Record label creates mentorship award for Indigenous artists, spokesperson in Lethbridge last week

Mike Denney, president of MDM Recordings, an independent Canadian country music label, passed through Lethbridge last week while on tour promoting the Henry Armstrong Award for Indigenous artists.

Describing the award, Denney said, “it is a bursary and mentorship program that we started in 2022 that consists of a $10,000 cash prize given to one Indigenous artist that is chosen from a jury. And a mentorship program that consists of meeting with various music industry professionals in all the different areas that you need to be educated in to be a recording artist in the current climate.’

The 2022 winner was Kyle McKearney, a roots and Americana artist from just outside of Calgary.

“Part of his mentorship was with our music distribution people in Australia. We hooked him up with our media and promotion teams in the UK. He had numerous conversations in Nashville and then we did a whole bunch of other stuff here in Canada with other people to help him out with digital marketing, social media, posting, understanding the digital landscape, royalties and back end stuff,” said Denney.

Artists need to make sure their songs are properly registered for royalties to flow, he said.

“Most artists don’t have a clue about how much money is potentially sitting out there for the airplay that they get. Whether it’s CBC or in a bar or restaurant, there is money out there for that. Most do not know how to set it up properly, and when you do, it’s a nice little payday when that money shows up.” McKearney was selected out of 77 applicants.

In the first year “we received 77 applications. Which is amazing for a Year One event like this. I’m hopeful this year that we can get it to 100-125 applications and branch out a little bit more into the Indigenous communities. There is a lot of music out there that needs to get heard, that hasn’t been heard. And we are trying to help.”

Denney said the inspiration behind the award “was spurred when the initial 215 children were found in Kamloops. I’m Indigenous, my mother is Six Nations, Mohawk. I’m Lower Mohawk. I was sitting at home, like everyone else was wondering how this could ever happen in our country. And at that point I was like, ‘look I can’t change anything that’s happened in the past, but maybe I can come up with an idea that allows some change for the future.’ And that was the impotence of this. And then within the people who work for our record company, our radio promotions people, our media team, I have an Indigenous artist on the roster. I floated out the idea of this and they were like, ‘hell yeah! Let’s go. We’ll help you.’ From there we launched it.”

Complete details are available at http:// www.henryarmstrongaward.ca.

“When the portal opens you are free to submit. And then we will send you a note saying that we got your application and from there it will go through the jury process,” added Denney.

The first $5,000 is paid on June 21 when the announcement is made. The winner is then put through the mentorship program and the remaining money is paid.

“It’s my own personal money that I am putting into this. This is just my way of trying to give back. I wish I could give more back, but it’s hard. It is a lot of money, but I knew I had to do something. This is my way of doing it and fortunately we’ve had a ton of support from the music industry,” he said.

“There is a ton of Indigenous music. It goes unnoticed. It is changing. I was at the Junos last weekend in Edmonton and the presence of Indigenous music and Indigenous artists was ten-fold higher than I’ve ever seen it at a national award show. But it doesn’t make up for the years and years and years that nothing was there. And the land was not acknowledged, and the people and the artists were not acknowledged either. We have a long way to go. We need to keep the communication open. We need to continue to talk about what has happened, we need to put in places that will allow these people to help themselves, you know, and sustain their lives.”

The award was named after Denney’s grandfather whose last name was Henry and his mother whose maiden name was Armstrong.