The Ontario-based folk rock duo, Digging Roots, is returning to the Blue Feather Music Festival
We’ve travelled all over the world from South Africa to Europe, to Scandinavia, to South America, to the States, to Australia and New Zealand and, recently, Japan. We write music that’s based on who we are and what we see and where we come from.
Raven Kanatakta
Raven Kanatakta and ShoShona Kish make up the musical duo Digging Roots, a group known as much for working to create equity in the music industry as for its music. Kanatakta is from the Winneway, a settlement of the Anishinaabe band government, in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec, home to the Long Point First Nation; and Kish is Anishinaabekwe, with family from Batchewana and part of the Three Fires Midewiwin Lodge. Now based in Ontario, the two have been touring internationally for the better part of the past 20 years.
“We’ve travelled all over the world from South Africa to Europe, to Scandinavia, to South America, to the States, to Australia and New Zealand and, recently, Japan,” says Kanatakta. “We write music that’s based on who we are and what we see and where we come from.”
Kanatakta’s life in music started with his grandfather. In the small community where Kanatakta grew up, he was surrounded by families dealing with issues stemming from residential schools. Not wanting to see his grandson start down a harmful path, Kanatakta’s grandfather encouraged him to explore their shared love of music.
“He was a guitar player and he would bring his guitar over to the house and play some songs and I’d watch him,” remembers Kanatakta. “And then he started doing this thing where he left the guitar in different places. I would wake up to get ready to go to school and take a shower, and the guitar would be in the shower. Or he’d come and visit and play some songs and then leave the guitar on top of the fridge.”
This unorthodox method sparked a desire in Kanatakta to pick up the guitar for himself and even go looking for it when it wasn’t in plain sight. Eventually, Kanatakta’s grandfather told him he needed to sing, as well, if he was going to make his own music. The first song Kanatakta learned to play and sing together was Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue.”
Fast-forwarding some years, Kanatakta would eventually move to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music. His parents had moved to Ottawa during this time, and Kanatakta met his now wife and musical partner during a trip there to visit his parents.
“We just really clicked,” he says. “I think we clicked because we are both Indigenous people and we come from families that have attended residential schools, and there’s an area there where everyone is learning how to speak their language again and there’s a reclamation back to the land, in a certain respect, and bringing back our songs and our music. That’s where we really bonded … We just had all of these connections with each other and were just able to naturally talk about them. We ended up getting a gig together and we’ve been playing music ever since.”
Digging Roots’ music is a reflection of humanity, as Kanatakta describes it. For a long time, he would play the songs loudly and intensely, seeing the songs as a way to fight against oppression, with elements of blues, hip hop and reggae finding their place in the sound.
“I would just rip into the guitar,” he says. “I started off playing an acoustic and I would run my acoustic guitar through my amplifier, with some Tube Screamer pedals and delays and stuff like that, and I’d be playing these size-twelve strings on an acoustic and just bending the crap out of them, and then breaking strings and really playing an acoustic really hard. I realized it was my way of dealing with all the racism I’d had and was getting from living in Canada.
“It was a way for me to fight back without having to be negative with people or negative with colonialism. It was fighting back in this peaceful, empowered way.”
These days, Kanatakta finds himself delving into other lighter themes, as well, even writing the occasional love song. The roots of his music will always derive from his culture and ancestral history, but part of his healing journey has involved becoming open to a softer side of music.
Digging Roots’ worldly travels have included several trips to the Yukon, over the years, in Whitehorse, Dawson City, Teslin and other communities. However many times it’s been, it will always be a treat to get back up, though.
“I love it, and it’s beautiful and gorgeous there,” Kanatakta says. “And I hope that there’s an early winter.”
The Yukon always reminds Kanatakta of his own community in the wintertime, so much so that he says visiting the North feels like visiting a second home. He also raves about the scenery, wildlife and the dogsledding and helicopter expeditions that Blue Feather Music Festival organizer Gary Bailie has taken the band on in years past.
“It’s not just the beauty of the land, but there’s a cool sense of community that happens when you get up north … kind of like my res,” Kanatakta says. “You get to these places and people are very social and friendly.”
To keep up with Digging Roots and check out their music, tour dates and more, visit diggingrootsmusic.com. Visit bluefeathermusic.ca to learn more about the Blue Feather Music Festival, which takes place at the Yukon Arts Centre from Nov. 7 and 8.
