Magazine: A Tribe Called Red creates Aboriginal soundtrack

As the July sun sets over the Ottawa River, a crowd assembles at the bottom of a slope behind the Canadian War Museum. It’s Bluesfest, the biggest annual music event in the capital, and the energy is palpable. One of the evening’s headlining acts is A Tribe Called Red, a trio of Indigenous DJs based in Ottawa. Over the past five years, ATCR has crafted a sound that is utterly modern and unique: traditional powwow songs—age-old chants sung around a big drum—mixed with contemporary electronic dance music.

Tonight the venue seems especially symbolic. Named Kitchisippi, or “big river,” by the Algonquin people, the Ottawa River served as a vital trade route long before Samuel de Champlain travelled it in search of a passage to the Orient. Just downstream is Victoria Island, a sacred traditional Algonquin gathering site, and a little farther along, at Nepean Point, stands a statue of Champlain himself, gesturing west in a pose of conquest. Here at Bluesfest, descendants from those founding cultures of the country known as Canada will join others in a harmonious clash.

As technicians test the lights, Johnny Armstrong stands close to the stage in a circle with four friends. Like most groups of urban Indigenous people, they represent a mishmash of nations: Algonquin, Anishinabe, and Cree. Armstrong, a thirty-four-year-old Anishinabe, has lived in Ottawa for most of his life.

“If you’re an urban Native,” he says, “you feel like you’re alone. When you see someone else, it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s another one!’ ” He gestures to a woman in the circle, and everyone laughs. Then he points to the stage, his brown braid hanging down his back, swinging back and forth. “They united that. They understand the urban environment and the rez environment. They’re melding those two together, and that’s fucking cool.”

The relevance and potency of ATCR’s music extends beyond a simple fusion of old and new. Aboriginal people are the fastest-growing demographic in the country, and First Nations, Inuit, and Metis youth are increasingly moving to urban centres for school or work. This is not a mass migration from specific cultural groups. Instead, they trickle in from all corners of the country, resulting in diverse, tightly knit, culturally rich cliques like Armstrong and his friends.

Meanwhile, in the past year, the Idle No More movement has unified groups with the resolve to protect their land, cultures, and treaty rights, while educating other Canadians about their plight. The demographic shift, along with this modern political force, is embodied in ATCR’s music, art, and activism: the DJ collective is creating the soundtrack for the modern urban Indigenous experience.