![](https://www.cjsf.ca/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/Joel_Bill_Plaskett2016-672.jpg?itok=GJujWfyX)
Every once in a while, I’ll hear a song in a totally unexpected environment that immediately grasps my full attention, and demands that I discover where it came from, so that I can listen to everything else ever created by that artist. This was how I came to love Joel Plaskett. It was Summer 2007. I was moseying around a Foot Locker in the sweaty depths of the Eaton Centre in Toronto, looking for a fresh pair of kicks, when I heard “Fashionable People” filling up the room with its peppy, infectious verses and hooks.