An artist who has been through harsh experiences is compelled, almost duty-bound, to express it directly.
Niska Napoleon took a long time to come to this realization. The 30-year-old singer-songwriter has set up one of the most active music careers among her aboriginal peers in B.C., and yet she has yet to release a full album as a soloist. On the cusp of releasing her breakthrough project, she told The Citizen how thankful she is that it never happened.
"Had I released songs then, it wouldn't have reflected who I really was, and they wouldn't have been strong enough to stand behind," she said, only days away from hitting the send button on the leadoff single Holding Me, steeped in double meaning: the intimate embrace of family conjoined with feeling smothered by abuse of power.
The second layer of duality within the song is how that applies to modern aboriginal culture - sutured jaggedly to all the wonderful amenities of modern Canada like hospitals and universities while at the same time still suffering active colonial oppression under documents like the federal Indian Act.
Some of the symptoms of that oppression spill out behind closed doors as domestic violence and various forms of abuse among aboriginal families. The primary inspiration for Holding Me was seeing the violence, abuse and dysfunction through her own eyes, on her childhood reserve.
Napoleon grew up initially at Moberly Lake, about three hours north of Prince George. She is a northern B.C. Cree (some roots are also Dene) of the Saulteau First Nation. She now lives in Victoria.
"I was put through the wringer, growing up. The abuse was physical, emotional, both my sister and I," she said. Her sister is also a singer-songwriter, performance artist and social activist named Quanah Style Napoleon.
"I feel like it affected my life throughout my entire life. I don't think people realize that things like that can change you forever. I grew up as a hermit and didn't grow any social skills until I was an older teenager. And being afraid of people, I was so lucky to have music to express myself and find myself, and I needed to write this song as a way of healing. Creating art is a safe place where I could be whoever I wanted and say whatever I wanted, and that's what art can do for anyone, and now this song is out there speaking up for others."
It is a call to action, she said, for families of any sort. Anyone who knows abuse is happening, whether you live inside that home or not, whether you are a member of that family or not, has the obligation to open your voice on that topic.
"You have no idea how much dysfunction is being hidden just below the surface on reserves. I actually confronted some people recently about how they could not stand up and not face it and not oppose what was going on. People need the protection of intervention, not excuses and pretending things aren't your business," Napoleon said. "One person I confronted on that told me that if she had intervened, if she 'went there,' it would have meant confronting her own past, and she didn't feel like she had the strength to do that. So that's how deep it goes, and that's why it keeps on happening. And it's not always bad people who do these things, but they are bad things to the victims."
Napoleon then expressly insisted that she would not disclose anyone's identity involved in the abuse of her background. It was important for her to point that out because her father is known from coast to coast for his own music, and as a television host.
Art Napoleon has a long and acclaimed career as a musician, with a popular following in both English and Cree languages, and also as the native half of the aboriginal-Euro food show Moosemeat & Marmalade seen weekly on the APTN network.
The Napoleon Collective was the trio (along with some cousins) that Niska, Quanah and Art Napoleon all collaborated on in 2012.
Since Napoleon is raising awareness about shared accountability, she wants to neither excuse nor accuse anyone in her family or her community for the things that shaped her childhood. The song is not about casting anyone out, it is about drawing everyone closer together as a way to look after one another and support one another.
That's exactly why Holding Me is being released on National Aboriginal Day on June 21.
"I wanted the flower to break the concrete and come out and bloom. That's what the song is about but it is also me," said Napoleon, whose Cree name, Wpi Kwan"y, translates to White Flower.
Holding Me is single No. 1 in a string of songs that will roll out over the next few months and form an EP she has scheduled to release in late summer or early fall. A tour of Canada has been set for this fall, including a stop in Prince George.
