Youth from Délı̨nę, Ndilǫ and Behchokǫ̀ ‘heal through songs’

Youth from Délı̨nę, Ndilǫ and Behchokǫ̀ star in a series of new music videos featuring original songs they wrote and performed.

The young artists worked with N’we Jinan, a Quebec-based mobile production studio from non-profit inPath, and the Western Arctic Youth Collective to write and record the songs and film the videos.

Mataya Gillis worked with the team in Ndilǫ that produced the song I Just Want to Be.

“In Ndilǫ, it was four girls so they talked about what it’s like being a woman in today’s society,” she said. “I felt like I could really relate to that.”

Gillis said another music video featuring five artists from Behchokǫ̀ will be released in a few weeks. She said they used lighting equipment and a fog machine from Western Arctic Moving Pictures while filming at Chief Jimmy Bruneau Regional High School in Edzo.

“I’m so excited for this one,” she said. “The school is so amazing and the video is going to be out of this world.”

The three-minute anthem from Délı̨nę, titled It’s All on the Land, features 14 artists from the community. 

The video was filmed at several locations including the recording studio, the community centre during a culture camp and at local monuments.

N’we Jinan, which means “we live here” in James Bay (Eastern) Cree, released their first music video for the song I Believe in 2014. It features artists from the Cree community of Chisasibi in Quebec.

The production studio has since released more than 140 songs featuring Indigenous artists in collaboration with various organizations.

“Every community we go to is very universal,” said Dakota Sheperd, who recently worked with youth in the NWT. “A lot of the kids usually talk about either the truth that they’re living on the reserves or in the isolated communities.”

Sheperd said N’we Jinan usually spends a week in each community they visit. This time, however, he said the team had 12 days in total to record and complete filming in the three communities.

The first two days involved writing and recording the music. First, Sheperd said, the team encouraged the youth to “come out of their shells” and feel comfortable performing for an audience.

“It’s our job just to make them feel comfortable enough to share their stories and experiences,” he said. “After that, the group votes on a topic to write about and the team helps individual participants come up with their own verses, or in their words, ‘tell their story.'”

The Western Artic Youth Collective, or WAYC, first began working with N’we Jinan last year, when they toured Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, Paulatuk and Fort McPherson.

Tate Juniper with WAYC said this year’s tri-community tour was originally scheduled to take place in the summer, however wildfires across the territory pushed the recording process back to late October.

“We really wanted to come back to the communities especially because they were affected by the fire,” he said. “So when we came back we said, ‘we want to go to Délı̨nę, we want to go to Ndilǫ and we want to go to Behchokǫ̀.'”

Juniper said the initiative has helped youth in isolated communities gain opportunities that they may not otherwise have access to.

“Respectfully, what the North needs is to have Indigenous youth representation advocating, supporting and bringing the right people together so our communities can all get opportunities they’ve been denied for so long,” he said.

“Our communities can start healing through songs, through culture and through just gathering to do something really amazing and important such as this.”