Mathieu McKenzie, of the country-rock group Maten, likes to remember the words spoken by Florent Vollant when he received the Félix for Aboriginal Artist of the Year, awarded for the first time in the history of the ADISQ gala. in 2019: “Don’t be afraid, we come as friends. It is in this spirit that around Émile Bilodeau will gather this evening on the main stage of the Francos Elisapie, Scott-Pien Picard, Laura Niquay and Maten for this unique concert which will be a pivotal moment in the quest for recognition of First Nations musicians within the Quebec musical world, predict Mathieu and Émile.
During a recent radio interview, the host asked Émile Bilodeau if the decision to put on a show at Les Francos, leaving room for First Nations musicians, had something to do with the controversy in which the Festival de la chanson de Granby was plunged. about the concert in the Anishinaabe language that Samian would have liked to present. “I stopped him right away to tell him, ‘It has nothing to do with it.’ It’s an organic process: I’m doing it with my heart, with my friends”, emphasizes Bilodeau, recognizing however “that with all that has happened in terms of Aboriginal issues and with Joyce [Echaquan]it took a response from the artistic community, but I looked around me, and not much was happening…”
Émile Bilodeau had given us an appointment in the offices of his record company, Bravo, with his friend Mathieu McKenzie. The two met at the Kwé festival, which will be held this year from June 17 to 21, place Jean-Béliveau, in Quebec. It is enough to have spent a little time in Mathieu’s company to guess the rest: you instantly become friends with such a good man, who also has a keen sense of hospitality, testifies Bilodeau: “When I am arrived in Maliotenam, they lent me a 4-wheeler and two gallons of gas so that I could go for a walk on the shore! »
Laurent Saulnier had proposed to Émile to make a scene at the Francos. “I told him: ‘I just came back from a trip to Malio and I really like the music of the artists who live there.’ I made friends with Mathieu, Sam [Pinette] and Kim [Fontaine, tous deux de Maten], Scott-Pien and Kanen, also a local girl. And to tell you the truth, at first I just wanted the show to be called Malio, but in the end, not everyone was available, so Laura Niquay, an Atikamekw from the corner of La Tuque, and Elisapie, from Salluit, joined,” says Émile, who specifies that he recruited Natasha Kanapé Fontaine to help him with his pronunciation of the Innu language.
“Basically, what I wanted was simply to sing the refrains of my Innu friends and give them all the room,” adds Émile Bilodeau, who launched his third album last fall, Small type. “When I was offered a show at the Francos, it was clear to me that I would do it with my gang from Malio. Basically, what I don’t want people to blame me for is that it’s perceived as a set-up. I want people to understand that this link, this project, is authentic. Everyone will sing two of their songs, to which the others will add their two cents. We can already predict the success of the case. Elisapie is an already consecrated talent. Laura Niquay launched one of the best folk-rock albums of the year in the spring of 2021, in all languages. The mainstream pop song of the excellent singer Scott-Pien Picard deserves at least as much attention as that of Ludovic Bourgeois, while Maten has country in his blood. Monday evening, we will hear Tshe minupunanu, the new song, recorded with Maten and Scott-Pien Picard, that Émile has just unveiled. We will also sing the immortal Ekuen Pua of singer-songwriter Philippe McKenzie, the first Innu to record an album (Mishtashipu, 1982). “This song is like our national anthem,” explains Mathieu. “What are you gonna get when you hear it. »
This show will be, underlines Mathieu McKenzie, like a makushan : ” A makushan, it is a dance, a feast, a gathering that one organizes when one has had a good hunt. Our ancestors did that when they succeeded in catching caribou — at the time, they were hunted with snowshoes! —, so with us, the makushan, it is in our hearts. And it has a rhythm, a way of hitting the drum and dancing, that’s what I want to show Émile. »
By necessity, this concert will also be a gesture of affirmation. “In Quebec, says Bilodeau, we brag about our musical culture, which is also made up of music from elsewhere. But, tabarnak, to be able to boast about it, you have to have earned it! We can say that we have eleven aboriginal nations and the Inuit, but if we don’t see them anywhere, I don’t think we deserve to promote ourselves internationally. I am personally committed — to myself, I owe nothing to anyone — to continue to defend issues that affect aboriginal people. »
Mathieu catches the ball on the leap: “What Émile does, others have done before him. Richard Séguin, Marc Déry, with Florent [Vollant]. Our friends, our allies. But we are younger than them. I feel it, the energy of our generation. It is our turn to carry this ideal” of a musical scene open to pop, rock and country sung in the languages of the First Nations.
Émile adds: “We young people want to transform it in our image, society. There’s a lot of talk about aboriginal issues right now, and I think if we started with culture, all of the solutions we have yet to find would seem more logical. This show is really part of a perspective of living together, and that starts on the traineeship, Monday. »
During his acceptance speech at the ADISQ gala, Florent Vollant also said this sentence: “We are not here [au gala] because we are indigenous. We are here because we are good. Mathieu McKenzie rephrases it: “We, Aboriginal musicians, have reached the stage. We also have the right to play there. We have the songs to do shows like that and, one day, the roles will be reversed: we are the ones who will invite Émile and the others to the big stages. I say to festivals in Quebec: give us the opportunity to perform on those stages. We deserve them, too. »
Émile Bilodeau and his guests Scott-Pien Picard, Maten, Laura Niquay and Elisapie will be at the Place des Festivals on Monday evening, 9 p.m.