{"id":9277,"date":"2014-07-25T14:30:07","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T14:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=9277"},"modified":"2014-07-25T14:30:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-25T14:30:07","slug":"iskwe-truth-is-the-art-im-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2014\/07\/25\/iskwe-truth-is-the-art-im-doing\/","title":{"rendered":"Iskwe :: “Truth is the Art I’m Doing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"new<\/a><\/p>\n

by Martyna Turczynowicz<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iskwe is a Winnipeg native. Her debut album has been nominated for Electronic Advanced Album of the Year at the WTMAs and her song, “Slack Jaw,” was the regional finalist for Manitoba finalist for the CBC Searchlight Competition.\u00a0<\/em>Stylus\u00a0caught up with Iskwe leading up to her homecoming show at the Park Theatre.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stylus: You\u2019ve described your music as \u201cdark and painful\u2026there\u2019s some light in there too. However the lower registers always resonate with me\u201d Can you talk about that some more?
\nIskwe:<\/strong> I used to live in LA and I have a friend who I used to send music to and get her feedback. She really had a similar idea of what my goal as an artist was for my music. There was a stage where some of the stuff that I was sending was, I\u2019ll quote Kitty Star on this, \u201cA little bit candy pop,\u201d as opposed to what I felt was really my voice. This friend of mine, she liked the ones where I spoke more truth than in those other more sort of \u201ccandy-pop\u201d songs. I\u2019m not necessarily saying that everything is really depressing. That\u2019s where my truth comes from and truth is the art that I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n

Stylus: Your music mixes Irish and Cree\/Dene roots with hip hop breakbeats, left-field R&B and traces of piano pop\u2026
\nIskwe:<\/strong> My lineage is a mix of the three Indigenous of Canada and Irish background. The way it influences my music is really just that it is my makeup, my spirit, my being and obviously it is what I pull from when I create art.<\/p>\n

Stylus:<\/strong>\u00a0You sing about trying to fit into, yet wanting to break away from Western Archetypes. Which archetypes, how have they affected you?
\nIskwe:<\/strong> So many. I think that I can attribute it to growing up and being the person who never really belonged to one group of friends. Especially high school; high schools are quite cliquey and I never felt like I really fit 100 per cent into any particular group. It took me quite a while to figure out that it was okay and that it was something to feel pride in because that\u2019s who I was. When I sing about wanting to fit in, but also wanting to break away, it\u2019s about finding footing in myself. \u00a0When I\u2019m singing in that metaphor, I\u2019m referring to my own footing in my own being and my own spirit. Breaking away from the archetypes, it\u2019s looking at things that are assumed of people. It\u2019s assumed that because I can sing soulfully, I should be singing this soulful music. With anything that could be thought of in advance, what I\u2019m saying is \u201cHold on, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s what I want to be doing. Let me figure that out for myself\u201d<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0You\u2019re quite well traveled. Where have you been and how have your travels affected you?
\nIskwe:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve lived in Toronto, New York and LA. All three cities have impacted me very strongly and in very different ways. LA was definitely a crash course in the entertainment industry; it really opened my eyes to the business side of being an entertainer. There are a lot of pros and cons to the business side of it and as well as a lot of pros and cons to being a female in the entertainment industry living in LA. I could go on and on about that. New York is fantastic for creativity. Every time I go there it\u2019s a little overwhelming at how much creativity comes out. It\u2019s the energy of the city and the access to fantastic art from other people. Toronto has always been the place that I\u2019ve gone to decompress and often to record. I always come back to Winnipeg. I technically moved away from Winnipeg in my early twenties. I have come back and spent blocks of time there. I\u2019ve never felt removed from the city. I\u2019ve gone and spent months at a time and in a similar way that Toronto is a place where I go to reflect on those work processes; Winnipeg is where I go to immerse myself in family and calm and being outside and hang out in a very mellow way.<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0Your track \u201cRecycle\u201d was one of my favourites.\u00a0 Can you tell me what inspired that track?
\nIskwe:<\/strong> The music industry. That song is all about the people I met while I was living in LA. There\u2019s an ongoing joke that everyone in LA is a record producer or can hook you up with so and; somebody always knows somebody. There\u2019s always somebody that wants to take you so far, until they realize that maybe you\u2019re not what they want and they disappear.<\/p>\n

Stylus:\u00a0You\u2019ve worked with A Tribe Called Red \u00a0and M1 of Dead Prez, who both make some pretty politically charged music. How was that?
\nIskwe:<\/strong> M1 is fucking awesome. He\u2019s really cool, really grounded and knows a lot. Dead Prez is such a politically inspired duo, so M1 really knows a lot about indigenous people and histories of indigenous people in Canada and in the U.S. It was really nice to talk to him because I didn\u2019t feel like I was constantly being like \u201cThis is what happened\u201d or \u201cThis is what residential schools were\u201d. Conversations that are great to have with people who don\u2019t know, but it\u2019s nice to have that conversation that isn\u2019t rooted in explanation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve known A Tribe Called Red for years and I\u2019ve done a lot of shows and work with them. I first met them years ago in Winnipeg at an Aboriginal Music Week event. They brought me out to Electric Powwows in Ottawa and I\u2019ve brought them to Toronto. When I was performing at their parties in Ottawa, the buzz was still growing. Seeing these guys grow and blow up is fucking awesome.<\/p>\n

Iskwe will be performing at the park Theatre on July 30th<\/sup> with Vikings. Tickets are 10$. Doors open at 8:00p.m. and show starts at 9:00p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Martyna Turczynowicz Iskwe is a Winnipeg native. Her debut album has been nominated for Electronic Advanced Album of the Year at the WTMAs and her song, “Slack Jaw,” was the regional finalist for Manitoba finalist for the CBC Searchlight Competition.\u00a0Stylus\u00a0caught up with Iskwe leading up to her homecoming show at the Park Theatre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[307,563],"class_list":["post-9277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-electronic","tag-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}