When house-and-disco duo Tush step onstage at Standard Time tonight, they’ll be debuting Heavy Weather, a five-track EP shaped by upheaval and a shifting global politics. But for front-woman Kamilah Apong, the project has become inseparable from another storm entirely: Hurricane Melissa, which tore through Black River, Jamaica — the town her family hails from — on October 28.
“The town centre has been swept away by the sea: the hospital, postal office, schools, courthouse, library, and centuries-old church — where my parents were married — reduced to rubble,” she wrote in the campaign description for Tush’s crowdsourcing campaign on Chuffed. In the days that followed, Apong sat in grief, waiting to hear from family members as reports of catastrophic damage rolled in. When contact finally came, the news of the scale of destruction arrived with the blunt force of irreversibility.
“It’s one of my most cherished places… and it’s gone,” she tells me. “I had to do something. Otherwise, I would’ve just sat in grief and just felt sad.”
Tonight’s release show doubles as a mutual-aid fundraiser, with proceeds from merch and a portion of ticket sales going directly toward roof repairs, food, toiletries and emergency support for residents in Black River. The initiative has nearly raised $6,000, as of publication time.
For Apong, the decision to mobilize resources was a way to transform grief into something actionable. “From a cultural standpoint, it’s justice for my family. It also allowed me to repurpose my grief in a way that was more effective.”
This is Tush’s first time engaging in mutual aid efforts at this scale. “We were going to do merch anyway. So I was like, ‘let’s just optimize this to actually build some resources for people in need right now,’” Apong shares.
Her understanding of mutual aid is inseparable from Jamaica’s cultural legacy — a lineage she sees as foundational to global electronic music, including the genres Tush draws from.
“A lot of people that I really love and have influenced my music. You hear them on our albums, and the world at large. They need more than our sadness, they need action.”
Tush’s new EP also reflects the duo’s reckoning with broader socio-political change. “Heavy Weather is marking the beginning of this sort of processing, and this sort of writing that I haven’t really done before,” says Apong.
The music is intertwined with Tush’s personal transformation. “You’ll naturally hear that in the music, and there’ll be more to come.”
The singles “Push” and “Push II (Revolution Deeper)” directly address political engagement, quoting activist Mariame Kaba on how hope is a discipline. Apong hopes the EP amplifies the need for disciplined organizing, rebuking apathy and staying away from political nihilism. “We have to act, we have to actually take action and organize things,” she says.
Apong frames her music as personal introspection rather than instruction. “I’m just offering my own reflection of where I’m at and maybe there’s something there for people to hold onto and do their own internal reflection.”
The human cost of Hurricane Melissa is immense, with dozens losing their lives. Apong remains in close contact with her family via WhatsApp: “The real big challenges start now because you have to rebuild. After everyone has forgotten, when the news networks are gone and the world has moved on from the sensational aspect, it’s about rebuilding your life — and an entire town that was there one day and completely gone the next.”
Her family in Black River recently regained access to running water, but much is left to be repaired. At the same time, Apong is careful about how the story of Black River is told. She wants to avoid reducing Jamaica to a narrative of victimhood.
“There’s a balance between [advocating and] building resources and also being respectful and like, centring their dignity,” she explains. “Jamaica’s a very proud country, rightfully so. I also don’t wanna, like, ‘charity porn’ my own family.”
Tush has long been a fixture of Toronto’s disco scene, and Heavy Weather — out Nov. 21 — represents a shift in the duo’s approach to performance. Their live setup is now fully hardware-based, allowing them to improvise in the moment while adapting to the logistical demands of touring — a reflection of Apong’s own movement between Ontario and Nova Scotia, and the intimate energy of the project itself.
“Tush shows are always about a lot of emotional processing… It’s a different feeling when we’re all in the same room together and can be in community through music, in person. It is a very, very sacred thing.”