Buffy Sainte-Marie, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and social activist.
Indigenous music of Canada encompasses a wide variety of musical genres created by Aboriginal Canadians. Before European settlers came to what is now Canada, the region was occupied by many First Nations, including the West Coast Salish and Haida, the centrally located Iroquois, Blackfoot and Huron, the Dene to the North, and the Innu and Mi'kmaq in the East and the Cree in the North. Each of the indigenous communities had their own unique musical traditions. Chanting – singing is widely popular and most use a variety of musical instruments.
Native American Hip Hop is hip hop culture practiced by people of Native American heritage, including Canadian First Nation hip hop artists. It is not a specific form of hip hop but varies in style along the lines of hip hop in general. Native Americans have been present in hip hop culture since its inception as breakdancers, DJs, rappers, and graffiti artists. The Native American contribution to hip hop can occasionally be veiled by the ethnic umbrella term of Hispanic or Latino, terms that may refer to Native Americans in certain contexts.
The Canadian hip hop scene was established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much slower than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground phenomenon until the early 2000s.
Lillian Eva Quan Dyck, is a retired Canadian senator from Saskatchewan. A member of the Cree Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan, and a first generation Chinese Canadian, she is the first female First Nations senator and first Canadian-born senator of Chinese descent.
Priscilla Settee is a Cree activist for Native rights, women's rights and environmental rights living in Canada. She is the director of the Indigenous People's program at the University of Saskatchewan.
Maria Campbell is a Métis author, playwright, broadcaster, filmmaker, and Elder. Campbell is a fluent speaker of four languages: Cree, Michif, Western Ojibwa, and English. Four of her published works have been published in eight countries and translated into four other languages. Campbell has had great influence in her community as she is very politically involved in activism and social movements. Campbell is well known for being the author of Halfbreed, a memoir describing her own experiences as a Métis woman in society and the difficulties she has faced, which are commonly faced by many other women both within and outside of her community.
Mary Ellen Elizabeth Turpel-Lafond is a Canadian lawyer, law professor, judge, and legislative advocate for children's rights.
Delia Opekokew is a Cree lawyer and writer from the Canoe Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada. She was the first First Nations woman lawyer to be admitted to the bar association in Ontario and in Saskatchewan, as well as the first woman to run for the leadership of the Assembly of First Nations. Opekokew attended Beauval Indian Residential School and Lebret Indian Residential School. She has received awards for her achievements, including the Aboriginal Achievement Award, Women's Law Association of Ontario Presidents Award, Law Society of Ontario Medal, and Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations Lifetime Achievement Award.
Joseph Laplante, stage name Joey Stylez, is a First Nations-Métis Canadian singer and rapper/pop artist.
Joi T. Arcand is a nehiyaw photo-based artist from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan, who currently resides in Ottawa, Ontario. In addition to art, Arcand focuses on publishing, art books, zines, collage and accessibility to art.
Louise Bernice Halfe, is a Cree poet and social worker from Canada. Halfe's Cree name is Sky Dancer. At the age of seven, she was forced to attend Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta. Halfe signed with Coteau Books in 1994 and has published four books of poetry: Bear Bones & Feathers (1994), Blue Marrow (1998/2005), The Crooked Good (2007) and Burning in this Midnight Dream (2016). Halfe uses code-switching, white space, and the stories of other Cree women in her poetry. Her experience at Blue Quills continues to influence her work today. Halfe's books have been well-received and have won multiple awards.
Cheryl L'Hirondelle is a Canadian multidisciplinary media artist, performer, and award-winning musician. She is of Métis/Cree (non-status/treaty), French, German, and Polish descent. Her work is tied to her cultural heritage. She explores a Cree worldview or nêhiyawin through body, mind, emotions, and spirit; examining what it means to live in contemporary space and time.
Tasha Hubbard is a Canadian First Nations/Cree filmmaker and educator based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Hubbard's credits include three National Film Board of Canada documentaries exploring Indigenous rights in Canada: Two Worlds Colliding, a 2004 Canada Award-winning short film about the Saskatoon freezing deaths, Birth of a Family, a 2017 feature-length documentary about four siblings separated during Canada's Sixties Scoop, and nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, a 2019 Hot Docs and DOXA Documentary award-winning documentary which examines the death of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man, and the subsequent trial and acquittal of the man who shot him.
Arlette Alcock is a Métis-Canadian folk musician, songwriter and social activist. Arlette is best known for performing her outspoken songs which detail the past and current challenges facing Metis and Aboriginal Canadians. Since 1997 she has released two full-length albums of original music under the mononym Arlette. Both albums have received extensive Aboriginal Radio airplay in Canada and the United States. Arlette has been nominated for a variety of Aboriginal music awards in North America and won the Songwriter of the Year award at the Native-E Music Awards in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 2008.
Drezus is Plains Cree rapper and activist based in Calgary, Alberta. Drezus' accomplishments in the field of music include awards for Best Music Video, Best Producer/Engineer, Best Rap/Hip Hop Album, and Indigenous Entertainer of the Year. These awards followed the success of his album, Indian Summer, released in the summer of 2014. However, Manitopyes' life was not always filled with awards and recognition. Growing up as a First Nations person, he faced multiple jail stints and violence in his life. Manitopyes has found meaning in his music and is working to share it with those who will listen.
Jerilynn Snuxyaltwa Webster, known by her stage name JB the First Lady is an Indigenous hip-hop and spoken word artist, emcee, beat-boxer, activist, cultural dancer, and youth educator from the Nuxalk and Onondaga nations. She is currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. JB sees her music as a way of capturing oral history and often writes lyrics about challenging subjects such as the Canadian Indian residential school system and missing and murdered Indigenous women. She sees hip-hop as a tool of Indigenous empowerment and is a prominent voice for decolonization and for inspiring Indigenous women and youth.
Raven Sinclair (Ótiskewápíwskew) is Cree/Assinniboine/Saulteaux and a member of Gordon First Nation of the Treaty#4 area of southern Saskatchewan and member of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a survivor and expert on the Sixties Scoop, the practice of taking Indigenous children from their families and placing them in foster care or adopting them out to white families. She is a critic of the current child welfare system in Canada, especially as it relates to Indigenous peoples. She is a professor, film maker, author and facilitator. Sinclair is also a founding editorial member of IndigenousVoices in Social Work (UHawaii), and a regional editor for AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples.
Danis Goulet is a First Nations (Cree-Métis) film director and screenwriter from Canada, whose debut feature film Night Raiders premiered in 2021.
Belinda kakiyosēw Daniels is a nēhiyaw Canadian educator and language activist known for efforts to teach and revitalize nēhiyawēwin.
