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Electric Pow Wow: A Tribe Called Red: W5
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This title expires January 31st, 2026
Subject(s): Canadian Social Studies, First Nations Studies, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Music, Social Issues, Social Studies
Grade Level: 6 - 8, 9 - 12, Post Secondary
Subject(s): Canadian Social Studies, First Nations Studies, Indigenous Issues, Indigenous Peoples, Music, Social Issues, Social Studies
Grade Level: 6 - 8, 9 - 12, Post Secondary
If you're an indigenous person living in a country that was forcefully colonized, it's all too common to find yourself underrepresented and misrepresented if not blatantly and systematically devalued and attacked. Positive role models and a positive self-identity are hard to come by, yet the Canadian DJ collective A Tribe Called Red, is a modern gateway into urban and contemporary indigenous culture and experience, celebrating all its layers and complexity.
With multiple nominations for Juno Awards, the group's music, which blends traditional Latin and hip hop rhythms, heavy base-driven beats of dubstep, and the powerful and ancient music and culture of Canada’s First Nations, has attracted a growing fan base in Canada and across the world. Group members Ian Campeau, Tim Hill, and Ehren Thomas, discuss their lives, early musical influences and their role in building bridges between cultures by broadening cultural awareness and understanding of aboriginal issues from oil and gas pipelines, to reconciling the dark past of Canada’s residential schools.
They are part of a vital new generation of artists making a cultural and social impact in Canada promoting inclusivity, empathy and acceptance amongst all races and genders in the name of social justice.
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Running Time: 16:00 Country of Origin: Canada Captions:  |
Producer: CTV Copyright Date: 2017 Language: English |
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Electric Pow Wow: A Tribe Called Red: W5 15:35
Indigenous people living in a country that was forcibly...
TRANSCRIPT
Close- Welcome back. Every now and again a musical act comes along that changes things. A Tribe Called Red is that kind of group. And they're having a breakthrough year nominated for multiple 2017 Juno Awards, including electronic album of the year and video of the year. These three DJs from Ontario aren't only blending new sounds. They're building bridges between Canada's indigenous culture and people of all backgrounds who just like to dance.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- Welcome to Chicago, the American city where new forms of music are made. It's a place known for its unique flavor of blues and jazz and where electronic dance music, called house, began. So it's no surprise that tonight fans are flocking to one of the city's best known venues for new music, Lincoln Hall, to hear a form of dance music that is unique in the world. It's the creation of these three popular Canadian DJs who together are called A Tribe Called Red.
- How have the American audiences treated you guys?
- Awesome, awesome.
- Yeah, it's been a good tour?
- Yeah, we haven't not had a sellout yet, especially In the States.
- That's amazing.
- Yeah, and it's a Wednesday. You know what I mean?
- Yeah. Tribe Called Red, whooh.
- Where does this American tour rate in all the ones you've done?
- This America tour has been way bigger than anything we've done before.
- Yeah, cool, that'd be great.
- Yeah, twice the size.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- What DJs Ian Campeau, Tim Hill, and Ehren Thomas are creating is a new mix of dance music they call electric powwow. Let me break it down for you a bit if you've never heard it before.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- Underlying it are traditional Latin and hip hop rhythms with a heavy bass driven beats of dub step. And then their unique sound is added.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- The powerful and ancient music of Canada's First People. The drum representing the heartbeat of Mother Earth and the soaring vocals of powwow.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- Then add to the stage show Indigenous dancers and everyone of all ages and races simply cannot stand still.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- All my Native People make some noise in here.
- [CHEERING]
- Is it the humanity of Indigenous music? What do you think it is?
- It's something that I think connects people on a level that we're missing in the world today. We're missing a lot of those things that we used to have around dance, around celebration, around rites of passage, around things that we went through to mark our lives.
- It was just amazing to see people react to it whenever we played new songs. And anytime there was powwow that was being used it was really, really powerful in that setting to see people own it really quickly and identify with it really quickly.
- It's really hard to explain that because we've never experienced this before. This is all brand new.
- So have you ever heard this particular kind of mash up of musical influences in sound before you listened to A Tribe Called Red?
- No, And I always try to do some research, try to find a new-- and I really couldn't find anything else of that nature.
- Well, when I was younger my family would bring me to some of the powwows that were here in Chicago. And I remember being a little kid and thinking immediately that there was something different about the way it felt. I couldn't-- I didn't have the words to explain that as a little kid. But to hear that same energy, feel that same energy coming back in this new form of music is really, really exciting. And I'm really happy that it's made its way into this new genre.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- This sold out show in Chicago is no anomaly.
- Thank you very much Chicago.
- [CHEERING]
- You guys are crazy.
- Since they started producing music together in 2010 A Tribe Called Red has been grabbing people's attention with its unique and infectious sound. Their following exploded in 2014--
- A Tribe Called Red
- --when they were named the break through group of the year at the Juno Awards.
- Winnipeg this has been an awesome city for us.
- And with fans around the world their tours have included stops in Europe, Australia and Mexico. In 2016 alone they played concerts in over 60 North American cities.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- So who are these three men from Ontario bringing this uniquely Canadian music to the world? Well, they share one thing. They all grew up in or close to Canadian cities. Their's is the music of urban Indigenous people, who also go by their DJ names if you meet them in person. They've been exposed to wider cultural influences than First Nations People living in more remote places closer to the land. And those influences are incredibly diverse.
- Some of my earliest memories are going to Shakespeare in the Park, going to see the symphony and those sort of things, and having been really enamored with music for as long as I can remember.
- My grandfather was a fiddle player for bluegrass. And he could play the "Orange Blossom Special." So if you can play that in that world you're a g. My uncles could play blues guitars. My uncle actually started the first ever funk soul band on Six Nations, on our rez. It was pretty cool back in the 60s, 70s.
- I grew up listening to a lot of punk rock, a lot of hip hop, and skateboarding. My dad was really into a lot of different types of music, everything from country, to blues, to a lot of rock and roll. So I grew up listening to a lot of music.
- From those rich cultural roots the two original members of A Tribe Called Red started exploring their points of connection. Ian and Ehren lived not too far from each other in the Ottawa region when they started playing monthly gigs at this local club in 2008.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- It's something they still do to this day to stay loyal to their Ottawa fans. They saw how mixing powwow with modern music didn't only make it highly danceable for everyone, it helped bridge a divide between cultures that has stubbornly dominated the relationship between Indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians.
- That idea of having a communal experience in a club. All coming in and feeling something together. When you start to apply that to a structure like Canada where trying to have a common experience between Indigenous people and non-indigenous people is so difficult. Now we can step into a club and all of a sudden we have-- We knew Indigenous people were going to feel this. We knew that people from our community were going to feel this when we mixed powwow music, with dub step, and house, and all that stuff. We weren't expecting everybody else to.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- We are the Halluci Nation.
- Their latest work, We are the Halluci Nation, is an ambitious concept album.
- Hush, that's enough said.
- It seeks to build multiple bridges across many cultures victimized by colonialism.
- --lighting and the thunder. The sun, moon, and stars, and the hunger. Abundance in bundles--
- The album has been streamed almost 9.5 million times in Canada. And that's the kind of popularity that has established artists coming to them now to collaborate. Talents including hip hop star Yeslin Bey, also known as Mos Def.
- --or the thunder--
- It seems to me you're getting more ambitious with each album in your determination to say something. What are you trying to say with Halluci Nation?
- Yeah, well that idea of connection between Indigenous people is so important. Especially, I think, for people that are living in colonized countries. There's a real feeling of being alone. I mean, that's part of the plan. right? Just keep people isolated. But when you realize that you have all these communities all over the world that are similar to your own of Indigenous people. And you start joining those communities and those ideas and you realize the cultures are actually really similar.
- For people to be like, hey I know what these people stand for and I recognize that. That's what I see it as.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- The connections that are built on a dance floor can lead to broader cultural awareness of the common stand being taken by people of all backgrounds on issues such as oil and gas pipelines or reconciling the dark cast of Canada's residential schools.
- We are not a conquered people.
- After years of hoping for a broader understanding of Indigenous issues the band today sees it taking hold.
- This is something that's unique. That I've talked to my father, my grandfather and they all come to the agreements that this is something that's completely new.
- The conversation that we're having today your grandparents probably would never have had with non-indigenous--
- No.
- --people.
- There's something changing. There's a shift in the consciousness of the people right now. When we were in Chicago --the show that you were at-- we were walking in the front doors when we're showing up for the show. And there was a young man there who had a Blackhawks jersey on. And he was asking the bouncer, hey, I have my Blackhawks jersey on. I just wanted to know you think it's appropriate for me to come in wearing this tonight?
- That's different.
- In Chicago.
- In Chicago.
- That's huge, and that's just a fan-- I heard that and part of me wanted to stop and say something. But I also just wanted to let that moment happen and let them both think about that for a second. And then have me walking away thinking about it. Just being-- There is something happening. There's definitely something happening.
- I've seen you guys wear that same jersey.
- Well, Indigenous people wearing a Blackhawks logo is different than non-indigenous people wearing a Blackhawks logo. It has to do with seeing something in popular culture and finding empowerment in that.
- Yeah, it's completely horrifying. And it's being exploited for non-indigenous benefit, which is the epitome of cultural appropriation.
- This is the Ellen Cross Radio Program. It is Thursday. This is episode 206. And--
- As host of the syndicated radio series, The Ongoing History of New Music, Alan Cross, has watched a lot of bands break through.
- So you have your ear on what's new in music. How important and where does A Tribe Called Red rank right now would you say?
- This is a band whose time has come. And I would love to see more attention drawn to this band because they are probably the most Canadian band that you can possibly imagine.
- Draw some kind of comparison, if you can, of another band that sort of changed things in a way that was completely original.
- I think you can draw some parallels between what A Tribe Called Red is doing right now and what we saw coming out of the Bronx in the late 1970s with their first hip hop and rap artists. That music came from a place of cultural destination that was New York City in the late 1970s in housing projects, in a terrible place where people were living in poverty. And yet art came out of that. And given the history of Canada's Indigenous peoples, the problems that we've had with reserves, and the need for reconciliation, it's perfect to see some art come out of that struggle. And this music is very vital. It's got a deep history. It's very important to the Founding Peoples of this country. So it's really important that it be exposed somehow to the rest of us
- Their growing fan base and rising success means long stretches of time on the road. But even with their current success they are still their own roadies, unpacking, and lifting, and packing in a new city every day.
- What time do you have to be up at the theater?
- 6:00 to do sound check.
- Kicking off at 8:00?
- Yeah, something like that.
- I've got a couple of people in the house really excited to see you.
- Oh yeah? That's awesome.
- We've got some guests. It's going to be really cool.
- That's pretty cool.
- Yeah man, keep up the great work.
- What'd you get? The nice rooms?
- You coming in?
- Elevator?
- We'll meet you up there.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- We're in Toronto now and the biggest crowd of their North American tour. And on the big screens the political message is front and center in a way that is not always in their music. Stereotypes of Indigenous people from movies and other forms of entertainment, mocking them really, and forcing the mostly young white suburban crowd to realize how absurd and dated they are.
- A lot of the video portion tries to do allow people to be confronted with these images in a different space.
- Holding up these racist misrepresentations of Indigenous people at a time where Indigenous people are taking control of their own image might seem a little bit backwards. But to me it's saying, let's not forget that this history has been going on for decades. And we've been in this new world for years.
- And although they say it was never their goal, they have become role models, even giving up drinking to set an example.
- Because you are trailblazers and because you have all eyes on right now, is that starting to feel more like a burden?
- I don't think so. It's something that I think we gladly do because it comes part of what we're trying to do I guess. And dealing with our culture the way that we are.
- We have been called and the Indians.
- We're really mindful when it comes to everything that we do. There comes a certain amount of respect that we have to treat it with.
- [MUSIC PLAYING]
- By blending the music of their ancestors to the rhythm of the time, three men from Ontario are building bridges between cultures. If it is the artists in society who provide the way to reconcile the past with the present, then A Tribe Called Red may well have landed in that sweet spot of being in the right place at the right time. Well, on top of being nominated A Tribe Called Red will be one of the headlining acts of this year's Juno Awards, which are being held in the city where the guys started, Ottawa.
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