made them stronger musicians.
"If you can play in front of this audience you can play in front of anybody," Fung says.
"We're definitely a slave to the elements ... sometimes it's super noisy and sometimes people are wonderful and sometimes they're kind of scary, it's just the whole gamut."
Spencer compares K Funk and herself to R. Kelly who also started as a subway musician and learnt how to project his voice by singing over the sound of the trains.
"I think it's natural gift that transcends any environment," says Spencer. "There's no difference between what we can bring here than what we can to Roy Thomson Hall."
The vinyl stages are part of a pilot project that will last six-months.