Music on Rose City Native Radio ---
Two powerhouses of Canada's Indigenous music scene have lifted the curtain on a new collaboration.
Buffy Sainte-Marie and Tanya Tagaq paired for the track You Got To Run (Spirit Of The Wind), which has debuted online.
Sainte-Marie wrote the song about Alaskan dog sled racer George Attla who finished fourth in the inaugural Iditarod in 1973. His story was retold in the 1979 film Spirit of the Wind.
The singers joined together as part of a series of collaborations organized by the brain trust behind the Polaris Music Prize.
Both Sainte-Marie and Tagaq are former Polaris winners. Sainte-Marie grabbed the 2015 award for Power in the Blood,
while throat singer Tagaq's album Animism won a year earlier.
Tagaq says the song's theme suggests "you can't let things bring you down," which she says could also be interpreted as an anti-suicide message.
Canada's Indigenous communities have been wracked by youth suicides amid calls for action to address the crisis.
Indigenous hip hop act Snotty Nose Rez Kids hail from the Haisla Nation. The duo of rappers Darren Young D Metz and Quinton Yung Trybez Nyce emerged from Kitimat in 2017 with the double-banger of its self-titled debut and followup, The Average Savage.
Shortlisted for the 2018 Polaris Music Prize, the Average Savage featured pointedly political tracks such as KKKanada, which aimed directly at institutionalized racism in Canada.
Originally released on 11-01-2019