The Northern Cree Singers
It's A Cree Thing
This year at the 2017 Grammy awards the Northern Cree Singers performed for the first time, astonishing the crowd and to much kudos. Though I was extremely disappointed that the world could not watch their performance as they were not filmed for prime time viewing.
It is imperative that we honor our Native American artists and give them a place at the table. Native American music artists must be front and center for the entire world to see, rather than just be a pre-show token performance as was the case with the Northern Cree Singers. Their stage appearance was not during prime time TV viewing.
Here in the United States our Native American Tribes have joined together to protest the Dakota Pipeline, with their cause going main stream with rallies of protest across the United States and overseas. Therefore a prime time performance from the tribe would have been a poignant and strong message to all our Native American brothers and sisters -with giving them equal representation at the music awards as they deserve- That we hear their voice and respect their culture.
This year unfortunately there was much disappointment and disapproval regarding the demographic of the winners-with the Grammy awards not fully embracing diverse artists.. thus. “#Grammyssowhite was the twitter cry which reflected the same amount of disappointment and outrage similar to last year's #Oscarsowhite twitter backlash. The Grammy Awards must be inclusive not exclusive!!
The Northern Cree Singers deserve to have been front and center on prime time television for the world to see them!
The Indigenous Music Culture online publication highlighted the group with being so proud of their tribe members: " It is rare for Indigenous music to be recognized by big music award shows and rarer still to see Indigenous musicians on the stage”. After the group performed “Cree Cuttin' from their Grammy nominated album, It's a Cree Thing, they were joined on stage for a performance by fellow nominee singer Carla Morrison.
The group was nominated for Best Regional Roots recording with it being the seventh nomination, with the Native Hawaiian artist Kalanai Pe'a winning the coveted award.
As the Indigenous Music Culture community took to twitter posts to celebrate this proud moment for the tribe.
Their website shares :
“Northern Cree are role models for all First Nations people and live by their founder's motto:
If you believe in yourself, who you are, where you come from, your culture and more importantly your language, it will take you to places you have never even dreamed of.”
Find out more about Northern Cree on their website at
http://www.northerncree.com/
