We were lucky to catch up with Cee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cee, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to live in North America. As a kid, the NTSC TV footage made it look very different than the PAL system we had in Australia, and I thought it actually looked like that in real life. In 2004, I finally got the opportunity to live and work in Toronto for a year on the Working Holiday program. That wasn’t a huge risk, but it changed my life entirely. When I came back home, I dreamt about being in Canada once a month. All I wanted was to get back there but the Working Holiday visa was for one year, once in a lifetime, and I didn’t think I’d be able to finesse a job that would sponsor me and my partner at the time. In 2008, my crew and I did a 5 week radio tour of North America, and as I was flying over Toronto from New York, I had this overwhelming feeling come across my entire body that I just had to be there. When we landed I checked the immigration website, and sure enough, the Working Holiday permit was changed to two years rolling until you’re 31 – bingo. On September 14th, 2010, I permanently moved to Canada to pursue my dreams in music, and 12 years later, I’m now a citizen, I own a beautiful home with my partner of 11.5 years, we have a gorgeous puppy and a car I’ve always wanted, along with multiple successful businesses. Best risk I ever took.

Cee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, and since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to be an entrepreneur. From selling blackberry jam (that I made myself after picking the berries locally) door-to-door in my street at 6 years old, I knew I could never have a “job”. I primarily do three things – I make music, I podcast and document craft beer, and I run a Social Media agency. I started rapping around 16 years old, and recording when I was 21. I’ve been in many groups, done a ton of features, and now I’m a solo artist, collaborating with producers and other artists for full-length projects. I’d characterize my music as soulful, conscious Hip Hop with a message. My brother Notion and I started a label, The Movement Fam, in 2008.

I discovered craft beer in 2011 after doing the 365 Days of Beer challenge during my first Canadian winter, where you had to drink 365 unique beers in a year and take a selfie with the labelled bottle/can/pint glass. I didn’t think it was possible but I ended up completing it in 7 months, and now I’m up to over 7,500 unique beers reviewed. People kept telling me to write a book with my reviews, but my partner suggested I look for beer podcasts, and when I couldn’t find any that spoke to me, she suggested I create one – so I did. Nearly 8 years later, BAOS Podcast the premiere craft beer podcast in Canada and have travelled the globe interviewing breweries. We started a non-profit last year, Link Up, to help promote diversity and inclusion in the beer industry.

I’ve loved Social Media since I first discovered it in 2005. I got my first job in Social/SEO in 2007, even Twitpic’ing Ashton Kutcher on the red carpet for “Killers” for my job in 2010. My partner Tiffany had also worked in Social, and after one of our event projects wrapped up in 2014, we decided to start our own agency, High Season Co. We built up our clientele and quit our jobs in 2015 to go full-time with it. Since then, we’ve worked with the NBA, Sony, Sonder and Meta, we’ve built a YouTube channel up where we deliver Social tips and tricks, and we now have a team of 6 of us.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Art is typically aggressively undervalued in any given society, hence it being so difficult for artists to get access to funding resources. Canada has a great system with their FACTOR and other grants, but even those feel a little gatekept sometimes. I was able to land a small grant a few years back after 5-6 attempts, and fortunately, I used to be a music writer so I have the skillsets to put together the application – not all artists have that. I think transparency across the board would improve opportunities for artists incredibly, and by transparency, I mean actual access to the elements that could make your career. For example, having direct access to important Spotify editorial curators, or major playlist curators, rather than having to pay shady third-party services to get placed on smaller lists that likely are filled with bots. For artists with a lack of contacts (like myself), having access to people who will actually talk to you or listen would change everything, especially for more experienced artists who are ready for large opportunities and have all the assets required (quality music, high res images and cover art, music videos, press kits etc). Having more incubators for up-and-coming artists like The Remix Project in Toronto would be very beneficial, too.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I used to wrap my entire self-identity around being a successful artist. As times changed over the last two decades that I’ve been releasing music, I realized that my initial dream isn’t possible and it took a lot of self-reflection to get over that. Now all I want to do is reach as many people as possible with my music and the positive messages contained within, and continually build my profile as a creative, an artist, an entrepreneur, and a content creator. I’d hope that people will discover one aspect of my output and then enjoy that so much that they look more into what I do, and then discover my other projects just to find as much value from that as their initial discovery. This has happened many times and it’s extremely rewarding.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.ceetmf.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ceefor
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ceetmf
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigthorn/
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ceefor
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/movementfam
• Other: http://www.tiktok.com/@ceetmf @baospodcast everywhere for the craft beer content @highseasonco everywhere for the Social Media content

Image Credits
Tiffany Alexis Richard Bastarache