Matthew, my 10-year-old son, has a huge heart, brown eyes and, like his father before him, can recite the aspirational messages on the walls of his principal’s office by heart. When he told me he wanted to see Snoop Dogg in concert, I worried about, ahem, second-hand smoke exposure. But I also worried about the lyrics.Dr. Dre’s seminal hip-hop album – which heavily features Snoop – more than I looked at my textbooks. But I was 18.
“Growing up, music was an opportunity to have conversations with my parents and, as a child, I understood early that if I understood music, I could understand and connect with the rest of the world,” says Quin, a lifelong activist, who recently enlisted 400 artists, including Bryan Adams, Carly Rae Jepsen and Neil Young, to co-sign an open letter against anti-trans legislation in Alberta, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan regarding transgender youth.
Children are finding music earlier than they once did and every generation seems to produce more shocking content. Kids will be attracted to entertainment deemed edgy – whether it’s Mr. Beast,or Lamar responding in his feud with Drake – gathering in clusters and pretending to understand what the adults say.
“Live-music fans are getting younger – that’s a good thing – and the odd festival 2 p.m. slot with F-bombs every three seconds aside, I want to establish concert-going habits in young fans,” says Farkas. “Eight-year-olds are now part of the live-music ecosystem. Festivals are geared towards young people and I love that.”
“Often enough, it’s not even the music itself that’s so helpful, it’s all the stuff that goes with it: the relationship with your teacher, your mentor, your parents, your peers – music’s a great connector,” says Marsella, whose music had an opportunity to connect with a massive audience, which helped fund his organization.