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Vaughn Stafford Gray on Muck Rack

Vaughn Stafford Gray

  • Journalist, Editor and Copywriter, Freelance
  • None, Canada.com
Jamaica
As seen in: Medium, MSN, Yahoo Life, The Atlantic, Lifehacker, Salon, Smithsonian Magazine, Food & Wine, Food52, Jamaica Observer and
Covers:  Travel, Food, Restaurants, Retail, Fashion, Lifestyle, Race, Jamaican/Caribbean Culture, Identity, Immigration, Intersectionality, and Arts & Culture.
Main character energy. Bylines: Food & Wine, The Atlantic, Saveur, Smithsonian, Jamaica Observer, Lifehacker, & more. Correspondent: CBC News.
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Vaughn Stafford Gray’s Journalist Portfolio

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Making the case for Black Spaces

Making the case for Black Spaces

The Coast — No, it's not segregation. Neither is it reverse racism which, by the way, is not a thing. The need for Black people to have their own spaces is, in a word, healing.
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From Passage to Cargo

From Passage to Cargo

Jamaica Observer — In 2013, Bahamian film director Kareem Mortimer debuted a short film Passage that centred on a group of Haitian migrants being smuggled from The Bahamas to the United States in the hold of a fishing vessel. The 15-minute film was so well received that Mortimer decided to expand it into a feature-length film. Cue: Cargo.
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Alternative Christmas plans

Alternative Christmas plans

The Coast — Ah, the holidays. Finally, the time of year when you can participate in that long-standing Halifax Christmas tradition of having your entire social circle head to Ontario while you're here by yourself. Great!
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A D'vine Dégustation

A D'vine Dégustation

Jamaica Observer — The 2018 Jamaica Food & Drink Festival's D'vine event lived up to the name (and hype). Chefs Colin Hylton and Christina Simonitsch created an eight-course menu that at some points made guests giddy with delight.
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How I learned to embrace the Halloween spirit

How I learned to embrace the Halloween spirit

The Coast — It took me two decades to grow past my Baptist upbringing and treat October 31 as the fun, friendly celebration it really is.
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Downtown food jaunt

Downtown food jaunt

Jamaica Observer — In the second Thursday Food food jaunt series, we head to downtown Kingston at noon and ask passersby where they were heading for lunch. Our findings may surprise you.
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Atlantic fridge festival

Atlantic fridge festival

The Coast — 15 cheap, delicious foodstuffs any student worth their salt should have stocked at all times.
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The Green Organic Dutchman Opens Its First Dispensary In Jamaica

The Green Organic Dutchman Opens Its First Dispensary In Jamaica

Lift & Co. — Epican's 4,000 square-foot Kingston shop is focused on wellness, and signals a new wave for cannabis on the island.
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Oneika Raymond's In Top Flight

Oneika Raymond's In Top Flight

Jamaica Observer — Born in Canada to Jamaican parents, Oneika Raymond didn't catch the travel bug until her sophomore year, when she did a year abroad in Paris. For many children of immigrants, travel is perfunctory: a plane is boarded during the summer to visit cousins abroad. Over Christmas, a visit to somewhere remote to see distant kin. And, if luck would have it, a trip to another continent to celebrate graduating from college.
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Love & Nudes

Love & Nudes

Jamaica Observer — "I love lace and when I was wearing it I didn't want underwear that didn't look like my skin," said Chantal Carter Taylor, speaking with Style Observer (SO) from Toronto. For the Montreal-born daughter of Antiguan immigrants, she saw an opportunity and took it.
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Bell & Whistles

Bell & Whistles

Jamaica Observer — There's something quite remarkable about Alessandra Bell. Beneath her humility lies a prudent businesswoman for whom the word "impossible" does not exist. This quiet confidence has been developed through a career that is studded with the shattering of ceilings and the knocking down of doors.
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ALARA - Nigeria's answer to Barneys

ALARA - Nigeria's answer to Barneys

Jamaica Observer — Here are some interesting facts about Africa: Senegal has been described as the "Paris of Africa", Djibouti the "Singapore of Africa" and the Republic of Congo is determined to become Africa's next fashion capital. And who would have thunk it? In Lagos, Nigeria, there's a store that rivals Barneys New York.
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Being a Jamaican man in Nova Scotia

Being a Jamaican man in Nova Scotia

The Coast — Regardless of their level of education, Jamaicans can tell you all about Nova Scotia. It's a shame the opposite isn't true.
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Nothing but Good Vibes

Nothing but Good Vibes

The Coast — As a young boy people called me Mr. Food," says Dwayne Green confidently, discussing his role as chef and owner of the newly-opened restaurant, Jamaica Vibes. "By the time I was seven I was making Sunday dinner for the family, and I don't mean simple things, but complicated dishes like lights"-pork, goat or sheep lungs-"and rice and peas with homemade coconut milk."
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Year in Review 2017: the best in Black television

Year in Review 2017: the best in Black television

Now Magazine — This has been such an amazing year for Black television (shows that feature a Black lead or a predominantly Black cast). We have seen race and culture expressed with both nuance and skull-whupping accuracy. Some will contend that such shows are divisive because their purview is predominantly and culturally specific to the Black experience.
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Vaughn Gray's top 10 fashion stories of 2017

Vaughn Gray's top 10 fashion stories of 2017

Now Magazine — So, Cheeto Satan is still in the White House, half the men in Hollywood are capital-T trash and racists seem more emboldened than ever. And we all thought that 2017 was definitely going to be our year. Ha! Thankfully, fashion has given us much-needed break from the litany of fuckery. Here are my top 10 fashion moments of 2017. Is it January yet?
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Shucking champ Eamon Clark is in town

Shucking champ Eamon Clark is in town

The Coast — To understand Eamon Clark you should watch season three, episode 11 of Mind of a Chef, featuring Scandinavian chef Magnus Nilsson. Not that Clark is a two star Michelin chef overseeing "the most daring restaurant in the world" but rather, like Nilsson, he approaches his art with scholarly laser-focus, paying infinitesimal detail to product and presentation.
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Review: Bad Things Happen, Kris Bertin

Review: Bad Things Happen, Kris Bertin

The Coast — Kris Bertin is the Dalí of despair. And that's a good thing. In his debut collection Bad Things Happen, Bertin writes about the abyssopelagic darkness in which his characters meander with an inexplicable warmth. Agony and anguish are treated with clever prose and the reader oscillates between empathy and the thrill of voyeurism.
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The best places to get made-to-measure and bespoke suits in Toronto

The best places to get made-to-measure and bespoke suits in Toronto

Now Magazine — Are we investing in better quality clothing or are we simply filling our closets? This is a question that has always beleaguered the fashion industry, but even more so after statistics revealed the average North American consumer tosses 40 kilograms of clothing each year. If you do the math the results are jarring.
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Haus of Jeckyll doesn't hide

Haus of Jeckyll doesn't hide

The Coast — Drag is “a political and thoughtful process ruffling the hegemony and re-educating the masses on identity and representation” and Haus of Jeckyll does it so well.
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The transcendence of Anderson .Paak

The transcendence of Anderson .Paak

The Coast — "It's like eating a Ferrero Rocher," I say when my mother asks what Anderson .Paak's music is like. "It's beautifully packaged; once you unwrap it, you quickly get to its core and then you just want more and more."
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The best festivals, concerts, movies and events in Toronto this summer

The best festivals, concerts, movies and events in Toronto this summer

Now Magazine — The days of summer are long, but the months pass by quickly. To help you plan your best summer yet, we've found 60 of the top seasonal events in Toronto - food festivals, outdoor concerts, movies in the park and even the total solar eclipse. What are you waiting for?
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19 eco-conscious Toronto brands and trends we love

19 eco-conscious Toronto brands and trends we love

Now Magazine — These designers, shops, services and programs are making the world a more sustainable place
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Why Valentine's Day should be for male friendships, too

Why Valentine's Day should be for male friendships, too

Now Magazine — I want a bro who looks at me the way Joe Biden looks at Barack. But if I called up one of my male friends for Valentine’s Day, how weird would that be?
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