Local Pow Wow electric music band A Tribe Called Red has been popular in Ottawa for the past few years, but since the recent release of a controversial single, Burn Your Village to the Ground, things have started to heat up.
The all-First Nation DJ crew from Ottawa is known for its activism as well as its unique electronic sound. A Tribe Called Red is made up of Bear Witness, 2oolman and Dee Jay NDN, who remix traditional Pow Wow music with contemporary club sounds – a blend called Pow Wow Step.
Their new song features the voice of Wednesday Addams (played by Christina Ricci) in a clip from the 1993 film Addams Family Values. In the movie, Wednesday participates in a summer camp play and has the lead role as a Native American at the first Thanksgiving. She goes off script and surprises the audience with her own take on relations with the pilgrims.
“You have taken the land that is rightfully ours,” she declares in the opening line. “Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes and reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs.”
Since its Nov. 27 launch, the single has drawn the attention of the Huffington Post, the Ottawa Citizen and CBC’s music site, which respectively described the song as “tougher to swallow than turkey and stuffing,” “not your typical holiday ditty” and “powerful and provocative.”
Burn Your Village to the Ground debuted just before American Thanksgiving and was made available on the band’s Facebook page along side the rhetorical question: “Do Indians celebrate Thanksgiving?
“Well, Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday for Native people,” the band explained. “In a way, each day is a day of thanksgiving to the Creator for the original people of Turtle Island. This doesn’t mean that we don’t enjoy turkey, pie and family as much as the next person, but at the same time the Thanksgiving myth largely shared in mainstream culture perpetuates a one-sided view of a complicated history surrounding this holiday.”
The Odawa Native Friendship Centre, a Centretown-based organization serving Ottawa’s aboriginal community, said in a statement to Centretown News that A Tribe Called Red is part of a long line of “musicians who are activists in the Aboriginal community,” including Saskatchewan-born folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, Quebec’s Innu folk-rockers Kashtin, guitarist and singer-songwriter Robbie Robertson of the legendary rock group The Band, and Six Nations hip-hop performers Tru Rez Crew.
“Their presence in mainstream music and the eyes and minds of the non-indigenous consumer society serves to bring to the forefront issues facing our united peoples,” the centre said. “Those discussions, however framed, are a good thing because people are talking about our issues and our needs in the news.”
Centretown’s Babylon nightclub hosts A Tribe Called Red every month for a night that is “dedicated to showcasing Aboriginal DJ talent and Native urban culture and is aimed at creating a space for Aboriginal people,” according to A Tribe Called Red’s Facebook page.
Since 2010, when the group first came together, the band members have “become the face of an urban Native youth renaissance, championing their heritage and speaking out on aboriginal issues, while being on top of popular music, fashion and art,” says the website.
Burn Your Village To The Ground was the band’s way of “celebrating,” according to the post.
A Tribe Called Red is “off these days and isn’t doing interviews for a while,” according to manager Guillaume Decouflet.