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FYI

A Podcast Conversation With ... Ezra Jordan

As the son of famed singer/songwriters Marc Jordan and Amy Sky, this fast-rising Toronto artist clearly has the right musical genes. He has a new EP coming soon, and you can learn more in this FYI podcast.

A Podcast Conversation With ... Ezra Jordan

By Bill King

On first view, young Ezra Jordan looks uncannily like writer Ernest Hemingway, who once toiled at the Toronto Star as a beat reporter from 1920 to 1924. Indeed, an initial listen to Jordan’s recent work suggests personal dispatches assessing a range of emotions much to do with the Covid interruption and downtime.


His latest entry, Dollarama, has captured six million streams across Spotify and YouTube. Jordan is the offspring of notable Canadian songwriters Marc Jordan and Amy Sky.

“This song was written during one of my lowest points during the pandemic,” Ezra shares. “I was suffering from a pretty significant depressive episode. My plans to move to LA had been derailed, and I had lost my job and moved back with my parents.

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“I took stock of my life, my relationships, my friends, and my self-image, and tried to figure out where this empty feeling was coming from.

“Out of that, I wrote Dollarama.’

Coming soon—Jordan’s sophomore album 117, a five-track EP.

“This collection of songs is, without a doubt, the most meaningful and vulnerable music I’ve ever released,” he says. “I’ve been doing this ‘music thing’ for a while now, but I think it took this many years to feel fully realized as a writer and an artist.”

Learn more in this FYI podcast.

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Jason Derulo and Nora Fatehi
Mohamed Saad

Jason Derulo and Nora Fatehi

Pop

Nora Fatehi and Jason Derulo Join Forces for ‘Snake’: Inside the Globe-Spanning Collaboration

Fatehi, a Canadian-Moroccan Bollywood superstar, hopes the new single "introduces me to the international market in a very unique way," while Derulo preps new music of his own.

Nora Fatehi and Jason Derulo have kicked off 2025 with a single designed to combine cultures. On Thursday (Jan. 16), the Bollywood superstar and veteran hitmaker unveiled “Snake,” a thumping dance collaboration that joins East Asian melodies with American dance-pop production, creating a sensual duet with global aspirations.

Fatehi tells Billboard that the track came courtesy of a discussion with producer Tommy Brown (Ariana Grande, Victoria Monét) about finding a sound that could unite audiences in different regions of the world. “My main word was ‘exotic,’ and I wanted to make sure that it was dance-oriented — that whoever heard the song would want to move,” she recalls. “And after finishing the song, we were thinking about which artist would really be a good collaborator, and Jason’s name came up. And I’ve been a fan, and someone who’s really appreciated his journey, for a very long time.”

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