 "Photo: Shayne Laverdière")
Surviving cancer, performing in Europe and building his own company are just a few of the things Jonathan Whyte Potter-Mäl has lived through.
At 21, Jonathan, or Jon E., is entrepreneur, director and creator of MindPeaceLove Enterprises, which Jon E. said is many things.
It serves as a development, promotion, management and planning agency.
It is also a record and film production house and more recently, an ethical clothing merchandiser. But for the owner, it's much more than just a company.
Jon first began rapping what he calls "conscious hip hop" when he was 14 years old with his mentor, Omari "Vagabond" Newton, formerly of Kobayashi Jazz.
Newton worked with Jon through the Black Theatre Workshop. Conscious hip hop, Jon explained, is hip hop music minus the commercialization.
"Music with a social purpose, music that speaks to people," he said.
He writes all his own songs, composes all of his own beats and produces and records all of his own material.
Africa is Real, Free the Children and Share the Warmth are just a few of the important social causes that MindPeaceLove Enterprises supports.
"MindPeaceLove is a way of life, it's a philosophy," said Jon. "I apply it to everything in my life, every situation I approach," he explained.
"Mind is the intellect, the logical aspect. Peace is the spiritual, the ethical side. And love is the emotional."
And Jon insists that love is in absolutely everything they do. "There's even love in hate. It's a level of interaction," he said.
Before Jon E. founded MindPeaceLove, tragedy struck.
At 18, Jon came back from a trek across Europe when he noticed something unusual. "When I got home, I discovered a lump below the belt," he said.
Alerting his parents, Jon spent the night at the Montreal Children's Hospital. The lump was diagnosed as malignant, and had to be removed immediately.
Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. Jon underwent surgery the next day to remove the lump, but the cancer had already spread to his lymph nodes.
At the invincible age of 18, Jon was slowly coming to terms with something that most people only acknowledge in their old age.
"I realized that I didn't have all the time in the world. I discovered mortality."
Jon was forced to undergo three more intense surgeries to stop the cancer from spreading, but it didn't end there.
"I had to undergo chemotherapy and radiation once a week." The radiation was bearable, but the chemotherapy was a lot tougher.
"Every three weeks, I'd have to go in for an intense round of the chemo," Jon said.
"It would leave me totally incapacitated for about five days." The weekly treatments continued for one year, but still, Jon never let it stop him from living.
"I continued to take courses at Dawson, only one or two, but I was there. It was hard, but I needed to do it for my own sanity."
Throughout his sickness, Jon never stopped writing, recording and producing his own material. "I felt like it was the only thing I could do."
He acknowledged his cancer did have an impact on the material he was writing, but he refused to let his illness saturate his music.
"You have to live through things," he insisted. "You have to acknowledge it, and then look ahead and decide how it's going to affect the rest of your life."
Evolution and constant change is incredibly important to this entrepreneur.
"I had to evolve through cancer, so if I evolved as a person and my music didn't, there would be a problem there," he said.
"You have to always evolve, and continue to not define yourself by what you do," Jon insisted.
Now in remission for two years, Jon refuses to let useless labels define him. "A student, a rapper, a cancer survivor, you're not defined by any of that. You are not what you do. You have to self-define."
Shortly after his diagnosis, MindPeaceLove Enterprises became a registered company in January 2004.
"I realized that I didn't have all the time in the world, to do everything that I wanted to do," Jon laughed.
"I wanted to build something from the ground up, because there was nothing out there that I liked," he said.
"Hip hop is under-developed, there's no culture left in it. It's become commercialized and I'm focused on the conscious side of it. So I started the evolution that I wanted to see.
The recording division of the enterprise, MindPeaceLove Records, is put to good use.
While working in part as a solo artist with no released material, Jon met his future band mate when he overheard him rapping.
"J-Remy can rhyme, but it's not just about that," Jon insisted. "It's more than just having the mind to rap. Almost anyone can rap. It's about a good heart in conscious hip hop."
Impressed by J-Remy, Jon continued to evolve both in personality and in music.
"I've never tried to stop the evolution in my music or philosophy, and unity is often a lot better than separate entities all striving for the same thing," Jon said.
Jon and J-Remy bonded and formed the conscious hip hop group called Ethos.
With Jon's hard-hitting lyrics and J-Remy's rhyme flow, Ethos continued to grow, and the development process led the two band mates in a whole new direction.
In 2006, the group accepted a new member. With a soulful voice and a strong social conscience, Jasmine fit in well with the two existing members.
Ethos was no more, but this gave way for a new series of change. Île City was born. And it's no surprise the group is focused on revolutionary ideologies.
"Things with no ideas don't last very long," Jon insisted. "Revolutions last forever, but they need to be brought to the mainstream in order to be authentic."
Old ideas and imitations need to be laid to rest, too.
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