As a brown artist, I have mixed feelings about my relationship to art and my "responsibilities" post-Trump.

I feel like I have had to catch up to the art I've made, and learn from the protagonists I have written, especially in relation to gender.

I have been and continue to be committed to art as a tool to ignite, comfort, and discomfort.

Despite the fact that I'm not highly skilled in any visual art, aesthetics have always played a strong role in my art, including my first albums.

I recently did a reading at an elementary school in Ottawa, and one of the children asked me if I was a girl. I said yes. Another child commented that I had a deep voice. I responded: "Can girls have deep voices?" There was a pause and then the group responded, "Yes!"

Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.

It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.