Download Princess Nokia's New Single "Earth is My Playground"

Taíno electro-rap royalty, Princess Nokia, drops an upbeat Earth Day anthem, "Earth is My Playground".

Everyone's favourite Smart Girl Club rocka and eco-conscious, cyborg warrior returns with an Owwwls-produced, sugary synth-pop, dance party gem to get your #EarthDay groove on.

Nokia continues to mine her reworked 90s throwback aesthetic with an eco-optimistic, hypercolour four-on-the-floor jam that bounces us back into a neon raving daze. Time to break out the glow sticks and candy bracelets, kids. P.L.U.R. is back in full force.

Listen and download: Princess Nokia - "Earth is My Playground"        

The Red Ride Tour Returns

What started as a two-artist tour five years ago has grown into a near touring festival of 12 of the hottest names in Indigenous music.

When musicians Kristi Lane Sinclair and Cris Derksen first conceived of the Red Ride Tour, they didn’t think they'd be organizing their fifth one with a lineup of 12 Indigenous artists popping up at different dates across Canada and, for the first time this year, the US. Not only that, but Sinclair is pulling this off while finishing her new album, and filming a six-part TV series about her musical journey for APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network)!

“It is dizzyingly awesome!”, exclaims Sinclair. “It feels so great to have so many projects coming together simultaneously”, she adds.

A wide range of genres is spanned by the artists joining the tour, including Tlingit/Aleut artist and musician Silver Jackson, rising folk singer Nick Sherman, Cree/Métis singer-songwriter Christa Couture, Sto:lo Territory hip-hop artist Ron Dean Harris (aka Ostwelve), Saskatchewan trio The Snake Oil Salesmen, Dene musician Jay Gilday, Curve Lake First Nation singer-songwriter Sean Conway,  Inuk singer Beatrice Dear, and young up-and-coming talents Binaeshee-Que Couchie-Nabigon and Sonia Eidse.

“This is our fifth year in a row taking indigenous acts on the road across Canada, and each year it grows,” says Sinclair. “It started out as just Cris and I, in my little Chevy Optra hatchback, driving across Canada, playing live music venues,” she explains. “And now this year, we have acts... huge acts... and a massive North American Tour!".

“We’re trying to get so many artists to so many places. It’s more like a touring festival than a normal tour,” said Sinclair.

“The outcome is going to be amazing and you’re not going to want to miss it.”

We agree. Hit play on the Red Ride Tour playlist and check out the full dates below.

Tour dates:

May 13 - Fairview Pub, Vancouver, BC (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Ostwelve) May 15 – Wine-Ohs, Calgary, AB (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair) May 16 - Empress Pub, Edmonton, AB (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Jay Gilday) May 19 - Indian Metis Friendship Centre, Prince Albert, SK (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair) May 20 - Vangelis Tavern, Saskatoon, SK (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair) May 21 – The Artful Dodger, Regina, SK (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair, The Snake Oil Salesmen) May 22 - Pyramid Cabaret, Winnipeg, MB (Derek Miller, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Cris Derksen, Sonia Eidse) May 23 – The Apollo, Thunder Bay, ON (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Nick Sherman) May 24 – Saul Ste. Marie, ON (venue TBA) (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Nick Sherman) May 25 - Debajehmujig Creation Centre, Manitowaning, ON (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair) May 27 – Capitol Centre Theatre, North Bay, ON (Dream Big Conference) (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Derek Miller, Binaeshee-Quae) May 28 – Monarch Tavern, Toronto, ON (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Derek Miller, Christa Couture) May 29 - Six Nations, ON (venue TBA) (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair) May 30 - The Garnet, Peterborough ON (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Sean Conway) June 3 - Club Saw, Ottawa, ON (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair) June 4 - Ashukan Cultural Space, Montreal, QC (Cris Derksen, Kristi Lane Sinclair, Beatrice Dear)

Artists Join Forces Against the Forced Closure of Aboriginal Communities in "Australia"

Indigenous artists are fighting back against colonialism genocide and the forced closure of remote communities by the Australian government.

Leave it to the artists to #SoundtrackTheStruggle: eight First Nations artists from occupied "Australia" have joined forces to contest colonial occupation of their homelands and resist the Australian government's attempt to force the closure of Indigenous communities.

Over a rugged hip-hop rhythm, Provocalz, Lady Lash, Djarmbi Supreme, Task, GekkZ, Mad Madam, Mr. Krow, and Felon spit fire—calling out colonial forces, racist ideologies,  histories, and speaking urgent truth to power.

Solidarity in resistance to our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere.

Listen to "STAND PROUD" and download it below:

DOWNLOAD: "STAND PROUD"

Watch the Dustin Haffner Video for "Merda", Featuring Sacramento Knoxx

Producer Dustin Haffner collabs with Sacramento Knoxx on "Merda", a new track focusing on community responses to the current wave of police and state violence.

Detroit-based MC and RaizUp Collective member Sacramento Knoxx spits some serious bars over this Haffner production, detailing the rising rates of police-inflicted violence against Black and Indigenous communities across Turtle Island — "a story of resistance and revolt, with reflections from the dehumanizing effects of colonialism".

True to form, Knoxx's latest is a conscious, head-knocking political response to an increasingly dangerous reality.

Sadly, that violent reality is one that has been with us since the first slave ships crossed the Middle Passage, since the first waves of colonial invasion reached Indigenous shores.

Watch, listen and get down with the struggle.

Dustin Haffner - "Merda (ft. Sacramento Knoxx)"

"Merda" is taken from Dustin Haffner's latest album Excursions, which is out now.

Watch Pura Fé Perform 'Sacred Seed' Live on Fip Radio

Legendary vocalist Pura Fé performs "Sacred Seed" on Fip Radio in France.

We can't wait to hear all of Pura Fé's new album, but until then, here's a lovely preview of what's to come, live in studio.

The performance comes as part of the Au fil des Voix (Over the Voice) Festival, now in its 8th year. The 2015 festival features performances by Julia Sarr, Pura Fé, Dorsaf Hamdani, Djazia Satour, Lindigo and Noëmi Waysfeld in exclusive acoustic sessions.

The Parisian festival Au fil des Voix / Over the Voice has established itself as a must-attend event for world music that celebrates the rich cultural diversity of the world. This eighth edition will be held from January 29 to February 9, 2015 at the Alhambra and Studio of the Hermitage.

Watch Pura Fé Perform 'Sacred Seed'

Pura Fé : Session Live spéciale Au Fil des Voix... by Fipradio

Juno Awards 2015: Full List of Nominees for Aboriginal Album of the Year

The full list of #JUNO2015 nominations were announced today leading up to the Juno Awards week celebrations March 9-15, 2015.

The 44th annual JUNO Awards will be held in Hamilton, Ontario and broadcast Sunday, March 15th on CTV.

Among the many great artists nominated are some of our favourite Indigenous musicians, two of which (Tanya Tagaq and Digging Roots) were also featured in our Best Indigenous Music of 2014.

Tagaq's Animism is also nominated for Alternative Album of the Year and her collaborator and co-producer Jesse Zubot is nominated for Producer of the Year.

Here are the nominees for ABORIGINAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR:

The Whole World’s Got the Blues - Crystal Shawanda

For The Light - Digging Roots

Heart of the People - Leela Gilday

Animism - Tanya Tagaq

The (Post) Mistress - Tomson Highway

Check out the full list of Juno 2015 nominations here.

The Most Slept-On Indigenous Album of 2014: Ana Tijoux, Vengo

There was one Indigenous album of 2014 that stood apart from all the rest—Ana Tijoux's Vengo.

Somehow, indescribably, when we compiled our Best Indigenous Music of 2014, we didn't include one of the most stellar albums of the year.

Ana Tijoux's Vengo was hailed as a nearly perfect record almost from the moment it was released in March 2014. But despite generating huge waves in her Chilean homeland and receiving critical accolades from some North American critics and SXSW attendees, Vengo didn't make the full impact that we thought it should have. Which is why we're putting the album into a category unto itself.

Tijoux is already a legend among her South American fanbase, where she has been called "a Latin American Lauryn Hill" and "Chile's hip-hop heroine". Now she's making serious inroads into the rest of the world's musical consciousness. Having recently won several Latin Grammys, and with endorsements from the likes of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, and a song from her previous solo album, 1977, featured on the hit TV show Breaking Bad, Tijoux is generating much deserved attention for her passionate, provocative and political music.

She first made her mark as part of best-selling Chilean hip-hop group Makiza in the late 90s, but Tijoux is now firmly established as a superstar solo artist, whose latest effort ranks with the greats in any language or genre.

"Vengo is virtually flawless"

Vengo, Tijoux's fourth solo album, offers a relentlessly uncompromising vision and infectious mix of musical influences, intricate lyricism and anticolonial politics.

Inspired by the writings of Eduardo Galeano and  Naomi Klein, Vengo rings out with the sounds of Indigenous and Andean influences, connecting her Aymara roots with a wondrous mix of hip-hop, jazz, funk and beautiful live instrumentation arrangements. Tijoux's lyrical dreams of the Empire's fall, the end of patriarchy, the pursuit of global justice, and the love of family inform the album's thematic core. From the pride-filled bounce of title track "Vengo" and the fire of "Somos Sur" (We Are the South), her bombastic collaboration with Palestinian hip-hop artist Shadia Monsour, to acoustic pieces like "Rumbo al Sol" and the almost whispered urgency of "Río Abajo", the album draws strength and force from its hybrid vision of freedom found in "joyful musical rebellion".

For Tijoux, music is a weapon and a way of visioning the world: "a tool to have reflection, conversation and dialogue"—but also a way to "decolonize ourselves in our own music".

Righteous, beautiful, proudly feminist and revolutionary, in the best sense of the word, Vengo is both the most slept-on and the most compelling Indigenous album of 2014.

If you don't know, now you know.

Stream: Ana Tijoux - "Vengo"

Watch Ana Tijoux performance and interview on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic

Watch Ana Tijoux interview on Democracy Now

Listen to Ana Tijoux on Music and Motherhood

STREAM VENGO ON SPOTIFY

Watch Ana Tijoux - "Somos Sur (ft. Shadia Monsour)"

A Tribe Called Red Featured in 'The Gambler' Movie Trailer

What were we saying about Indigenous music and artists taking over popular culture? These are some big moves: A Tribe Called Red's music is featured in the trailer for the upcoming Mark Wahlberg film, The Gambler.

Indigenous artists are infiltrating all kinds of new spaces, the latest being the silver screen soundtracks to some of Hollywood's biggest films.

In this trailer for Rupert Wyatt's new film, The Gambler, starring Mark Wahlberg and John Goodman, you can catch the stuttering samples and boom clap beginnings of A Tribe Called Red's massive tune "Electric Pow Wow". A song which, incidentally, has now clocked more than 2.2 million views on YouTube.

ATCR is officially rolling with the big boys. Watch the trailer for The Gambler below.

Official Trailer: The Gambler - Awake

Listen to the original track A Tribe Called Red - "Electric Pow Wow"

MC RedCloud Freestyled for 18 Hours, Smashed a World Record, And Donated the Money to MMIW

The one and only MC RedCloud blasted through 18 hours straight of freestyle rapping—all to benefit and raise awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

At the Indigenous Angels II benefit show on November 29th, after months of preparation and training, Huichol MC RedCloud threw down the hip-hop gauntlet on every MC who's ever gone before him and proceeded to freestyle rap for eighteen consecutive hours.

More than an hour past the current Guiness World Record of 17 hours straight.

And as if that weren't already more than enough, as Indian Country Today reported:

When he reached the 17 hour mark, RedCloud rhymed the names of every indigenous or missing woman. He also rapped those of the 43 students recently murdered by a drug gang in Mexican state of Guerrero—which lies just a couple hours down Mexico's west coast from the region that is home to his Huichol people.

That's right. In the final hour of his world record attempt—after rapping for 17 hours straight—RedCloud worked the names of more than a thousand missing and murdered Indigenous women and the murdered students of Ayotzinapa into his final hour of rhyming. Then he donated funds raised from the show to “Stolen Sisters” to support volunteer work and organizing for MMIW.

Now that's how you break a world record.

Actually that's exactly what one does. When that one is the mighty RedCloud.

Salute.

Watch Sharif and Sacramento Knoxx's "From Stolen Land to Stolen Land"

Sacramento Knoxx and Sharif join forces and bring light to the intersections of our common struggles in their new video, "From Stolen Land to Stolen Land".

Resistance is everywhere. From Ferguson to Palestine to Ayotzinapa to Burnaby Mountain, and in many other struggles unseen, the theft of land and the dispossession and colonization of its peoples is coming to the forefront of people's consciousness.

Fighting back against these violent forces, artists are rising and recognizing each other—giving voice to the commonality of our shared struggles to get free.

Sacramento Knoxx and Sharif collab on this latest joint, echoing the need for actual decolonization and shouting out the BDS movement, while chanting: "Turtle Island to Palestine in self-determination / we'll replant every tree, rebuild every home / and until we see that day / our resistance lives on".

Here's their note on the track and the video: 

The foundation of this land is built on the genocide of indigenous populations and the enslavement of African peoples. Today we are still living under the echoes of displacement through constant state repression. Police are becoming more militarized and are increasingly escalating violence against communities of color. The same type of repression tactics that are tested on Palestinian populations, then sold and trained to our local forces.

​Let's connect different communities seeking social change by intersecting their struggles. We would like you to join San Francisco based MC and community organizer, Sharif, and Detroit based producer, musician and ​motion picture artist,​ Sacramento Knoxx in our premier of “From Stolen Land to Stolen Land”. It is also important to note the importance of our actions. We would also like to encourage all of our viewers to respect the wishes of the Brown family and not participate in Black Friday.

Watch it all the way to the end for a shout out to Fanon and Wretched of the Earth. Decolonize and rise.

Salute!

Watch "From Stolen Land to Stolen Land" by Sharif and Knockzarelli

DOWNLOAD: A Tribe Called Red - "Burn Your Village to the Ground"

No celebration of Thankstaking would be complete without A Tribe Called Red reminding us what's really at stake and what's really going on.

Just listen to the samples of the 'Thanksgiving address' as told by Wednesday Addams. Listen to the menacing synths. The stomp of the drums. The refusal of Indigenous Peoples to disappear, to die.

Here's what A Tribe Called Red had to say about this gift to us on the most colonial of American holidays:

On this fourth Thursday of November, you might ask yourself: do Indians celebrate Thanksgiving? Well… Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday for Native people. In a way, each day is a day of thanksgiving to the Creator for the original people of Turtle Island. This doesn't mean that we don't enjoy turkey, pie and family as much as the next person, but at the same time the Thanksgiving myth largely shared in mainstream culture perpetuates a one sided view of a complicated history surrounding this holiday. Here’s an informed indigenous view on Thanksgiving.

"And for all these reasons, I have decided...to burn your village to the ground."  America, we comin for ya.

DOWNLOAD: A Tribe Called Red - "Burn Your Village to the Ground"

DOWNLOAD: The Indigenous Futurisms Mixtape

Welcome to the sounds of the Indigenous future: a hyperpresent now, melding the worlds within and beyond what we can hear, see and imagine. In collaboration with Kimiwan Zine’s new issue, we are proud to bring you the Indigenous Futurisms mixtape.

The creation story is a spaceship. That’s the space ndn motto. The creation story can also be a song; so we can sing our way to the stars. In Amiri Baraka’s Afrofuturist tale “Rhythm Travel,” songs can be used to travel through time.

With an understanding of the power of music, we collect sounds and rhythms here for the futurist ear.

The beats are powerful and transcendent. Whether you are traveling back in time to talk to ancestors or warp speeding forward to herd space sheep in the outer galaxies, this is the mix to take you there. It is the soundtrack for a liberated future drawn deeply from our collective pasts. In creating this playlist and indeed in all our futurist imaginings, we are deeply indebted to the Afrofuturists and the traditions they come from. All systems go; full speed ahead to the future.

The Indigenous Futurisms mixtape is a journey through the intertwined Afro-Indigenist histories of colonized life on our current planet, that reaches for decolonial worlds beyond the beyond. From 2oolman and Flying Lotus to King Britt and John Mohawk, Sun Ra and Savage Family to Princess Nokia and DJ Shub, from Boogey the Beat to Erykah Badu, Shabazz Palaces to Silver Jackson, Autechre to A Tribe Called Red, Darkstar to Ryan Dennison, through many other voices in between—this is a recombinant constellation of ideas and energies, sounds and forces. Dreams of new destinations out.

Where the supposed 'finality' of Star Trek's frontier meets the remixed linguistic flip of Navajo Star Wars, and where the sounds of comet landings and galactic space dust meet the 6th World encoded in Indigenous exploration of night-lit skies and interplanetary, opaque spaces, our people have always been moving. As we move, we discover where we've been, where we're going, and how far we've been travelling. The long continuum of our existence and resistance, our survival and survivance, is the work of expanding the now: where we "acknowledge the truth of history, the urgency of the present moment, the open horizon of the future".

Time to "clear some space out, so we can space out...".

The Indigenous Futurisms mixtape was conceived and compiled by @spacendn and @culturite—who mixed it on the holodeck of RPM's coastal spaceship.

DOWNLOAD: The Indigenous Futurisms Mixtape

Indigenous Futurisms Mixtape - Track List

NASA x John Mohawk - “War, Peace, Natives” x 2oolman - “Lost in America” Flying Lotus - “Coronus, the Terminator” The AfroFuturist Affair - “#BQF NonLocality Zine Soundtape” Xquisite Ghost - “Firefall” King Britt - “My Tribe Exudes Love” x Elizabeth LaPensée x Sun Ra Legends & Lyrics - “Speak to Me of Justice” Teeqwa - “Wooden Teeth” NASA x Peter Morin “Time Traveller” Moor Mother Goddess - “Parable” Princess Nokia “Young Girls” Impossible Nothing - “Destroy” DJ Shub - “If You Want the Raw” 2oolman X TINC - “T.I.Kay” Erykah Badu - “The Healer” Joy KMT - “Origins” King Britt - “Moonbathing” Ryan Dennison - “Iina Baa Chanah Hasin” Boogey the Beat - “Above Me” x Leanne Simpson “Airplanemode” Darkstar - “Timeaway (Nguzunguzu Remix)” Kelela - “Do It Again” Silver Jackson - “From Another World (feat. Cat of THEESatisfaction)” Shabazz Palaces - “Forerunner Foray” Princess Nokia - “Biohazard Butterfly” Shane Keepness - “Resurgence” Notuv - “Ame” x Navajo Star Wars Autechre - “Overand” x Jason Edward Lewis - “The Future Imaginary” A Tribe Called Red - “PBC (Feat. Sheldon Sundon)” Sun Ra - “Journey to Saturn”

KIMIWAN ZINE: INDIGENOUS FUTURISMS

Kimiwan's latest Issue 8, Indigenous Futurisms, launches on November 22nd. Guest edited by Elizabeth LaPensée, with cover art by Wendy Red Star, the issue features an interstellar list of contributors:

Amanda Strong Ambelin Kwaymullina Archer Pechawis Barry Ace Bear Witness Bunky Echo-Hawk Chris Morin Dana Claxton Elizabeth LaPensée Fox Anthony Spears Grace L. Dillon Henry Heavy Shield Jason Edward Lewis Leanne Betasamosake Simpson Leonard Getinthecar Lindsey Catherine Cornum Mary Longman Métis in Space peter morin Kevin Ei-Ichi deForest Renee Nejo Skawennati Steven Paul Judd Wendy Red Star

Zines are available via subscription at kimiwan.bigcartel.com. Follow Kimiwan on Twitter and Tumblr and support independent, Indigenous media, music, and artists throughout the galaxy.