Drima Starlight is the founder of Assertive & Company. He is the Toronto-based musician, author, singer-songwriter, recording artist and executive producer behind a much awaited forthcoming visual concept album trilogy and its accompanying illustrated novel trilogy.

He is the co-author and chief narrative strategist of Monster: Your Billion Dollar Ideology, the manifesto and the movement, the author of the provocative searing memoir My Isl@m: How Fundamentalism Stole My Mind and Doubt Freed My Soul, and the sequel Our Superpowers After PTSD: Origin Stories, Trauma Recovery and the Journey Back to Yourself.

A writer, messenger and public orator described by WIRED as a “formidable speaker” and praised by Disney and Marvel storytellers for his insights on "revolutionary life-hackers" and creative entrepreneurship, his work probes past the conventions prevalent in pop culture, piercing veils of illusion and revealing possibilities beyond most peoples’ comprehension. 

Noted by The Economist as “puckish” for being playfully mischievous, he is also the host of the online show The Drima Starlight Experience, documenting his ongoing real-life experiences while inviting us into his fictional grand universe and imaginal realm in ways that often blur the line between what is and isn’t considered fiction. 

As the founder of Assertive & Company – a boutique coaching-driven media company and record label – everything he does is devoted to creating a more planetary culture that values and unleashes human potential in all corners of Earth and beyond, through the arts, civic engagement, nonviolent activism and timeless wisdom of our shared human heritage. 

His work as an outspoken activist-journalist for human rights and democracy has appeared or been reviewed and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera English, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Bloomberg, France24, BBC, CBC and dozens of media outlets in over 13 languages telling stories about faith, consciousness, borders, human wellbeing and our new sci-fi present. Since his critically acclaimed authorial debut at the age of 26, his writings have been praised by a readership that includes former White House officials, Hollywood personalities, Ivy League academics, celebrated journalists and technology entrepreneurs. Ken Wilber, the noted American philosopher of consciousness featured in The Matrix trilogy set described the memoir as “an important and significant book, especially at this time in our history.” 

He has shared the stage with Nobel Prize Laureates and former heads of state at the annual Oslo Freedom Forum, and given talks to audiences at MIT, Google, Afest by Mindvalley, the German-American Institute in Heidelberg, and Washington DC think-tanks Freedom House and Cato Institute, as well as Columbia University and the University of British Columbia, among other places. As an ardent persistent advocate of human rights, potential and creativity, he is a featured voice in the Emmy nominated documentary film Live Your Quest alongside some of today’s most influential voices in the human potential movement, and is a member of the Board and International Council of the New York City based Human Rights Foundation, where he serves on the committee of the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. 

Born Amir Ahmad Abd Al-Rahim Muhammad Nasr in the land of Nubian pyramids and heritage where the White and Blue Nile rivers converge in Khartoum, Sudan, forged in the crucible of Qatar, raised and educated in British and American international schools in beautifully diverse multicultural Malaysia, and originally from Space, wherever he went he found solace and belonging with his guitars and in music of all genres, in particular the rich influences of Motown, soul, hip-hop, rap metal, punk rock, hours-long house sets and dreamy electronica infused with the ferocity of the Arabic-dubbed Japanese anime he grew up on, all permeating his distinct cinematic sonic sound.  

On January 29th, 2014, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the banning of his searing coming-of-age debut memoir My Isl@m, he was forced into exile in Vancouver, Canada where he sought and attained political asylum, and began reconnecting with his artistic roots. Five challenging years later, he became a permanent resident of Canada and a new Canadian. Days afterwards on January 29th, 2019 he departed from Vancouver with his creative partner in life and crime Skye Starlight, and settled in his new Earth HQ in the supercity of Toronto where he had a profound psychedelic death and rebirth experience that changed the course of his life forever. 

And the rest as they say is history.

(Stage photo by Ray Shum).

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