Not thinking anything of it, Jasper Sloan Yip made an account on CBC Music in 2010.
The next day, CBC called him.
“They said I had won a contest,” said Yip.
CBC Music was having a contest to see who would be the 20,000th artist to register on their platform, according to Yip.
Luck had it — he was the 20,000th registered artist.
This led to an appearance on CBC Radio, where Yip talked about his album while it was featured on the station. Several of Yip’s songs started to chart nationally and before he knew it, he was invited to play at CBC festivals.
“I had a really weird, fortunate experience with CBC Music ... It made me feel great that they liked the music and that I suddenly had a national audience, but I wasn’t ready for it,” said Yip. “I had only been playing music for about a year ... I was so young and green ... But I’m very grateful for it.”
At the time, Yip was a UBC student — that was until he left his undergraduate degree to pursue music.
“I never finished my education here,” said Yip. “I ended up leaving because I just wasn’t happy.”
But after a decade of working in music away from campus, Yip made his way back to UBC working at CiTR 101.9 FM, the community radio station, and its arts magazine, Discorder.
Coming back to campus
In 2019, Yip started working as CiTR’s music department manager, and in 2020, he led the programming department as its manager. Over this past summer, Yip became CiTR’s station manager.
Yip currently hosts Noise Complaint — a radio show that showcases up-and-coming artists through an interview and performance — almost full circle to the CBC Radio show he was first featured on in 2010.
Yip said beginner CiTR volunteers can get involved with shows like Noise Complaint, whether that’s to learn how to record live sound or how to interview on air.
“What I love about this place is that people come here to be creative, so I get to be a part of people’s creativity,” said Yip.
Yip said his decade-long career as an independent artist has shaped his work with CiTR — he knows how to teach beginners since he’s a self-taught musician.
“All of my musical and creative learning has been done through community learning, either through self-taught study, and then [through] people by going out into the arts community and just doing it and learning from those experiences,” said Yip.
Importance of community radio
Despite Yip’s enthusiasm for the radio landscape, he acknowledged that radio may face challenges moving forward.
“In the modern media landscape, [radio] is an old technology and it’s rapidly becoming obsolete,” said Yip. “There are a lot of people who just don’t consume shortwave radio broadcasts anymore.”
But Yip said that CiTR is in a unique position because it serves the campus community.“
Campus and community radio is a bit special in that it’s not a profit-driven business,” said Yip. “However, that being said, there are campus and community stations all over the country [that] are facing defunding at a kind of an alarming rate.”
In a 2022 AMS referendum, students voted to establish a digital opt-out process which would allow students to opt-out of paying optional fees including those for AMS Resource Groups, the Bike Kitchen and CiTR.
This system resulted in an increase in student fee opt-outs, leaving fee-receiving groups in uncertain financial situations.
Yip said CiTR received 6,843 opt-outs in September 2023.
Despite funding losses potentially harming stations, Yip said he’s not concerned about the relevancy of radio since “CiTR’s main obligation is to remain relevant to the people who spend their time here,” which includes its membership and community members interested in getting involved.
“If we are serving [our community] and making them feel fulfilled in their time here, then we are meeting our relevancy goals. I think that’s why we matter,” said Yip.
Yip said UBC community members interested in joining CiTR should visit the studio to learn more. CiTR offers a free public tour every weekday at noon for interested community members to learn more about community radio and to meet CiTR members.
“My main interest in this kind of work is when I get to help people be creative … I love working with the student executives on their projects or working with a programmer on their show or helping them fix a tech issue in the studio,” said Yip.
“That’s what I love. I love working with people.”
— Additional reporting by Iman Janmohamed
