Julien Matwawana - Executive Director ANSMA

Born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Julien grew up in a household filled with musical influences.

At the age of five, Julien began playing the drums, shortly after that he started writing and recording raps. It wasn’t long before the home studio that Julien created became the neighbourhood recording studio. Being able to create a space, and provide resources, knowledge, and access to equipment was what Julien enjoyed the most. Today Julien does just that through artist management and development, live music production, and public speaking.

Julien served as an active member on the board of The African Nova Scotian Music Association (ANSMA) from 2020-2023. During this time on the board of ANSMA, he curated panels and showcases and fundraised to fuel the organization's mission. While engaged in his volunteer work, Julien stepped in as Interim Investment Program Manager at Music Nova Scotia in 2022. In this role, he provided information to those pursuing a career in the music industry, in addition to overseeing the distribution of public funds allocated to each of Music Nova Scotia’s Investment Programs, and much more.

Julien is currently the Programming Committee Chair at ADVANCE Canada’s Music Business Collective and also serves on the East Coast Music Association’s African Canadian Music Committee.

In 2023, Julien was hired as ANSMA’s first Executive Director in the organization's history. In this position, Julien aims to serve the African Nova Scotian/Black community with greater emphasis on youth and career development in music. Following Julien’s time working at Music Nova Scotia, he embarked on a path to start his own music business consulting and management company. Through his company, Julien offers artist management, facilitation, public speaking, grant writing, promotion, project management, live music production planning, and will soon be adding royalty and publishing collection services.

Check him out @matwawanajulien