Toronto hip hop artist, Mindbender, told me to meet him in front of MuchMusic. As I arrived he gave a hug goodbye to a tall, gorgeous young woman. A minute or so later, another hottie waved at him from across the street. Five minutes after that, as we were crossing McCaul to chat under the OCAD stilts, he said what up to yet another beautiful woman.

When talking about his love for Toronto, he makes frequent mention of "the beautiful ladies" - and he has clearly tapped into a network of fierce females. But Mindbender, also known as Adhimu Stewart, has not a creepy bone in his body. His big smile, fro-hawk, and high pitched giggle after he brags about his work, are markers of a big heart and a wide open approach to life.

Toronto's first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, stares down at Adam Vaughan whenever the Councillor for Trinity-Spadina works in his sunny City Hall office. Like the never-say-die reformer, Vaughan seems uncomfortable in the trappings of political office, and reluctant to let go of his reporter's training - a neat row of black notebooks lines one side of his desk, the dates of use neatly scribbled in silver on the front.

There's only one reason why Vaughan chose politics - he's hopelessly, romantically and unapologetically in love with Toronto. I met up with the long-time Queen & Bathurst resident to get the dirt on his love affair.

Tell me what it was like growing up in Toronto?

I grew up in a really magical little neighborhood. At a time when a lot of middle-class families were leaving the downtown my parents chose a house in Wychwood Park. Back then it was largely university professors, not that different from the Annex.

When the Great Bloomers signed a record deal with Maple Music last year, singer/songwriter Lowell Sostomi was so hyped he failed a couple of classes in his last semester at Ryerson. The five-piece band's inventive, accomplished album, Speak of Trouble, released in April has the city's indie music media swooning.

Originally from Fort Erie Lowell and guitarist Nate Hindle are nostalgic for the small town life but Toronto is home. To see the city through their eyes we had a pint at their favourite Toronto Bar, the Victory Cafe, and then went to see their favourite city band, The Sadies, backing punk legend John Doe at their favourite city store Sonic Boom.

Getting out of their father's shadow is something many young men wrestle with - and musician and filmmaker Shane Belcourt, son of Métis leader and activist Tony Belcourt is no different. But he's managed it better than most.

His award-winning 2008 film Tkaronto (the Mohawk word for Toronto) follows two characters as they struggle to maintain or recapture their Aboriginal identity in the concrete city. The heavily autobiographical tale prompted me to ask Belcourt about his relationship with the city.

Belcourt moved here from Ottawa at the age of 20 to study film at York University. When he isn't working on a suite of film and television projects including an animated documentary short, "Red Car, Blue Hood," (about growing up the son of a Métis rights leader), Belcourt is absorbed in the daily duties of family and fatherhood in his home near Pape and Danforth.

Poet and novelist Priscila Uppal's work wrestles with the big stuff of life - identity, fertility, mortality. With two novels and six books of poetry behind her, including this year's novel, To Whom It May Concern, The World Literature Review calls her "one of the most engaging young poets writing in English in Canada today."

The York University English and Humanities professor draws inspiration from the everyday people living, working and roaming Toronto's streets. Her poem "Divorce or Spanish Lessons?" draws inspiration from two advertisements beside one another on an island of the St. Clair West subway line. Uppal reads the poem in an audio recording for blogTO at the end of this post, but first, here's Toronto through her eyes.

Even as a scrawny Upper Canada College student, Peter C. Newman was never far from the action. Arriving in Toronto as a Jewish refugee fleeing the Holocaust, Newman isn't shy about his love for the country and the city he's called home for most of his life.

But he says he'll always be an outsider. He's also a gifted storyteller who believes not just in singing, but bellowing, for his supper, characteristics that let him play confidant to the likes of Conrad Black and Brian Mulroney before spilling their confessions in naked, and bestselling, biographies.

The dedicated journalist has certainly shaped our city - as editor-in-chief of the Toronto Star, author of nearly two dozen books on Canadian politics, business and history and the man behind Maclean's shift to a weekly newsmagazine.