ABSTRACT

As a central part of their contribution to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation process, Winnipeg-based vocal group Camerata Nova and rapper Eekwol created and performed the new show Taken. This chapter analyzes these performances, focusing specifically on the way the music samples both mainstream popular hits and hand drum songs. Given the limits of hybrid musical expression, possibilities emerge when the process involves improvisation and dialogue. Musical examples from Taken demonstrate how musical collaboration can work to subvert audience and performer expectations of gendered and racialized musics and suggest dialogic forms of interaction for Indigenous–settler relations.