Juno Award-winning artist, songwriter, and performer, iskwē (short for waseskwan iskwew, meaning “blue sky woman”) is, among many other things, a creator and communicator of music and of movement, of pictures, poetry and prose. And through it all, she’s a teller of stories that have impacted our past and will inform our future. iskwē’s discography includes her debut self-titled LP (2013), The Fight Within (2017), acākosīk(2019), and most recently, The Stars (EP) released in 2021.
The Fight Within was nominated for a Juno Award for Indigenous Album of the Year (2018) and garnered her a spot on the Polaris Music Prize Long List. The follow up album, acākosīk (2019) is a collection of seven sonic explorations that not only blurred lines between sources and styles, but also between the actual and the ideal, the real and imagined. Building on the foundation of potent, cross-cultural electro-pop established on her self-titled 2013 debut and confidently cemented on The Fight Within, acākosīk incorporated more intense and urgent tinges of alternative, post-rock, and even industrial genres. The cohesive yet combustible result tip a cap to modern innovators like Florence + The Machine and FKA twigs while simultaneously borrowing sounds accumulated over centuries by iskwē’s Cree and Métis ancestors. The album’s cover art by Sarah Legault is loaded with cultural allusions featuring an individual star for each of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) to date when the album was released. One of the most striking pieces of the collection is “The Unforgotten,” thanks in no small part to Polaris Prize winner Tanya Tagaq’s entrancing throat singing coupled with iskwē’s anthemic chorus and chants. The music video for the single “Little Star” won a Juno Award for Best Video of the Year.
iskwē has collaborated with Canadian artist Tom Wilson on an album that will be released in summer 2022. The album is a follow-up to two earlier singles from this collaboration, “Blue Moon Drive” (Nov 2020) and “Starless Nights” (Jun 2021), which were released on Red Music Rising.
Described as “one of the most powerful performers in the country” by Tom Power, host of CBC q, iskwē’s message is arguably most impactful when delivered from the stage, where it’s not uncommon for people to leave in entranced contemplation or even in tears. Music merges with dance, multimedia, and more in a completely engulfing and cathartic experience – again, one meant to bring people together and celebrate that which unites over that which divides.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzyyeF6zBYY
iskwē is Cree Métis from Treaty One Territory. She was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She is an urban Indigenous two-spirited woman from the Red River Valley, the birthplace of the Métis Nation.
iskwē | ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ is pronounced iss-kway
