Indigenous youth find Healing Through Hip Hop

By Rick Garrick

FORT WILLIAM — A group of youth enjoyed creating and recording their own hip hop lyrics for a song during Nokiiwin Tribal Council’s Healing Through Hip Hop workshop led by Shibastik on Feb. 1-2 in Fort William First Nation. Shibastik, a Moose Cree artist/musician, led the workshop for the group of youth from Fort William, Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg, and Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek at the Fort William First Nation Community Centre.

“I’m really impressed, so happy that everybody who came out got on the mic and shared their voices,” Shibastik says. “I’m really excited about the song; I’m going to put a video together and have it ready for Monday. I’m going to be performing on Monday at the [Best Western Plus NorWester Hotel and Conference Centre] and I’m going to share the video with everyone there.”

Shibastik says the video will also be posted on his YouTube channel, Healing Through Hip Hop Workshop.

“I got them to focus on writing four bars, four lines,” Shibastik says. “We had a couple of our girls who did their part together, so you can hear both of their voices and it sounded really cool. Their voices really harmonized well together.”

Shibastik says he also taught the youth the fundamentals of creating a beat at the beginning of the first day, noting that he showed them how to use a beat-making machine to make their beats and also taught them about the recording and editing process.

“It can get very complex the more time you spend with it,” Shibastik says. “If they want to approach hip hop and start writing their own music, they kind of have an idea of where to start.”

Logan Rusnick, one of the youth, says the workshop was fun.

“I got to learn a lot of new things,” Rusnick says, noting that it was “pretty surprising” to hear his lyrics on the audio. “It was about friendship and how to grow up.”

Pamela Hardy, director of education at Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek, says providing youth with an opportunity to develop leadership skills was one of the results of a survey the community did with the youth this past fall.

“This helps them to find their voice to speak out and then obviously participate in leadership,” Hardy says.

Hardy notes the song the youth created was “pretty special.”

“We took conversations that we had, some of their goals that they hope to accomplish in life, what’s important to them and put it together, and I’m super proud of them,” Hardy says. “I just hope we can provide our younger students the same opportunity in our community.”

Erin Lovis, education advisor at Nokiiwin, says the workshop was fantastic.

“It’s been great seeing our youth really open up and share their stories and just gain their confidence,” Lovis says. “They all put in four [lines] each, wrote their own lines with Shibastik’s help and recorded themselves along with thinking up ideas on different ways to shoot footage (for the video). They had a very positive experience and enjoyed themselves. I’ve seen a huge change just from the moment they walked in to now leaving today and their confidence in really opening up with me.”

Fort William Elder Myria Esquega says the workshop was amazing, noting that it was good to see the youth gathering from the different communities and getting to know each other.

“I’m really proud that they are learning how to approach to do this (music),” Elder Esquega says. “They might be able to do it on their own one day and become like Shibastik.”