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Stories   >   Sultans of String collaboration helps lift a heavy weight through the medicine of music / WindSpeaker.com

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Sultans of String collaboration helps lift a heavy weight through the medicine of music / WindSpeaker.com

Posted: August 15, 2023

“I see these relationships as a way to get inside of the Canadian narrative.” — Raven Kanatakta

WindSpeaker.com's Shari Narine writes….In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the eyes of Canadians and the world were opened when Tk’emlups te Secwepemc identified 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2020.

“The whole announcement of children being found because of residential schools and what was going on, it really hit me and I ended up cutting my hair because of it, out of condolence for those little ancestors that never got to live their full life,” said Raven Kanatakta, one half of the two-time Juno-award winning duo Digging Roots with wife ShoShona Kish.

“I didn't know what to do with this heavy weight and…they just kept announcing and announcing more and more little children and, essentially…I needed to do something about it,” said Kanatakta, who is Anishinabe Algonquin/Onkwehón:we Mohawk.

Ten to 15 years earlier, Chris McKhool, leader of the non-Indigenous band Sultans of String, had spoken to Kanatakta about collaborating when Kanatakta had time.

With concerts and all gatherings shut down as a means of controling the spread of the disease, Kanatakta had time. He reached out to McKhool, who told him about a collaboration he was already undertaking with Indigenous artists.

“When I started working with Chris, I said, ‘This is sort of what I'm thinking. These are the sounds that I'm hearing in my head. What do you think about this?’ And he said, ‘Great’,” said Kanatakta.

The lyrics to “Take Off the Crown” were penned by Kanatakta and Kish and the music was created with Sultans of String.

“Take Off the Crown” is the fourth single to come from the Sultans of Strings album "Walking Through the Fire," a CD and concert of collaborations between the Sultans and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit artists.

The album will be released on Sept. 15.

McKhool calls his band’s ninth album “the most ambitious and important project of our career.”

“We’re making this album in the spirit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, and Final Report that asks for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to work together as an opportunity to show a path forward,” McKhool said in an email to Windspeaker.com.

McKhool points out that the band received arts council funding from regular streams and not from Indigenous specific streams. The bed tracks were recorded at Jukasa Studios, an Indigenous-owned studio located in Six Nations of the Grand River.

Sultans (SOS) also paid the Indigenous artists for their performances for the recording and will be paying them mechanical royalties for every pressing.

“For Neighbouring Rights royalties with SiriusXM though SoundExchange, we are giving the entire share of performance royalties to the Indigenous collaborators, rather than keeping any for SOS as would be industry standard,” said McKhool.

He also noted that the project required “a lot of consultation,” which included Elders, musicians, artists, and videographers.

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