Up north, round Canada way, there’s a new indigenous movement in music rumbling in the clubs, on dance floors, and in festival fields. Some call it powwow step, others call it indigenous electronica, others still call it First Nations’ dubstep. It’s a scene driven by Canadian electronic trio A Tribe Called Red and it’s here to change the way you think about indigenous music.
A Tribe Called Red formed in 2007, as an indigenous band for the 21st century. Members Ian “DJ NDN” Campeau, Tim “2oolman” Hill, and Bear Witness blend the age old dance and chants of indigenous North America with the electronic beats and scratches of ultra-modernity. They’re bringing what many people see as archaic and lost music from a lost people into the national consciousness and onto sweaty dance floors for the first time. And it’s sounds awesome.
As a mixed indigenous kid from Washington State, I’ve been following and loving A Tribe Called Red for a few years now — largely because there is so little indigenous music out there. When a group as powerful as ATCR comes along you take note. So I was thrilled to catch up with guys on their recent American tour up the east coast when they had a free day in Washington DC. We talked life for an Indian in Trudeau’s Canada and Trump’s America, our shared history, Canada 150, and what it’s like dropping fresh beats with a truly old school twist.
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Hey guys. Thanks for taking some time out of your free day on the road.
TIM HILL: No worries. We were probably just going to do some laundry. (laughs)
How’s the tour going?
BEAR WITNESS: It’s been great, man. Really good crowds at all the gigs from Florida all the way up here [Washington, DC].
Well, it is your day off, so let’s jump right in the deep end. It’s kind of hard to separate politics from indigenous life. So how does your music fit in?
BEAR WITNESS: We come from people who look at things holistically. So to be a musician, to do things that are political, all these things are just part of our lives.
The political part of what we do is more a responsibility, because we are using our culture and our music. So there’s a responsibility to that culture to then use the attention that we have to speak about things that are important to us.
When you’re planning out your tours are you focusing on indigenous communities, or just anywhere you can get a stage?
TIM HILL: Yeah, the music that we make is for indigenous people, so that’s primarily who we target. We’re scattered all across North America and the world — so when we do play shows, people come out. But’s that’s who we play for, first and foremost.
Are you seeing any crossover from other communities in your shows? Or is it still a bit of an indigenous world out there for you?
TIM HILL: There’s been plenty of crossover and I think that that’s also part of the responsibility of what we’re doing where we do kind of create this bridge between two communities that didn’t necessarily cross over that often before, anyways. And building these bridges, it allows for conversations which is helpful to everybody.
Obviously A Tribe Called Quest is a big influence, given your name. Who are some of your indigenous influences?
BEAR WITNESS: Yeah, a lot of our collaborators on the last album were wishlist people that we wanted to work with. Like John Trudell, Tanya Tagaq, just people like that in general. Those people are huge influences on myself, at least.
TIM HILL: Yeah, all of us really.
Wow. Trudell is a f*cking legend. How was it working with him?
BEAR WITNESS: He’s a superhero to us. So when I first met him, he didn’t give me a chance to really get a word in at all. I kept trying to tell him what his work meant to me, what he meant to me, all those kind of things you want to tell somebody like that when you meet them. But he wouldn’t let me get any of it out of my mouth. He knew my name right away, sat me down and was just like, “Okay, here’s what you guys are doing and what it means to me. And if I gave you some words, would you like to do something with it?” It was just like he had a mission and before we could broach anything about a collaboration or any of that, he was already in and working on it. He wanted to do that, so it was something that seemed important to him, so that was … I don’t even know how to explain that feeling really.
I’m from an American tribe down in Washington. You guys are from up North. What sort of differences do you see in indigenous culture between the US and Canada? Or do you see any?
IAN CAMPEAU: Not much. There’s nationhood differences that definitely happen between nations, but the problems, the solidarity, the family, the togetherness, it’s all relative and familiar.
BEAR WITNESS: And not just in North America, but in the world.
IAN CAMPEAU: Yeah, anywhere there’s indigenous people. Same thing in Sami country, meeting people in Norway, same thing in Australia meeting the indigenous people there.
It’s sort of a “rough time” politics-wise. People are getting very isolationist, the whole “America first” ethos, and obviously the first thing Trump did was throw Standing Rock and Keystone under the bus. They’re talking about selling off state land and reservation land and privatizing it possibly. What’s something we can do now as an indigenous community to non-violently fight these rollbacks of progress?
TIM HILL: It’s always been oppressive, right? We’ve always lived under these things and nothing’s really changed. We’ve survived through all of it and our parents fought for us to be able to be here, now we’re fighting for our kids to be able to exist. It’s bad now, but it’s always been bad, you know? It’s never been for us, the idea of American politics and Canadian politics never really had us as the benefactor in any of those ideas.
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You get the sense in Indian country that we’ve been fighting to build bridges for generations now. I did some work about Willie Dunn recently, and there’s a sadness to it because all of his songs from 30 or 40 years ago ring 100 percent true right now. Where can we build bridges that will actually get us somewhere for once? Because it’s sort of hard to see where it could be.
BEAR WITNESS: Yeah. And it’s interesting you bring up somebody like Willie because the history of trying to build that bridge, for the most part, has been on our side. There’s been generations now of artists who have been trying to build that bridge. I’m the fourth generation in my family trying to do this work as an artist.
One of the first youth video programs I did in the late ’90s in Ottawa, was with one of Willie Dunn’s sons. And my father’s a photographer who’s done a lot of work around Ottawa around the same time as Willie. And so there was this real feeling we had of, ‘Here we are as the sons of these guys, trying to continue on these same kind of fights.’
Now when you look back at that history, not much has moved. We’re still the ones trying to build that bridge. And there’s some more hope now. People are starting to pay a lot more attention to what’s happening within the indigenous world, outside of our community. But I think there’s a real feeling within the indigenous community that we’re just continuing on, you know?
Yeah. That’s kind of how it feels. It’s sort of like we just march forward trying to survive.
BEAR WITNESS: Exactly. It would be nice to make it to something else, you know? There’s a real feeling I feel now that we’re starting to move beyond just survival and move into thriving. You’re seeing that within the arts world always first, but across the board it’s starting to happen.
We’re also seeing the game change. The fact that we can have people at Standing Rock actually be seen. We can have a social media presence now and get the word unfiltered to the world for good or bad — I mean, it’s not always perfect. But the world can see it now streaming live. And maybe that will be a turning point.
BEAR WITNESS: Exactly.
What’s the reception been like when you’re touring in Europe?
IAN CAMPEAU: When we played festivals in Europe, they’re always packed, but I don’t know if that’s because of us or because of the culture there. It’s like the festival culture there’s that they’ll just go see anybody.
There is a big festival culture here, where people just spend like three days at a place listening to music.
BEAR WITNESS: Yeah, I found a real willingness of fans in Europe to just stop at a band that they walked by and we’d start playing to like 20 or 30 people and by the end of the set playing to a few hundred.
Have you guys done any work with other indigenous cultures while you’re in Europe, or down in New Zealand or Australia?
BEAR WITNESS: Yeah, we worked with OKA in Australia and that was awesome, and then we worked with Maxida Marak, who is Sami. So we’re open to a lot of collaborations. And you know what it all comes down to? It all comes down to meeting them on our tours and that’s how we get most of our collaborations. We just meet some really cool people along the way. A lot of different indigenous people. And we become friends and then we work with them.
That’s a really good way to operate, man. Let’s go back to native life a little bit. I actually want to ask a question about Canada. I have this question about Trudeau and I’ve been afraid to ask Canadians about this for a while, so I’m gonna go take a swing with you guys.
(laughs)
So Trudeau, the Prime Minister, has a Salish tattoo on his arm. What do you guys think of that?
(more laughs)
BEAR WITNESS: You know … I believe the artist who designed that original work put out a challenge to Trudeau that if he was gonna wear that, then he has to listen to indigenous people and actually do the things that he promised in his campaign for indigenous people.
TIM HILL: He’ll have to get a laser removal surgery. (more laughs)
Yeah, I was gonna say, that’s fair enough, but it’s not really happened, has it?
BEAR WITNESS: I think that sums up the feelings of indigenous Canada pretty well.
When I’m working in Canada, there seems to be a lot of indigenous artists focused on healing now. There’s a lot of looking forward as opposed to only looking back. Sort of like, ‘we know what the past is and we need to heal from it so we can move on.’ Do you guys feel like you’re part of that or am I just making that up in my head?
IAN CAMPEAU: Well right now, it’s a huge thing about the past in Canada. We’re dealing with the 150 right now which is a little difficult in the way that it’s being presented by Canada.
Canada’s “150th” anniversary is looming large this year. Do you feel that you’re a part of it?
TIM HILL: The way I’ve explained is that as a proud Canadian if you found out that your dad had to kill a bunch of people and lie and steal for you to be able to live in a house that you were maybe born in and lived in for your entire life … would you be able to invite the families of the people that you killed and decimated to come party because you’ve had that house for 150 years? And could you even party for that 150 years, knowing that now?
Yeah, that’s a perfect explanation of it. But then here we are. It’s a huge cross-country thing. It’s almost an immovable force.
BEAR WITNESS: I like that your question was like, “Do we feel that we’re a part of it?” I feel like we’re bulldozed by it. There’s not a choice to whether or not, you know? It’s all around us.
It’s inescapable.
BEAR WITNESS: We have a choice whether or not we participate in it to an extent. But it’s like trying to avoid Christmas.
IAN CAMPEAU: Exactly, exactly.
BEAR WITNESS: Which I do my best to do every year by locking myself in my house and rejecting all media and playing video games.
IAN CAMPEAU: But it’s even in video games! They start sending you all these special skins throughout like Santa Claus costumes and stuff.
TIM HILL: It starts snowing in your game!
BEAR WITNESS: That’s how Canada 150 feels to me, you know.
IAN CAMPEAU: That’s funny.
TIM HILL: It is like avoiding Christmas.
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That’s a perfect example. Yeah we got the same thing with the 4th of July and Thanksgiving down in the states.
IAN CAMPEAU: We get asked to do Canada Day performances and that’s another one that’s always like, ‘you want us to play Canada Day? Like … Okay … I have to think about that for a second and I’m definitely gonna have to say something about it when we play.’
Right. That’s the conundrum isn’t it! It’s do you take the platform to get your message out? Or do you get your message out by not taking the platform?
IAN CAMPEAU: And we’ve done…
BEAR WITNESS: Both.
TIM HILL: We’ve done both. There’s times when both scenarios would come up and it’s just about how we feel about it.
BEAR WITNESS: And how much agency we have in that situation. Whether we’re just gonna feel like we’re being put up as a face or we’re gonna have a chance to speak our minds. And if we know that we have the chance to let our message be known, let ourselves have our own voice, then it’s something that we can do. But when it starts to feel like we’re just being held up as this symbol or something …
It’s like what Willie Dunn said when he met the Queen of England. He whispered in her ear, “We’re not your children anymore.” The power of a moment can’t be denied. He owned it. The way I’ve been dealing with it through my writing is trying to take ownership of these national events. I did this big piece about Thanksgiving where I recreated the meal from an indigenous point of view. You know, like, “This is what we would have been eating,” and going through, I guess a sort of food therapy in way so that it became something new and different. But then you get to bigger events like Canada 150 or Fourth of July, and how do you take ownership of that?
Yeah, exactly. Or do we want ownership of that? Why celebrate something that has tried and is still trying to end our existence actively? You know what I mean? How are we supposed to celebrate that?
That’s the thing that I try to get across most often is that this isn’t the 1800s in some history book, this is right now. The school-to-prison pipeline is happening to kindergarten aged kids right now. People are still dislocated right now. Women are disappearing right now. People want you to be stoic and look like you’re in a f*cking John Ford movie but there’s no connective tissue that illuminates to the outside that this is right now. I don’t know, that wasn’t a question, that was just a rant.
TIM HILL: No, yeah, man! We’re all shaking our heads over here in agreement.
BEAR WITNESS: I mean that’s something we have to explain with the music all the time. So often. When we first started putting this music out, we got asked that all the time. ‘so where do you get these old recordings?’ It’s like, ‘no, this is right now.’
TIM HILL: We would always say, “Dude, it was made like two years ago, a year ago.”
BEAR WITNESS: It’s actually becoming less and less now that we’ve actually done stuff like the Manawan video and actually shown that the drum groups that we’re sampling are young people making this music contemporarily.
Right. The disconnect is universal then, isn’t it?
BEAR WITNESS: Yup.
I want to end this on a positive, especially for an indigenous community. What’s your advice to a kid who’s trying to break out of the rez and express themselves through art or start a band like you guys did?
IAN CAMPEAU: Well, Tim, what would you tell a kid?
TIM HILL: I don’t know, just…
BEAR WITNESS: Young Mohawk kid from Six…
TIM HILL: I don’t know…
BEAR WITNESS: What did someone tell you?
TIM HILL: No one told me anything and that’s the problem. I’d tell you the same thing when this comes up for any youth or anybody for that matter, is that just don’t get frustrated and to keep doing what you’re doing. If you have a vision, follow that vision. Don’t get sidetracked into other things or whatever, because that vision is what’s special about what you’re making. That idea that you have is what’s special about what you’re making. And it may not work the first time, it may not work the second time, it may not work the 50th time, but it may work the 51st time.
