Reg Hartt

Born in Cape Town, past miles of townships of shacks, WizTheMC, born Sanele Sydow, is a citizen of the world. He immigrated to Germany with his mom when he was two.

As a young man his mind set on making English music for a global audience, and that purpose brought him to Canada, the land of northern opportunity.

Use red and blue glasses to see this in 3D.

“I try to take my emotions of my music out of [the business],” Wiz told me. He’s in the throes of the heavy release schedule surrounding his second EP, Where Silence Feels Good.

You have your entire life to write your first EP. You only have since your first to write your second. To make matters worse, the pressures of the music industry compound after success, especially early success.

And Wiz is successful. He’s pushing 1.5 million monthly fans on Spotify. His song, For A Minute, has been streamed more than 86 million times.

“At the end of the day I’m a commodity in the industry,” Wiz said slowly and deliberately, careful with his words.”By being signed to a label, without that being positive or negative, you are a part of a system, an ecosystem that benefits me as a person, as an artist. But also has its strength as a company.”

On one of his first walks through Toronto after immigrating to Canada, somewhere between Little Italy and Kensington Market, Wiz passed an eclectic house of notable size and color. And on its steps was a quote, attributed to Aldous Huxley, the science fiction writer.

A week later when Wiz walked by again, the homeowner, Reg (Hartt), was sitting outside. And the two started talking.

Reg, more than 40 years the boy’s senior, invited the stranger to sit with him. And on the short side of six minutes, he offered Wiz a room in his house, an art’s community where he said Wiz could play shows out of the small theatre downstairs.

Reg showcases old movies and lets the half dozen artists living with him at any given time perform. He isn’t opposed to the greater arts community of Toronto using the space either. But they rarely come.

“I took the advice of every parent everywhere: Don’t move into a 65-year-old guys house after moving to a new country,” Wiz said, laughing. He rejected Reg’s offer.

But “the universe, the good, Karma, God” had other plans.

Later that week, the landlord Wiz was staying with at the time booted him onto streets with no warning. Wiz was homeless in a foreign land with only three people in Toronto he could reach out to.

With nowhere to stay, he dialed his first contact. No answer. He dialed his second. Also no answer.

His third and final hope was Reg’s business card, which Wiz had taken earlier.Wiz wrote something of appropriate and proper length asking if he could still come to live at the arts commune theatre.

And Reg replied with, “one word: sure. Literally sure,” Wiz laughed again telling it.