TD Indigenous Songwriter Award Winner


Leonard Sumner
Anishinaabe MC/Singer/Songwriter Leonard Sumner’s storytelling flows directly from the shores of Little Saskatchewan First Nation, located in the heart of the Interlake of Manitoba.
Sumner’s self-determined sound is evidence of his ability to simultaneously occupy landscapes of multiple musical genres including Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, Country, and Rhythm and Blues.
With every vibration of the strings on his guitar, Leonard rattles the dust off truths that have been buried for far too long. On stage he poetically sings awake the consciousness of audiences may have been unaware of their slumber. In this era of unsettling history and healing wounds of the past, Sumner’s music is an expression of medicine that walks the line between fortitude and fragility.
Source : www.leonardsumner.com/bio

Anachnid
Sky woman from the sky, Anachnid, is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist of Oji-Cree and Mi’kmaq First Nations. She explores very different contemporary musical styles from electro-pop to indie trap, soul and hip hop married to elements of its indigenous root. She is the winner of the 2019 Indigenous Songwriter Award from SOCAN with her very first single, Windigo, a powerful warrior anthem that attacks intercultural prejudices with as much affront as humor. On stage, we can discover her animal totem, the spider, as Anachnid interweaves bitingly accurate political response with straight up sass in her dance floor hits before sliding into soft aching romantic tracks. Circle up and get caught in this spider’s gorgeous web.
Source : www.nikamowin.com

Jasmine Netsena
Music is Jasmine Netsena’s first language. From the age of five, the award-winning singer-songwriter, who is of the Dene and Tahltan Nations, learned to sing from her grandmothers in their Indigenous languages. Classical voice training only strengthened that bedrock, and now, Jasmine has been honing her songwriting and guitar skills for close to 15 years.
Jasmine released her debut album, Take You With Me, in 2014. For her second record, she uses her voice to uncover long-buried issues. The daughter of a residential school survivor, Jasmine wants to use music to add to the dialogue of intergenerational healing.
Jasmine has charmed audiences in New York City, Nashville and across Canada. In 2014, the Fort Nelson, B.C. resident won Best Folk/Acoustic Album in the Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards and was nominated for at Indigenous Songwriter of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. She’s been featured on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network show Rising Stars, and in 2012, she performed at the Grand Ole Northern Opry with Grammy Award winner Laurie Lewis.
sourced from: https://www.jasminenetsena.com/bio