They’re known as A Tribe Called Red, but don’t mistake them for a certain American hip hop group.
When the group played the Frostbite Festival in Whitehorse last February, the hotel staff thought they were welcoming someone else entirely.
“We went to check into our hotel rooms and we’re like ‘We’re A Tribe Called Red,’ and we gave our names, and they said no, we only have three people left to check in today,” band member Bear Witness said.
When the hotel staff asked which one of them was Ali Shaheed and which one was Q-Tip, the band was puzzled.
Witness said he guessed that the hotel staff had confused the group for American hip hop legends A Tribe Called Quest, and Googled their names for the reservation.
But at the monthly “Electric Pow Wow” night, which takes place at Babylon Nightclub, a situation as confusing and bewildering as this is rare.
The trio draws a large crowd that is often found lined up against the wall of Babylon, before ending up inside a packed, jovial atmosphere where Bear Witness, Ian “DJ NDN” Campeau, and Dan “DJ Shub” General remix pow wow drumming and singing. They mix their traditional sound to everything, from dancehall to electronic dance music.
It’s called “Pow Wow Step”, but the genre name was initially a gag.
“We kind of said that as a joke on our SoundCloud, and then MTV was like ‘they invented a new sound. So that’s what it’s called now,” Campeau said.
The fusion of dancehall and reggae stems from Bear Witnesses’ upbringing in Toronto, where Caribbean culture and music thrives, he said.
“It feels like part of my culture, I grew up around it, surrounded by it.”
The trio has been touring across the country, as well as internationally. They just returned from the New Orleans Jazz Festival in April.
Calling the festival and the thrill of their performances in New Orleans “insane,” Campeau said “everybody needs to go there, for a little while anyways.”
“There’s no other place like it on the planet. It’s its own little microcosm of weird, crazy, awesomeness,” he said.
And while an electronic outfit may seem out of place at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, Campeau said the crowd’s reaction was “awesome.”
The group played two shows, with one on the main stage in front of an audience of approximately 600. The second show was on a smaller stage.
Despite the difference in size, Campeau said both “were really cool.”
Soon thereafter, the band released their second album Nation II Nation on May 14, the first since their eponymous 2011 debut.
The new album had a lot of help from Tribal Spirit, a fair trade label based in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. The label provides the samples of traditional pow wow music.
“It’s really current stuff that’s being remixed, and the pow wow culture is really vibrant,” Campeau said.
Campeau said these pow wow drummers are not older than 25, and singing about things like Facebook.
Seemingly at ease with all the mistakes and confusion surrounding their name and sound, there is one thing the group is sure it is not: hip hop.
Between touring the world, A Tribe Called Red will be playing Electric Pow Wow June 8 at Babylon Nightclub, and July 10 at the Ottawa Bluesfest.
