Duane Forrest is a professional singer-songwriter and multimedia artist from Toronto, Ontario.

His unique sound blends jazz, reggae, bossa nova, soul, and smooth vocals. Over the past decade, Forrest has released two full-length original albums and toured in Canada three times, in Europe four times, and in Central America three times. He has secured radio play in Canada,

Germany, Honduras, Iceland, Italy, Nicaragua, and the United States. His latest album, The Climb, reaches more than 4,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

 

In 2017, Duane debuted his first theatre production, Climb, a live album experience based on his concept album, The Climb. Duane also presented Climb at the 2018 Toronto Fringe Festival, where Toronto Fringe founder Gregory Nixon described the show as “one of the highlights of this year’s Fringe.” Most recently in 2019 & 2022 Climb received glowing reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In 2023 Duane performed CLIMB at the Milan Fringe Festival and was runner up for “show of the festival”. He also debuted a new show called “Bob Marley: How reggae changed the world” that received a 5 star review from Broadway Baby. As he furthers his career, Forrest aims to continue to push the boundaries of his art by delivering music in diverse storytelling formats.

 

Duane has just released his new EP “Blackest Bird” which speaks to political issues facing the Canadian Black community. Currently, Duane is developing a new album called “Sunrise in Jasper '' that will explore Indigenous and Black experience in present day Canada into it’s history. He is excited to use music to further shine light on issues of social justice and change.

 

Duane is a Black Canadian born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, to Jamaican immigrant parents. Growing up in an at-risk neighbourhood, music provided Duane a positive outlet that he credits for putting him on a different path than many of his childhood peers. He developed a passion for many genres of music growing up listening to Reggae, Hip Hop, Classical and Jazz FM radio.

 

His experience with music as a young man also inspired him to found Genesis School of the Arts, a registered Canadian charity that offers music and arts programming to marginalized children and youth in Toronto and Central America.

 

Duane’s songwriting draws on reflections from traveling the world, falling in love, and finding wonder in the joys and sorrows of human experiences. He values wholesome, relatable stories grounded in real-life experiences. His songwriting also increasingly explores issues of social and cultural awareness and individual and collective change.

 

Also, Duane really enjoys apple juice.