lesley 

52 inc made my favourite soup ever. Tomatoey-peanutty. I’ve been trying to recreate it ever since. I also bought my favourite dress there. 
7:10 pm on January 10, 2012 






TJFunk

The Mocha Lounge’n Sunday night Open Mic sessions were my intro to 52 Inc. The regular DJ line-up included DJ Blanco (John White) K.Rafike (Keith Clarke) Deejay K.I. (Davee Ki) DJ Son. Of. Soul. (Masimba). There were also guest DJs appearing at the Mocha Lounge’n sessions. Most of Toronto’s spoken word artists took to the stage delighting the standing room only (on most nights) crowd. Dwayne Morgan, J.D. Vicious, Gemini, Kalmplex, Stephan KIm, El Machetero, Hajile Kalaike, Clifton Joseph (Dub Poet at large) and Yvette Barnes were among a stellar cast of performers who showed regularly to ply their craft. Singers were also welcome. One Sunday night Amy Sky (who just happened to be passing by) dropped in and serenaded the crowd with an acapella version of one of her songs. The atmosphere in 52 Inc was electric on those nights. The air was thick with passion, pain, joy, love, angst, sex and revolution. One would hear an idea that had never crossed your mind and it would resonate in every fibre of your being. When Mocha Lounge’n moved on to other venues Hajile Kalaike took over the Sunday night spot and carried on the tradition of keeping a space for voices to be heard! Nuff said! 
6:47 pm on January 5, 2012 






Kendall 

I’m glad to say I caught a decent chunk of this era when I moved here in 98. Right away, 52 inc. became one of my regular spots, it was like Cheers and I was fortunate to make friends with a lot of amazingly talented people like Kate and Amy. Props! 

1:30 pm on January 5, 2012 







ak 

Thank you so much for this Denise!!! You captured the time so beautifully! It’s so amazing to read the comments too! I’d like to share few more details about Shake:Body and Ursula Rucker, which both involved other promoters. Shake:Body in particular was an amazing collective effort with other promoters, djs, activists, dj activists, musicians. More generally, we had an incredible amount of help from the people in our lives in those years. AK 

3:36 pm on January 4, 2012 







chrissiechris

thank you denise for posting this important piece of Toronto arts and culture history. i had a regular night here and always felt it was a warm, supportive and empowering place to be as a woman in my 20s. as you know there were only a handful of female djs in the city at the time, 52inc was the perfect place to cut one’s teeth. 

3:24 pm on January 4, 2012 






Paul E. Lopes

Some more pics from The Battles at Roxy Blu
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150109491630721.387207.611575720&type=3 

2:43 pm on January 4, 2012 







Hubert

We have s small collection of flyers from 52inc.
http://beats.to/52inc 

2:25 pm on January 4, 2012 






michael 

the underground came above for a brief glimpse – still popping up now and then. thank you 52inc people 

2:14 pm on January 4, 2012 







G.E.

I had the pleasure of playing one of my first ‘real’ DJ spots at this place back when I first moved to town in the late 90s. I remember feeling intimidated because I knew how many with-it and knowledgable people frequented that place. 
Im glad to have been able to participate in some small way. 

12:26 pm on January 4, 2012 







Bev 

I moved to Toronto in 2000, so only got a taste of this place, but it was immediately one of my favourite spots. Daniel MacIvor once told me he used to love and frequent 52 inc. back in the day too. 

10:40 am on January 4, 2012