OTTAWA -- It’s an oddly beautiful sight: sweeping drone shots of downtown Ottawa, the streets empty because everyone is at home.
And accompanying those images, an ambient, piano-driven beat and Ottawa MC Peter Joynt’s lyrics.
Joynt, also known as The Joynt, gained fame in 2011 with the song ‘CapCity,’ a tribute to Ottawa. He has done several musical tributes to his beloved Ottawa Senators.
Joynt also has a stutter, which goes away while he’s rapping.
His latest song, ‘Light & Love,’ was borne of a difficult first couple of weeks of isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic as he and his wife struggled to adapt to working from home with two young kids in the house.
“Life was really hard. It was super tough trying to get into this new routine,” Joynt said.
But after those hard weeks, there was one really good weekend. It lit a creative spark.
“Things just seemed lighter and better, and it was right after that weekend that I got inspired to right this song about seeing the light and the love in this whole crazy situation,” he said.
The bulk of the song took him about two hours to write. For the video, Joynt knew he wanted to reflect the reality of the unusual times.
Local videographer Honz Slipka shot most of the drone footage. The rest of the video was shot—at a distance, of course—by Chris Seibel, a colleague of Joynt’s at Shopify, where he’s a culture content producer.
Much of it features Joynt rapping at an empty Bayview transit station.
“It was just a surreal scene of what is usually such a busy street,” Joynt said. “No cars going by, and all the trains were absolutely vacant.”
Joynt cut the video together over about a week, working from 8 p.m. until midnight after his kids went to bed.
Joynt has given motivational speeches at more than 150 schools, teaching kids they can do whatever they like in life, even if they are different in some way.
He said he feels the lessons he has learned as a lifelong stutterer apply to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ve had to overcome a lot,” he said. “It’s the difficulties in getting over those hurdles that make it that much more worthwhile—and rewarding—once you get over them.
“This too shall pass. Once you get through it, you’ll look back on it and think that it was worth it, because it taught you a lot about yourself…and that you’re stronger for it.”
