The sound of the Fraser Valley

In the Fraser Valley’s music scene, if you want something done—whatever it is—you’ll probably have to do it yourself.

That was certainly the case in 2017, when Stephen Munga and his friends decided that the best way to get their music on the radio was to take over the airwaves and start their own radio show.

Six years later, it’s 2023 and a world of algorithmically programmed free music is at your fingertips. But you don’t have to rely on artificial intelligence or your own ability to juggle CDs in your car. Because Munga—a guy who just bought an album on cassette—and other radio lovers continue to inhabit the airwaves.

Seizing the airwaves

The year was 2017. The idea was simple, if a little brash.

The previous year, Stephen Munga and his friends had created an art and music collective called Chill Rose Place. He and his friends had begun making music simply by freestyling lyrics in their cars. Later, Munga’s older brother invited his Stephen’s freestyling friends over to collaborate on music. That led to shows and parties and the need for a DJ—which is where Munga came in.

So they had music, and they wanted to find a way to actually make some money with it. One way to do that, in the music world, is to get your music played on the radio, which entitles an artist to royalties. That, though, can be a tricky proposition requiring buy-in from real-life DJs and radio stations.

But what if Chill Rose Place was the DJ? If they had their own show on a legitimate radio station, they could play their songs. And though not every radio station will turn their airwaves over to a young kid, one place in the Fraser Valley would: the local campus community radio station, 101.7 CIVL.

It wasn’t exactly a route to rock stardom or millions of dollars and there may have been some conflicts of interest involved, but it was an idea.

So Munga went out and did it.

Six years later, Chill Rose Radio is still going and Munga’s voice is a familiar sound on CIVL. And although he joined the station to hype his and his friends’ music. Munga’s perspective has changed dramatically. By episode 16 or thereabouts (by his own estimation), Munga was having second thoughts about the point of radio.

“I realized that the Fraser Valley was full of talented artists and I was doing a disservice to myself and to them to not be a platform to showcase their music,” he said.

Today, Munga (who goes by DJ Darko on the air) is the station’s music director, hosting several shows and helming a cross-country countdown of the weekly Top 20 radio chart program for campus and community radio stations across Canada. Munga also picks music for one of the valley’s pre-eminent music events (Jam in Jubilee), and has become an evangelist for local artists—and not just his own friends.

And, now that he has gone legit, Munga is also seeing young kids following in his own footsteps.

Abbotsford and the Fraser Valley have long lacked small venues where up-and-coming bands can perform for audiences. In their absence, young artists and music lovers have improvised—Carport Manor, a tiny garage that a band and audience would pack into to hear and watch music, was a popular venue for years in Abbotsford.

Today, just as Munga and others did in years past, a new generation of teens and young adults are improvising ways to put on their own shows while getting help from older peers—Munga recently attended a show put on by a collection of Abbotsford youths.

But connecting different groups and forming a real community of artists continues to be a struggle, Munga said.

“There’s a lot of talented people in different places and I feel like [the challenge] is getting them together or just aware of each other,” Munga said.

The Abbotsford Sound

As for the music itself coming from Abbotsford, Munga sees a huge diversity. That, he says, reflects the increasingly global music world.

“In this day and age of the Internet, you could be from Abbotsford and sound like an artist from Atlanta, right? It doesn’t really matter in this day and age.”

But there are some commonalities—especially among some of the acts with the largest followings.

The agriculture-rich Fraser Valley might be expected to be a hotbed of singer-songwriter music with a country tinge, and it does have history on that front and a variety of standout artists. But it also has many small and not-so-small artists playing electronic music in various forms. Most prominently, Chilliwack’s Teen Daze (Jamison Isaak) won the 2023 Juno Award for Electronic Album of the Year. And many local indie singer-songwriters—Jordan Klassen being one of the most prominent examples—play pop-ier music employing drum machines, synths, and keyboards.

There are other electronic-influenced groups too, though. Munga points to House of the Future, an Abbotsford duo with close ties to Isaak, and Kristin Witko. Munga spent his Monday afternoon interviewing Summer Eyes, a new duo combining indie rock and synth pop elements. Jeremy K David—the duo’s multi-instrumentalist and producer—told The Current the valley’s segmented music community may actually have a practical influence over the direction of local artists.

“It’s easier to accompany yourself with layers of [sounds] you’ve created digitally than to put together a four- or five-piece band,” Dyson said. Without many local venues providing performance opportunities, artists may also focus on ways to independently create music to be released and played online (or on the radio), rather than live.

Just as it has always been, building an audience and actually making money continues to be a challenge for artists everywhere, even as technology evolves.

Although it’s never been easier for a musician from Chilliwack or Abbotsford to connect with listeners across the globe, Spotify pays only pittances to artists. (Munga notes that Apple Music, which allows listeners to purchase songs or whole albums, is much better for artists.)

Radio, though, persists, and Munga loves it deeply for what it offers to both listeners and musicians.

“When I started, people would always tell me radio is a dying art form,” he said. “But you’d be surprised at the amount of people who still to this day listen to radio and tune into radio—people who don’t have a Bluetooth system in their car.”

For listeners, curated shows like those on CIVL allow DJs to introduce new music to new audiences who would otherwise have not found it. That also makes the medium incredibly valuable for artists, said Munga, who also does freelance work on the side as a public relations manager for artists.

“There’s still people who truly care for music, and I feel like the people who truly care about music are working in radio. They’re still sitting there reading the press releases, contacting artists, going to those shows, interviewing those artists because they care.

He continued: “The beauty of being able to tune into a radio show or a music podcast is that it's our job to give you the in-depth analysis of either a song or an artist or the album that we're listening to. That’s why I’m in radio: because I care about the artistry. I care about the music.”

How to get played

So how do you get your music on the air of a community radio station like CIVL and in front of the people who care about music? You email. And then email again, Munga said.

Sharing music with a radio station is now as easy as sending an email. But music directors get inundated with emails and press releases, so Munga said gentle persistence is important to make sure that the song you sent is actually heard. There are numerous campus radio stations across Canada, and it can just take an email to start making inroads, he said. (Artists can also use online resources like Music Connection Magazine’s directories of publishers and industry contacts.)

As for general listeners, Munga and other CIVL presenters play music from across Canada but he said the mission is to showcase local artists.

“Our number one thing is to make sure we’re playing and promoting a lot of the music that comes out of the Fraser Valley before any other music.”

CIVL has been named Canada’s top campus station for two years in a row and its shows can be heard online and at 101.7FM. Munga hosts three different shows, including his flagship Chill Rose Radio; Does This Have Vibes, a review of new music picked purely from the cover art; and the !earshot20, the national Countdown show.

You can find a schedule of shows here. Chill Rose Radio is also available as a podcast, which you can find via Munga’s Chill Rose Radio Network here.