Duke Redbird’s new poem beckons the future

November 19, 2019
Anishinaabe poet Duke Redbird teams up with award-winning groups Twin Flames and Sultans of String for a timely recording. – Photo by Sean Sisk

By Brian Wright-McLeod

TORONTO— Anishinaabe poet Duke Redbird, from Saugeen First Nation, along with the multiple award-winning Indigenous duo, Twin Flames, are featured on Sultans of String’s new single, “The Power of the Land”, from the band’s upcoming 2020 album Refuge.

Recorded at the Jukasa Studios in the Six Nations of the Grand River, the collaboration is the happy result of Sultans of String bandleader Chris McKhool first hearing Redbird read The Power of the Land in 2017 at an event at Koerner Hall (Toronto’s Carnegie Hall).

Redbird outlined the history of the collaboration.

“Chris McKhool was in the audience and heard my poem and asked me if I wanted to put it to music. A couple years later he called me and we went from there,” he said. “We had an instrumental piece that seemed to need lyrics and that’s when I contacted Duke. I wondered about a way we could incorporate Duke’s poem on the album, so I experimented with it musically, and created a verse-chorus structure…I found the Twin Flames to do the harmonies, and the way we produced the piece as a total collaboration.”

“It takes a particular kind of composer to hear the poem and find the music,” Redbird continued. “And to hear that beautiful violin accompaniment was very uplifting.”

McKhool pointed out, “This is a project that is centered around the positive and ignored contributions of Indigenous peoples, refugees and new immigrants to U.S.A. and Canada.”

Refuge is McKhool’s most ambitious and passionately political album to date, and contains a roster of artists from around the globe to create a musical message.

Redbird’s “The Power of the Land” is not only set to music by the Sultans of String, but buoyed by the impassioned harmonies of Indigenous duo, Twin Flames comprising the talents of Jaaji (Inuk/Mohawk) and Chelsea June (Métis).

“I think for me, it furthers the discussions around reconciliation and what that is here in our country,” June explained of the project.

Although this is not Redbird’s first foray in combining music with poetry. In the 1970s, Redbird had performed with Indigenous folk singers Winston Wuttunnee (Cree), Shingoose (Anishinabe), and Willy Dunn (Mi’mak/Couashauck) at coffee houses and festivals.

“I would read between sets, and they would play along behind me. It was a lot of fun,” he said.

The accompanying video adds studio segments peppered with scenes of nature that add to the theme of Redbird’s poetry and the uplifting charm of the music.

Redbird’s message is simple and immersed in the teachings of Indigenous culture.

“We have to think about the land and our place on it. Our Elders shared the wisdom of the land, and that’s the essence of the piece,” he said.

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