“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)’…Sainte-Marie wrote the song about Alaskan dog sled racer George Attla who placed fourth in the inaugural Iditarod in 1973.” Canadian Press
St. Marie (l) and Tagaq (r)
Excerpt: Buffy Sainte-Marie delivers new song collaboration with Tanya Tagaq
“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.
Buffy St. Marie
Tanya Tagaq
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.”
*Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is a form of musical performance uniquely found among the Inuit. (An analogous form called rekuhkara was once practiced among the Ainu of Hokkaidō, Japan.) The Inuit performers are traditionally women who sing only duets in a kind of entertaining contest to see who can outlast the other, although one of the genre’s most famous performers, Tanya Tagaq, performs as a solo artist. Several groups, including Tudjaat, The Jerry Cans, Quantum Tangle and Silla + Rise, also blend traditional throat singing with mainstream musical genres such as pop, folk and dance music. -Wikipedia-
To the Men and Women: Memorial Day May 29 2017
