Art News

Drake’s sixth studio album Certified Lover Boy, set to be released on Friday, is his first in three years. But the internet is buzzing over its odd cover art: 12 pregnant woman emojis of different ethnicities wearing different-coloured shirts arranged in neat rows.

Love it or hate it, the album cover is only the latest example of Drake’s long history of dominating internet culture.

The Toronto rapper is a frequent subject of memes and viral moments — and they’re all carefully orchestrated efforts to leverage his brand, experts say.

The Hamilton Music and Film Office has been nominated for an international award for helping the crew of the popular Netflix show The Umbrella Academy.

The Outstanding Film Commission award from Los Angeles-based Location Managers Guild International (LMGI) is given to the film office that did the best job helping a production’s location managers.

“Film commissions and offices are the municipal entities that help us with permitting permission and approval and how to manifest the vision of our creatives to actually happen on city streets … without [them] we’d be running amok on the streets,” said John Rakich, LMGI president

Maya Ruheza has loved ballet for as long as she can remember.

She took her first class at the age of three, after a bit of a rocky start. Her family still jokes about how, when her mom first asked her if she’d like to give dance a try, she had a frank one-word answer: “Nope.”

She relented because it looked “magical onstage — “they were pretty, they did fun twirls, they had pretty dresses on, you know” — and before long, dance had won her over.

Now, at 17, the Riverview teen is packing her bags and moving more

After writing novels for more than 15 years, Maggie Ray was ready to launch her first self-published book, Citizen.

Ray, 27, previously published novels and novellas on sites such as Wattpad, a website and app where writers can publish stories online, and further promoted them on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Her stories gained some attention, and she made connections with readers online, but she says it was difficult to maintain a consistent readership.

That was until Ray ventured onto TikTok last fall.

“I’ve gotten comments [from] people saying, ‘I’m seeing your book all over BookTok,’ which

In 2015, when the Nova Scotia government terminated its long-standing film industry tax credit, local filmmakers, crew members and executives believed it would be a death sentence for their previously reliable sector. But just six years later, “Halifornia” — named for Halifax’s fledgling Hollywood reputation — is booming.

Thanks to high-profile productions such as The Lighthouse, the creation of a provincial incentive fund that recently doubled in size and the province’s miraculously low COVID-19 case count, executives are choosing Nova Scotia for their film and TV productions.

It’s a reality that, until recently, would have been unimaginable for Nova