#Indigenous Music

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Lheidli T'enneh musician Kym Gouchie is keeping First Nations languages alive for the next generation. And she's doing it by recording children's songs with the help of her drum, a new ukulele, phone voice memo recordings of her Granny's voice and an armful of firewood.

Gouchie's children's album, Shun beh nats'ujeh, released on June 13, means, "We are Healing through Songs."

The album features songs Gouchie wrote and performed in English as well as her ancestral languages of Dakelh, Secwepemctsin and Cree.

"These languages are part of my DNA and my blood memory. When we hear the language being spoken, it stirs something up in us," Gouchie says.

Continue Reading

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[folk-enjoyer]

Song of the Day

"Call of the moose" Willy Mitchell, 1980 As you might know, September 30th is Truth and Reconciliation day (more commonly known as Orange Shirt Day), a national day in Canada dedicated to spreading awareness about the legacy of Residential schools on Indigenous people. Instead of just focusing on a song, I also wanted to briefly talk about the history of the sixties scoop and its influence on Indigenous American music and activism.

The process of Residential schooling in Canada existed well before the '60s, but the new processes of the sixties scoop began in 1951. It was a process where the provincial government had the power to take Indigenous children from their homes and communities and put them into the child welfare system. Despite the closing of residential schools, more and more children were being taken away from their families and adopted into middle-class white ones.

Even though Indigenous communities only made up a tiny portion of the total population, 40-70% of the children in these programs would be Aboriginal. In total, 20,000 children would be victims of these policies through the 60s and 70s.

These adoptions would have disastrous effects on their victims. Not only were sexual and physical abuse common problems but the victims were forcibly stripped of their culture and taught to hate themselves. The community panel report on the sixties scoop writes:

"The homes in which our children are placed ranged from those of caring, well-intentioned individuals, to places of slave labour and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The violent effects of the most negative of these homes are tragic for its victims. Even the best of these homes are not healthy places for our children. Anglo-Canadian foster parents are not culturally equipped to create an environment in which a positive Aboriginal self-image can develop. In many cases, our children are taught to demean those things about themselves that are Aboriginal. Meanwhile, they are expected to emulate normal child development by imitating the role model behavior of their Anglo-Canadian foster or adoptive parents."

and to this day indigenous children in Canada are still disproportionately represented in foster care. Despite being 5% of the Total Canadian population, Indigenous children make up 53.8% of all children in foster care.

I would like to say that the one good thing that came out of this gruesome and horrible practice of state-sponsored child relocation was that there was a birth of culture from protest music, but there wasn't. In fact, Indigenous music has a long history of being erased and whitewashed from folk history.

From Buffy Saint-Marie pretending to be Indigenous to the systematic denial of first nations people from the Canadian mainstream music scene, the talented artists of the time were forcibly erased.

Which is why this album featuring Willy Mitchell is so important.

Willy Mitchell and The Desert River Band

This Album was compiled of incredibly rare, unheard folk and rock music of North American indigenous music in the 60s-80s. It is truly, a of a kind historical artifact and a testimony to the importance of archival work to combat cultural genocide. Please give the entire thing a listen if you have time. Call of the Moose is my favorite song on the album, written and performed by Willy Mitchell in the 80s. His Most interesting song might be 'Big Policeman' though, written about his experience of getting shot in the head by the police. He talks about it here:

"He comes there and as soon as I took off running, he had my two friends right there — he could have taken them. They stopped right there on the sidewalk. They watched him shootin’ at me. He missed me twice, and when I got to the tree line, he was on the edge of the road, at the snow bank. That’s where he fell, and the gun went off. But that was it — he took the gun out. He should never have taken that gun out. I spoke to many policemen. And judges, too. I spoke with lawyers about that. They all agreed. He wasn’t supposed to touch that gun. So why did I only get five hundred dollars for that? "

These problems talked about here, forced displacement, cultural assimilation, police violence, child exploitation, and erasure of these crimes, still exist in Canada. And so long as they still exist, it is imperative to keep talking about them. Never let the settler colonial government have peace; never let anyone be comfortable not remembering the depth of exploitation.

Every Child Matters

[thenuclearmallard]

Native Siberian music

[suffer-forever]

I take everything back. This is the only thing that is REAL punk:

(Bandcamp link)

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Ummet Ozcan X Otyken Altay (Official Music Video)

Have I shared this before?

Absolute banger. All the vibes.

[wiiildflowerrr]

First Nations Australian hip hop supergroup 3% cover Youngblood by 5 Seconds of Summer, for Triple J's Like A Version. Full performance and back story below the cut:

[discover-underground-bands]

divide and dissolve! i first saw them opening for chelsea wolfe, really vibey indigenous sludge metal duo

spotify / youtube / bandcamp

[meliissa-art]

"Hedie" is a traditional Even song. But traditional songs can be remixed too <3

[badolmen]

My music taste isn’t special but I did want to share some of my favorite indigenous rap/club/hiphop artists that I’ve been listening to lately :]

[luulapants]

I just remembered this AMAZING uquiz I made a while ago and people should go take it.

[patrocles]

MATO WAYUHI → fall out boy

[folk-enjoyer]

Custer Died for your sins

for the tribes you terminated

for the myths you kept alive

for the land you confiscated for our freedom, you deprived

custer died for your sins

custer died for your sins

jimmy curtiss 1983

[thenuclearmallard]

Whale hunt dance in Chukotka

[overdriveorchestra]

While writing and recording ‘Restless Star’, Shaun shared that he was inspired by Indigenous music for the title track. At the same time, I had been reading We Are the Middle of Forever, and the idea came about to use a quote from the book in lieu of original lyrics. James recorded the spoken word passages, and the final piece was so moving that we decided to name the album after that song.

- Chris

[bonewhiteglory]

Warpath - Drezus

[bubblegrungeprincess]

Native Americans are still victims of constant violence. They are deprived of water, food, housing, and medical care by the US government. Their women and children are kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered at bewildering rates, all virtually ignored by law enforcement. Remember and support them on this day and every day.