MAMARUDEGYAL MTHC
Diana Hellson was born of the Treaty 7 Siksika Nation in Alberta and adopted the name Mamarudegyal MTHC (MRG) commercially in 2017. She is an Afro-Indigenous Hip Hop and R&B artist and the founder of the multimedia group Reudegang Entertainment (RGE), but she is so much more. MRG is the manifestation of talent.
Showing an interest in performing at a young age, MRG spent her early years exploring dance, singing, performance art, and every creative endeavor that came her way. With the encouragement of her mother Charlene Hellson, she was launched into the Indigenous arts community. Never one to shy away from a challenge, she began teaching Hip Hop classes in her local YMCA and soon made connections in the Indigenous rap world through Indigenous Rapper Lil Smokey. A quickly developing talent, she joined Lil Smokey in opening for Tech N9ne and Winnipeg’s Most. Every door she could nd, she tested for educational and personal growth. To add to her repertoire, she joined Ellipsis Tree (ETC), an Afrocentric performance company, and added Krump Dance to her repertoire with the Empirical Freedom
Family. It was with the Empirical Freedom Family that she was given her name Mamarudegyal (think Mama Rude Gal) from Oliver Reyes (Reignmaker), and Mamarudegyal MTHC (MRG) the author and performing artist was born.
Soon a er the release of her selftitled album in 2016, it was time to relocate for career success. Just two weeks a er moving to British Columbia (BC), MRG played the historic Olympia in Surrey and began performing there weekly, cementing her rmly into the BC Indigenous music scene. Regardless of her success, she was unhappy with what she experienced in the music ecosystem. MRG witnessed sexist and racist tokenization and gate-keeping and she was not about to be quiet about it. She thrived in this ecosystem while making waves—then she outgrew it. It was time for a new pond and this time she would create her own with her own rules. Rudegang Entertainment (RGE) made
MRG a music executive, producer,
lmmaker, and inclusion consultant.
MRG continues to win awards in her own right including the Fraser Valley Music Awards in 2017 and 2018 and she beat 26 Vancouver bands to secure rst place in Vanocouver’s Shindig Battle of the Bands and taking home the win for the Battle of the Iron Mic. She’s accomplished all this while providing a safe, inclusive, and a rming environment for other Indigenous artists. Along this journey, she has also produced two documentaries, “e Foundation: Indigenous Hip Hop in Canada (2018) and, for the Weltkulturen Museum of Frankfurt, Germany, “Let em Speak” (2020).
Despite discomfort and pushback from incels and racists online, MRG holds strong to her vows and the solutions she knows are possible. Only tomorrow will tell where it will take her, but if MRG’s track record of determination and success is any indicator, she is certainly on her way up, carving a path for other BIPOC artists to thrive in similar spaces.