Jetlagged but fuelled on the creativity of many inspiring musicians, Aysanabee is looking forward to some time to create new music. When we spoke to him he had just flown in from Hamburg, Germany where he was performing at the Reeperbahn Festival, a global showcase of emerging artists. Reeperbahn Festival billed the Oji- Cree singer as “a beacon of hope for Indigenous music in Canada.”
It’s another plot point on what he calls the “crazy trajectory” he’s been on. His debut album was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize in 2023. Earlier this year he became the first ever Indigenous artist to win Junos for alternative album of the year and songwriter of the year, for his EP Here and Now.
Aysanabee said because his family moved off Sandy Lake First Nation when he was four and he hadn’t visited in a while, he was feeling a bit disconnected from his community.
In 2020, he was working as a journalist in Toronto and was covering stories about the pandemic outbreaks in care facilities. It inspired him to set up phone calls to interview his grandfather, which he recorded with the intention of incorporating into his music. They talked about his life, falling in love, his time at residential school. Aysanabee said his grandfather was the last direct connection to a lot of his family history. Fading memories and forgotten stories led him to want to record them for posterity.
“It’s such a treasure to have those stories, especially for future generations,” he said.
He said he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do with the recordings but listening to them in his makeshift home studio in Toronto, his grandfather’s voice inspired one song and then another, resulting in a 10-song album interspersed with nine interludes, snippets from the recordings.
“It’s a really beautiful project, and a heavy project at the same time,” said Aysanabee.
He expected to share the songs with a small audience of people who were coming to his shows but all that changed when he applied to play the Indigenous Music Summit in 2021.
“I almost didn’t because I was paying off student debt and I didn’t want to pay the application fee, which was only $40,” he said. “That is a funny sidebar, that my music career almost didn’t happen because I was too stingy to spend $40.”
That application video caught the eye of Amanda Rheaume and Shoshona Kish, founders of Ishkōdé Records, one of the first Indigenous and women- owned labels in Canada.
When they asked what project he had been working on he told them about the album that was to be a tribute to his grandfather, Watin.
“They were starting that record label and these were the exact kind of stories they were wanting to amplify and share. I think that was the moment I realized there would be more people hearing it,” said Aysanabee.
“My biggest worry was that residential school survivors would hear it and maybe they’d be re-triggered or re-traumatized by some of these stories,” he said. “The opposite ended up happening.”
He said people have reached out in gratitude that the stories were being told by people within the community.
He said he is grateful to be making music, honoured to be a role model and strives to live up to it.
Aysanabee grew up without electricity in a rural community outside Thunder Bay. He picked up an acoustic guitar his older brother left behind when he went away to school and taught himself to play.
At first he hid in the sauna to play guitar, afraid someone would hear. He said he eventually moved into his grandfather’s Winnebago in the backyard where he would write songs.
“I was deathly nervous that anyone would hear me,” he said.
The singer has a rich and powerful voice, which has a surprising quality to match his instrumentation.
Aysanabee said singing is good for his soul. It’s his creative outlet.
“I just unload when I’m playing music and it balances me out,” he said. “Music goes beyond words.”
Aysanabee is finishing up a third record which is set to be released next year.
- Aysanabee will be playing a sold-out show Saturday during this weekend’s Creemore Festival of the Arts.