This post is, primarily, for readers outside of Canada. For the last two years Ottawa, Ontario’s A Tribe Called Red has been gaining steam by doing the “impossible” – getting young people in clubs to dance to aboriginal folk songs, some of which are thousands of years old. They’ve taken traditional native powwow songs, and sampled and remixed them, blending in elements of dubstep, instrumental hip hop and raggae. The resulting sound is new and modern, while maintaining a reverence for the culture the music it came from.
Their self titled first album gained tremendous critical acclaim and national attention. Their second album Nation II Nation was short listed for the Polaris Music Prize, was the first album by an aboriginal group to win a Juno (Canada’s equivalent of the Grammys) outside of the aboriginal category and won the (readers choice) Shadow Polaris award on the music blog I started, NxEW.
Right now, on their website, you can grab a free copy of their first album A Tribe Called Red. The first video below is from that debut album, the second, Sisters, is new this week. Between the two you should get an idea of what you can expect. If it’s something you are into, follow A Tribe Called Red on Twitter.