Post holiday wrap-up.

Happy New Year! I don’t know about everyone else, but I’m still having trouble remembering to put the 4 in 2014… It’ll come, I have faith.

So what did I do over the holidays? Well, I got a ton of cool stuff for Christmas including a new iPod. I was also able to interview my grandmother for a Public Service Announcement for another project of the NCRA that I’ve been working on called Resonating Reconciliation . I finished it the other day and it is by far my favorite of the seven I’ve produced . My grandfather, whom I never met, went to the Spanish Residential School in Spanish, ON near where I’m from, Akwesasne. Getting a chance to talk to my grandma about it all was a pretty cool experience. I love my grandma J

In more direct OIMA news, I came across an artist by the name of Binaeshee-Quae the other day. She does Aboriginal folk and indie folk. I was loving it. It’s really soft and heartfelt, and hit me right in the feels. There was this one song called Frostbit and Blue, which I thought was particularly relevant, ya know, because it’s cold outside...get it? Anyway, I suggest you give her stuff a listen, you won’t be sorry.

As I’ve been contacting more musicians lately, I’ve also been thinking about the music I grew up listening to. As you might know, my all-time favorite band is Against Me! I didn’t discover them till I was already in high school, and before that I thought I was cool so was listening to rap a lot.

Before that I grew up listening to country. I mean, that’s basically all that CKON-FM, the radio station on my reserve, played.

Even in my own life, I’ve found there are barriers and misconceptions within each music community. Many rap and punk people tend to think that country’s “lame”. While some country-music loving people think that rap’s “all about boobs and champagne”. Then some punk music people “don’t see the art” in other types of music.

I guess this comes from being really committed to the type of music you listen to. And I used to buy right into the whole “my music is better than yours” philosophy, especially in high school. But while I can still see that, I like to think that music in general is one big community.

So now, while I don’t necessarily like all the music I hear, I always try to appreciate it. I couldn’t write a song to save my life, so I try not to sit in judgement. Art is art, music is music.  

For me, that’s the really cool thing about OIMA. I mean you have all these different people (like Peter SackaneyBrandon Solomon, and Marg Raynor), from all these different genres (like AboriginalHip-hopFrancophone), in all these different places (like TorontoNorthern Ontario etc...), and they all are sharing music on OIMA!

Hey, I guess OIMA is becoming its own music community. How cool is that?

That’s my rant for today. Until next time!