A personal and cultural statement that unashamedly stands on the shoulders of what came before.
Ottawa, Ontario outfit A Tribe Called Red return with a second album of Native American stylings set to thoroughly modern bass heavy foot-moving music, drawing influences from dubstep, trap and other such journalistic classifications. This DJ/producer crew are made up of DJ NDN, DJ Bear Witness and DJ Shub, and have been collectively shaking things up and making a name for themselves for a while. The first self titled album (available free here) pioneered their self named style of Electric Pow Wow which brought native traditions and culture to a larger and younger audience. Aside from the obvious benefits of maintaining a heritage, reinforcing a culture and making a personal stand, the music is thumpingly good.
Nation To Nation is a continuation of the movement, with a bit more experience and the consequent development of their sound the tribe are moving from strength to strength. This project is more then banging tunes from an on-form production crew (although it certainly is this too), it’s a personal and cultural statement that unashamedly stands on the shoulders of what came before. There is a sense of importance to this project; the fusing of traditional American first nation music and contemporary party/club/dance/underground/etc. music is a new one on me, and the fact that it is a million miles from trite Native American sound FX samples used to occasionally give ambience to a track, but genuinely part of the roots of the music is fantastic. I hope that A Tribe Called Red pave the way for future musicians to incorporate traditional Native American influences in their work. America is a very big and old country, there is surely a huge wealth of culture and art tradition that not only deserves to have a light shone on it, but clearly has a lot to offer modern culture.
Apart from all the postulating this crew prompt, they make absolutely banging music.
Nation II Nation is available on Pirates Blend.
