For the next several weeks, this column will feature founding members of the new Unity Collective, a town-sanctioned group that aims to provide advice to council and the community on addressing systemic racism and diversity in Collingwood.
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If you see Bambalamb Kidd on the street in Collingwood post-COVID, he’d love to give you a hug.
For this week’s edition of People of Collingwood we spoke with Bambalamb (Bam528) Kidd, 60, a member of the Unity Collective.
Q: For how long have you lived in Collingwood?
A: I live in Collingwood now, but I’ve been in the area since I was 11 years old.
I started out in Thornbury. I’ve lived in Meaford and Craigleith. I’ve been really entrenched in Collingwood because they put forward an agenda that was really going to support music and the arts.
I was part of a forum that addressed that, and I thought that any town that was going to put support behind the arts, I wanted to be a part of.
I live at Seventh and Hurontario Streets, in the middle of town.
Q: You’re very active in the music scene locally. What made you want to be a musician?
A: The musician part happened accidentally. My mom dated a man named George Fowler who was the vice president of Motown Records back in the day.
He would take me to work. His job was at the Snakepit, which is the first Motown recording studio. He was a keyboard player. I would sit on a stool and play the bongos.
I discovered I had rhythm.
I never stopped doing that.
I’ve played with musicians like Isaac Hayes and Ras Michael & The Sons of Negus. There have been so many bands over this 36-year career.
I make a living off of music. I’ve been at Blue Mountain Village for the past 13 years doing interactive drumming.
Q: Is Bambalamb (or Bam) your real name?
A: It’s my stage name. I use it all the time. I’ve used it for the last 30 years.
One of the things I’ve learned from being an entertainer is if you want a personal life, you have to keep that separate.
The name came from two guys making what they thought was a racial snip at me. I turned it around and made it positive.
I was working out in Calgary building the Calgary courthouse. I was an electrical apprentice. There were certainly not a lot of men of colour in that trade, but that’s what I liked to do.
They called me a "bambalam."
It was from the Ram Jam song Black Betty.
I decided I was going to be Bambalamb. I wanted to give that name some love so it doesn’t become something negative. I wanted to make it positive.
That was my musician name until I changed it to Bam528, because 528 htz is a frequency of peace, love and harmony.
My life goal is to try and help elevate our vibration as a humanity so we can just get along and love each other.
Q: What led you to join the Unity Collective?
A: When all the violence started happening to melanated people, there was a call that we had to bring attention to this to stop it.
The high school students did a march through Collingwood, and there was a group of women who got together as they weren’t satisfied that justice was served. They asked me if I would participate.
I wanted to help with all they wanted to do to raise awareness that this was happening.
I’m a grandfather and I don’t want my grandchildren to grow up with all this stigma.
I carried the flag. There were 2,500 people behind me that day.
That love, I can’t even begin to tell you.
When I heard the collective had started, I wanted to be a community leader and get involved.
We have to make everyone feel included. We need to work together so when people come to Collingwood, they know it’s a town made of love.
Q: What could Collingwood do better to address diversity?
A: I think it’s already starting with dialogue, and admitting there is an issue, we need to be aware of it and do something about it.
A lot of the racism we experience here, those of us who are identifiable, is very silent things that people have been doing for years that people don’t really think about because they’ve always done it.
Because of what’s happening in the U.S.... people are taking more uncomfortable liberties with people of colour. People of colour are saying no. We don’t want to be treated like that.
Just don’t be mean.
Q: Have you ever had any experiences with racism locally that you want to talk about?
A: The biggest experience I had with racism was years ago. I was at a bar in Thornbury and these guys walked in and absolutely did not want me in there.
They dropped the n-word and wanted to fight me. Fortunately, the community wasn’t going to have it.
Now, the nuances are in how people treat you. I have stores in town that I’ve visited that won’t even acknowledge that I’m even in there. I just walk right back out and think they just lost business.
That’s the kind of subtle racism that exists here.
I don’t flex my own education on people very often, but it’s unfortunate that sometimes we have to do that just to display our humanity.
At the end of the day, the few idiots that are here, we have to just let them do what they have to do until they decide to leave because there’s too much love here.
I’m hoping the love will run them away.
We should just all be kind.
Q: You have an excellent laugh!
A: It’s because I am happy.
My life is total joy. I’m an ambassador at Craigleith Ski Club. I get to go around all day, and ski, and make people happy.
I own a landscaping business. My clients have put me in a position where I get to own myself. I can’t explain to you how important that is.
That is so huge to be a melanated person to know that I am completely in control of my destiny.
Q: What are your hopes for the Unity Collective?
A: For me, I would like to see the collective be representative of what we look like in Collingwood. I would like people to be able to see that we are all-inclusive and all-loving here.
We’re not that different.
Now, more than ever, it’s our economics we need to focus on.
Once we’re born, we’re here. My grandma once told me, you can either choose to be a good person or a bad person.
I choose good.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like people in Collingwood to know about you?
A: I’m a big hugger.
If at any point anyone sees me walking down the street or riding my bike, all I ever want to do is give people a hug and let them know I appreciate them. The bad guys particularly. They haven’t had a hug, that’s why I think they act badly.
For our feature People of Collingwood, we’ll be speaking with interesting people who are either from or are contributing to the Collingwood community in some way, letting them tell their own stories in their own words. This feature will run on CollingwoodToday every Saturday. If you’d like to nominate or suggest someone to be featured in People of Collingwood, email [email protected].
