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Native Hip-Hoppers Rap Out Their Message
The Georgia Straight, May 31, 2001
They think they’re winning
Guess who’s still living
Yankees and Indians in the bottom of the ninth inning
We’re up to bat swinging
As I’m holding my AK-47 that I’m toting
So R U ready to AIM with NO shame
—Native Youth Movement booklet
Manik isn't particularly impressed with National Aboriginal Day.“They always give holidays for things they feel guilty about. There’s Black History Month, Martin Luther King Day, and now there’s National Aboriginal Day. They fucked over Indians so much, so now they give them a day,” Manik says about Canada’s nonstatutory holiday on June 21. On that day, Manik, otherwise known as Derek Edenshaw, will be speaking to other young Natives about the persistent effects of colonization and how aboriginal people can overcome them. He says he knows the perfect way to reach Native youth: through hip-hop music.
Manik is part of the Native hip-hop collective known as Tribal Wizdom. They put on regular events around Vancouver, featuring a crew of rappers who don’t shy away from addressing the history of oppression of Natives or the horrors of the residential schools. The stage is also open to nonaboriginal MCs and Natives wishing to perform traditional aboriginal music. But the members of Tribal Wizdom formed this loose collective with a central idea in mind: to get across their strong opinions on Native issues using the medium of hip-hop.
Tribal Wizdom is part of a North America–wide trend of young Natives embracing rap music. Hip-hop has overtaken both heavy rock and traditional powwow music as the music of choice on the reserves, and Native MCs, DJs, graffiti artists, and break-dancers are popping up everywhere. It’s not surprising, considering that 56 percent of Canada’s aboriginal population is less than 24 years old. Many grow up in poverty and identify with the rap lyrics from the African-American ghettos.
“There’s a direct connection there that they [black people and Natives] were both used as a tool for western society, so we’re both coming from a very similar background,” Manik says. “It doesn’t matter nowadays. Poor is poor; it doesn’t matter where you come from, you can relate to the struggles.”
Manik is a 21-year-old rapper who is half Cree and half Haida. He prides himself on his ability to spit out socially conscious rhymes at a head-turning speed. As a teenager, Manik was heavily involved with drugs and gangs and was often in trouble with the law. He says that during some time in jail, he reconnected with his Cree teachings, which trained him to be a “helper”.
“I have to help my people feel better any way I possibly can, and it just so happens that I can rap. The Creator gave me my words to say to my people at this vital time when there is this hip-hop revolution going on. That’s just how it worked together.”
Tribal Wizdom hopes that by catching the ears of young Natives, they can be helped to navigate through the obstacles they face. Manik says the group’s members want to be positive role models for Native youth and encourage them to take control of their lives, as individuals and as aboriginal people.
“A lot of young Native kids love seeing Native rappers. They love to have a Native person they can look up to and they can be genuinely proud of,” Manik says. “That's where I’m coming from. I’m telling people, ‘Don’t be one of the weak suckers. Don't be one of the weak human beings. Be the warriors; be the strong spiritual leaders.”
Manik’s songs are condensed history lessons on the colonization of North America: “Ghettos and reservations/My mind’s vexed, stressed ’cause of the unreal simulations/That were painted into the mind of the First Nations.”
Over the past several years, Manik has been involved with the Native Youth Movement, a group of teenagers and young adults who feel they are getting a raw deal from the government as well as their own band leaders. NYM has been active for more than six years and has chapters in cities across Canada and the U.S. A pamphlet put out by the NYM’s Philadelphia chapter states: “NYM is in opposition to all colonial forms of government. Our intentions are to educate Native youth on our current situation as colonized people so we can work together to liberate the earth and each other.”
NYM doesn't believe in negotiating with the government. Its members don’t see why First Nations should wait for governments to bestow them with a watered-down form of sovereignty when it is the provincial and federal governments that hold the land illegitimately. NYM prefers direct action: reoccupying their traditional territories and demanding that the government recognize their rights to the land. Last year, NYM occupied the Vancouver office of federal fisheries minister Herb Dhaliwal in solidarity with Native fishers in Burnt Church, New Brunswick. NYM members are participating in a camp at Melvin Creek, near Pemberton, to protest the building of a ski resort on traditional Native land. For Manik, his rhymes and political actions go hand in hand.
“It’s not just that it’s Native hip-hop but it’s Native hip-hop with the message of revolution and change. It’s not just a game for us; it’s not a gimmick. We participate, we take over government offices, we block off roads, we fight the cops to protect the land. And as soon as there’s a band or a group of Native people that needs support, we will always be there.”
In addition to helping organize Tribal Wizdom, Manik takes care of his seven-month-old son, Sage, and maintains a Web site called redhip-hop.com. The site showcases a range of Native hip-hop performers, from politically conscious MCs to Native gangsta rappers. The opening page of the site has an image of a Native Youth Movement member in full camouflage juxtaposed with pictures of M16 assault rifles.
“That’s from the Cheam fish wars,” Manik explains of the photo, taken during confrontations over Native fishing rights in the Fraser River. “That was very real, and it did happen. That is the state of our generation, the generation that hip-hop falls into.”
Shawn Desjarlais, 25, was one of the founding members of the Vancouver chapter of the Native Youth Movement. He is Dene and Cree and has long black hair and a traditional Kwak’waka’wak’w design of two serpents tattooed on his arm; he is also the father of two young kids and sits on the board of directors of the Urban Native Youth Association. Desjarlais took part in the recent occupation of the Kamloops office of the British Columbia Assets and Land Corp., a government agency that controls the use of Crown land. The occupation lasted three days and ended when police arrested 16 people, mostly youths. Protesters said the final Supreme Court of Canada Delgamuuk decision four-and-a-half years ago recognized aboriginal title, yet the government continues selling Crown land claimed by natives.
Desjarlais says he helped start Tribal Wizdom as a way of spreading the Native Youth Movement’s message through hip-hop. “Music has always been a way of life for Native people,” he says in the Pender Street office of Redwire, a magazine for urban aboriginal youth. “Ever since the beginning, we’ve always drummed and used different beats, but now it’s transformed into something more people can relate to.…From coast to coast, the majority of young people listen to hip-hop, so we thought we could harness it. Hopefully, we can create awareness of the situation of our people through hip-hop and spoken word. Tribal Wizdom is about looking at issues to see why things are the way they are and how we can start helping our people.”
Desjarlais was born into a family of Native-rights activists. His father travelled across North America defending Native causes, and many of his aunts and uncles were part of the American Indian Movement. His father raised his children in northern Alberta, living off the land in a log cabin and later working for a Native band. Desjarlais says he remembers the date—March 19, 1996—when he got a phone call saying his father had died. He says he knew right away that it was suicide.
“I blame his suicide on the government because of the way he was raised. He was raised in foster homes, taken away from his family at a very young age and beaten and abused in different ways by white people and by people of the church. They used these different ways to bring down people like my dad, and it worked.”
Desjarlais says he decided to use his feelings of hate and anger to try to help aboriginal people. “I took that energy and I said, ‘I have to do something with it.’ And here we are.”
He doesn’t normally get on-stage; he says he prefers organizing the shows to being in the spotlight. Right now he’s planning a Tribal Wizdom tour of reserves and urban Native communities across the country. There will be workshops on subjects such as alchoholism, teen pregnancy, land claims, and sovereignty issues. In the evening, rappers, DJs, and poets will perform.
Skeena Reece is Desjarlais’s cousin and a regular face at Tribal Wizdom events. She’s 26 years old and works at the Vancouver-based Indigenous Media Arts Group, an organization that promotes aboriginal film and video artists. Reece is unenthusiastic about talking to media representatives, and she speaks critically of the mainstream press and its depiction of Native peoples. When she’s on-stage, Reece combines rap and spoken word to describe her daily experiences as a Native person in the city. At a recent performance, she talked about listening to her neighbours shout racial slurs at her roommate through the walls.
“I’m generally an artistic and creative person. I’ve had to be, growing up as a Native person, seeing the things that I see happening to my people,” she says at the IMAG office on Main Street near Broadway.
Like many young Natives, she thinks the treaty process isn’t helping her people. “I’m half Cree and half Tsimshian. Half of my nation is going through the treaty process and the other half already has been fucked over by it.
Reece says Natives will be harmed by treaties, which aim to replace the federal Indian Act regulations and put Natives under the same laws as everyone else. She also objects to the way the treaty process has been set up, which means Native bands are indebted to the government for the cost of treaty negotiations.
“I believe that the treaty is just another way to annihilate the rest of us. My leaders, they’re just a part of the big scam. They have no idea what’s going on, they really don’t, and if they do then they’re doing it willingly, so I don’t feel sorry for any of the inner turmoils that they’re gonna go through when they realize…what they’re doing, which is selling out our environment, our land.”
She says she feels that Native youth are exposed to so many negative influences from the schools, the media, and the government that it’s crucial for them to see other Native youth expressing themselves in a positive way.
“I’m definitely going to continue to mix what I’ve learned from this society and from my culture and use every positive thing that I’ve learned to create a performance that will help people to understand. A quote that I like to use from Louis Riel, the Métis leader, is: ‘It’s the artists who are going to change the world.’ And I believe that.”
One of her songs describes a “recipe for taking back the land”, and another criticizes free-trade agreements: “They signed another of these agreements the other day/As usual, I wasn’t invited.”
Not all Native rappers are overtly political. Os12 (Ron Harris) is a 21-year-old Sto:lo rapper who lives with his family on the Musqueam reserve. He participates in Tribal Wizdom events, but he prefers rapping about philosophy and the supernatural rather than the political struggles of Native people. He says he doesn’t want to dwell on the injustices Native people have suffered.
“It shouldn’t really be an issue anymore. It happened. Everyone knows it happened. I’m Native and I study my culture and I study my ceremonial rights…but I’d rather empower our youth to think they can rise up outta that.” Os12 thrives on the competitive nature of hip-hop, and he claims never to have lost a "battle" in freestyle rap competition. He says the Musqueam reserve is filled with little kids rapping in their rooms, although he says they’re afraid to tell him because they think he might challenge them to step up to the mike. For Os12, living on the reserve allows him to stay connected to his culture while participating in Vancouver’s hip-hop scene.
“I’m able to stay there and be in the city at the same time be a Native person, live our family values the way we live, eat fried bread and soup, visit Grandma’s house.…I can have all that and still be close to the city where I can do this rap thing. It’s torn between two worlds, being a Native person and being a rapper. I was taught to go to the longhouse, to work, go fishing, be with the family. It’s hard for me to go out and leave Vancouver, go on tour, not be around the family, not going to funerals and dinners, ceremonies and stuff, ’cause it’s important to our people. To my ancestors, it’s important, so to me it’s important.”
Os12 says his elders support the popularity of hip-hop with Native youth. “I get a lot of lectures not to mislead these kids. I have talent, that’s what the elders keep telling me, so I should use it, not abuse it.”
B.C.’s new Liberal government’s vow to hold a referendum on the treaty process doesn’t concern Tribal Wizdom’s Manik. "The treaty process is failing anyways,” Manik says. “I don’t give a shit about the referendum.”
Desjarlais also believes the treaty process isn't worth continuing. “Look at the Nisga'a treaty. They got nine percent of their landmass. Now they're paying taxes like ordinary Canadian citizens. They get millions of dollars, but they owe two-thirds of it back to the government. The government wants to do these treaties using a cookie-cutter technique. They want to sell all the land and open the doors to free trade with different countries. If we accept these treaties and if we accept free trade and globalization, we're contributing to the destruction of our world.”
Desjarlais says the new government won’t make much difference to aboriginal people. “I think we should ask the Reform Party to get in. All the Natives should vote Reform so then they’ll know who their enemies are. I think they’re all the same, when it comes right down to it. They all have their own agendas. They all want the resources and the land. They’re all in it for money, for profit, not for the environment.”
Don’t be surprised if you hear about Native Youth Movement members occupying offices or blockading roads in the next few months. Native Youth Movement has vowed more actions in B.C., meaning that Tribal Wizdom’s hiphop music could become the soundtrack for the summer.