The annual CBC Searchlight music competition has begun and there’s no shortage of Flin Flon-adjacent tunes entered this year.
One musician who grew up in the community is participating in this year’s competition, along with two artists who have entered songs written about Flin Flon itself.
Joanna Majoko is one of the participants in this year’s Searchlight competition - the former Hapnot Collegiate student, now a professional jazz singer in Toronto, entered with the song “Where You Are”. Majoko moved with her family from Germany to Zimbabwe to South Africa to Manitoba in her childhood, living in Flin Flon and Thompson before embarking on her musical career. Majoko is now a vocalist, composer and bandleader in Toronto and just released her first EP, No Holding Back, in March.
No artists currently based in Flin Flon are taking part in this year’s Searchlight competition, but two Manitoba acts have entered with songs written about Flin Flon and parts of its history.
One song is written by Winnipeg-based act Bluebloods - a collaboration between producer Conrad Sweatman and vocalist Courtney Devon - called “Postcard from a Quarantined Miner in Flin Flon," a poppy, jazzy pastiche of several different styles and eras. The song’s release earlier this year included a music video with archival photos and footage of Flin Flon and animation showing several familiar local landmarks, with a twist - the Flinty statue smoking a cigarette, for example. In an interview with The Reminder earlier this year, Sweatman said that he was drawn to Flin Flon’s unique culture, labour history and parallels between historical events and the present-day pandemic.
The third and final entry with Flin Flon ties is “Flin Flon’s Rock Garden”, written by Ted “The Singing Gardener” Meseyton. The song details the creation of the infamous Trout Lake Mine medicinal cannabis growing operation, which was endorsed, funded and supplied by the federal government - the “Rock” in the song’s title and lyrics refers to then-federal health minister Allan Rock, who toured the mine and grow-op in 2001. The grow-op, referred by some locals informally as the “pot farm”, operated for about eight years before its closure in 2009 - the area were it once operated was filled in after the Trout Lake Mine was shut down in 2012. Meseyton says in his Searchlight bio that he wrote the song around the same time as the grow-op’s opening in 2001.
Songs in this year’s Searchlight competition are up for a public vote at cbc.ca/music/searchlight until 3 p.m. Eastern time May 20, after which winners will be moved into a second vote. Voters can vote for each entry one time per device per day. Almost 2,500 different musical acts from across Canada have entered this year’s Searchlight contest.
