SNOTTY NOSE REZ KIDS
Maggie Paul has seen generations of Indigenous people in the Wabanaki Confederacy on the East coast work diligently toward this moment of cultural restoration and Indigenous artistic excellence. “What I wanted was [for] our ancestors to hear the music. Because a long time ago, they thought they would never hear it again, when the boats started coming over — the white people. We weren’t allowed to sing or do any of our ceremonies, so our songs went under too. Some of the songs, the Anishinaabe took them with them to save them. Some of the songs we now sing have been rescued.”
Two generations later, Dutcher continues the momentum of this work. As part of Dutcher’s undergraduate studies at Dalhousie University, he began researching Wolastoq music, and returned to Paul to assist with his research. Paul was aware of the Wolastoq language wax cylinder recordings stored at the Museum of History in Ottawa, and urged Dutcher to go to the source.
“[Maggie Paul] said if you’re really interested in these songs, you can’t stay around here. I came to realize later that a lot of the song-making that was happening in our community at the time was actually not in our music. It was music coming from elsewhere, from neighbouring communities, stuff that wasn’t in our language, it was stuff that proliferated through things like powwow culture — stuff that isn’t of us, but stood in as a placeholder. Because especially on the East coast, we’ve had the longest point of contact and cultural friction, putting it delicately. [That’s] what Maggie was trying to signal to me: If you want to know what was happening here, in our language that comes from this land, you need to go to the museum.”
Exploring these archives became foundational for Wolastoqiyik
Lintuwakonawa, which samples and is inspired by the music he found there, but Dutcher is adamant that “it was never my intention to go to the museum and write an album. It was simply to witness, to sit down and see what there was. But of course, once I heard it and came in contact with it, it was an immense sense of responsibility to share it, to get it back to the community.”
Snotty Nose Rez Kids are an important reminder that Indigenous music and identity are not national monoliths, and as much pride as they feel seeing other Nations represented, it’s not the same as presenting their own. “We grew up watching A Tribe Called Red bringing out powwow dancers and listening to their sound, which is all East coast-influenced,” Nyce acknowledges. “We really wanted to put our peoples out on stage, and put West coast regalia on a stage like that.”
Nyce is understandably hesitant to ascribe too much to this moment of mainstream recognition. “[ We] have always been artistic people. We are people of oral traditions, so we create art, whether that be totem poles, masks or paintings. Our art is our written language. So as far as the renaissance goes, for me I wouldn’t call it a rebirth, it’s more of a re-awakening, because our people were silenced and held back from our potential by the Canadian government and the society that we live in. Our album, that was nominated for the Polaris, speaks exactly to that.”
The enthusiasm that Maggie Paul expresses for this current wave of Indigenous music is palpable. “‘Renaissance,’ yes! Since time began, we were always like that. And now it’s almost like an explosion, but an explosion of happiness, like fireworks. When you see them, it’s so intense and it’s beautiful.”