Three years ago, when Tobique First Nation musician Jeremy Dutcher accepted the Polaris Music Prize, an award recognizing the best Canadian album of the year, he declared: “Canada, you are in the midst of an Indigenous renaissance.”
The proof was all over the music scene. Dutcher’s win marked the fourth time in five years that a musician with Indigenous heritage including Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq and folk veteran Buffy Sainte-Marie had won the Polaris prize. Indigenous hip-hop outfits like A Tribe Called Red and Snotty Nose Rez Kids were stealing the show at music festivals across the country.