Two days before our scheduled interview, I had the pleasure of seeing Aysanabee live in concert at the Schokoladen in Berlin Mitte. Warm, intimate, and with an audience thrilled to fill the limited space, the venue made way for an evening of folky bliss. Funnily enough, I was told on two separate occasions that the Oji-Cree singer-songwriter was, in the most positive sense of the word, a notorious storyteller. Speaking truth into power, that reputation fittingly prepared me for both the concert and our interview.
As Aysanabee truly honors the folk tradition, he doesn’t simply perform his tracks but tells of the context, the history and the people who inspired his songs. So, his songs speak of love and pain, of old and newfound wisdoms, by both him and the people that came before him. His support act Sara Hartman followed suit, and through her heartfelt melodies, and the electrifying guitar picking and passionate vocals of the host, it was a true testament to the power of the genre. But no wonder, with an artist like Aysanabee at the helm of the ship.
Speaking From the Heart
Bursting on to the Canadian music scene in 2022, the singer-songwriter didn’t set out to make this big a mark with his debut album “Watin”. The album found its humble beginnings in taped conversations the artist shared with his grandfather, Watin Aysanabee, in the first year of the COVID pandemic. Aysanabee, then working as a journalist, decided to retell his grandfather’s stories the best way he knew how to. Having picked up guitar playing in his youth, after his older brother gifted him his old guitar, he soon lost himself in the craft. Only viewing it as a hobby, a near death experience shifted his focus and Aysanabee decided to finally follow his passion.“When I started making that record in the pandemic, I didn’t think anyone would really hear it. I kind of made peace with the idea that I’m just gonna do music as a hobby now because, like, the world is shut down.”
Being of Oji-Cree descent, Aysanabee found a way in this era of isolation to connect with his grandfather and ancestral history deeper than ever before.
Photo by Lindsay Duncan
“We spent the first year of the pandemic talking about things we’ve never spoken about; his life on the trapline on Sandy Lake First Nation, falling in love, residential school, and leaving everything behind. Even though we were over 1,000 kilometers apart, it was probably the closest we’ve ever been.”
Their talks centered, among many things, on his grandfather’s experiences with the violence and discrimination he endured in a Canadian residential school. These schools were part of the colonial mechanism aiming to eradicate indigenous identities. They were riddled with a multitude of abuses, ranging from malnutrition and violence to sexual assault and death. After Canada gained self-governance in 1867, the residential school system was further upheld through the various Christian churches that sustained it from the beginning. It was only abolished in 1997.
Portrait of Watin Aysnabee | Photo by Aysanabee
Watin Aysanabee told his grandson about being forcibly taken from his parents, being renamed, and forbidden to speak his own language. But he also told him how he, a then 8-year-old boy, still found love and strength to hold on to and defy the colonial oppression: by gathering fellow Oji-Cree kids in the middle of the night to tell each other stories, keeping their mother tongue alive. And be it initially only in hiding and not in its totality for all speakers; it did survive. “There’s only a few words I know in my language” the singer adds. “I think there’s only 20,000 people who speak it, and a lot less people who teach it”.
Aysanabee took these testimonies and weaved them into an intricate record, where he preserved his grandfather’s voice and stories as calls to which his songs were the responses to. Deeply personal and simultaneously speaking universal truths of trauma and resilience, one of the standout tracks is “We Were Here”. A song that commemorates not only his grandfather but speaks to any and every culture to ever be on the brink of erasure – past or present.
On the Rise
With the release of Watin in November 2022, Aysanabee soon found himself in the middle of a national conversation. Only a year prior, unmarked mass graves of Canadian residential schools were made public and Canada was forced to address its colonial past on a bigger stage. Watin with its songs like “Nomads” impressed with its emotional potency, yet the societal push helped further the reach of the record:
Photo by Lindsay Duncan
“It kind of went crazy. It became much larger than I thought it was going to be. I thought it would be just my close circle of friends who would hear it, maybe a few fans in here but then it just took a life on its own.”
What followed was a meteoric rise: Aysanabee won two Juno awards in 2024 – one for Alternative Album of the Year and one for Songwriter of the Year – and was the first indigenous person to do so.
Fast forward to 2025 and he has toured the world, with more than 300 concerts and festival appearances under his belt. And not only that. Amid this tumultuous time, Aysanabee wrote, recorded and released an EP, and his sophomore album Edge of the Earth. On this record, he tries to digest these last couple of years. From moments of confusion and feeling overwhelmed, to welcoming this change, Aysanabee comes to terms with his new life, viewing it as a true chance to follow his passion and grow as an artist and human being.
Taking Up Space
While Watin took him all over the world, the touring schedule allowed only for sporadic recording sessions. Working with a diverse team of musicians he trusts deeply, Aysanabee allowed himself to experiment more on Edge of the Earth. He tells me of an underground recording studio in Toronto, where he and his fellow collaborators would lose the grasp of time and space in their joy of musical experimentation. “You would just be in there, making all kinds of sounds, painting with sound, having fun and getting a little crazy with it.”
So, where Watin was deliberately more stripped back to lend more space to storytelling and vocals, Edge of the Earth resulted in something big and bold. Now, big synths, deep bass and a more electronic rock feel underline Aysanabee’s stories. Turning the lens inward, the artist sings about moments what moved him since Watin. “A lot of the songs are written in these different kind of pivotal moments, those really reflective moments in my life in the last two and a half years.”
Coming to Terms
With his new record, Aysanabee seeks to find balance in the emotional roller coaster of the last couple of years. The first song he wrote for the album was “Dreamcatcher”, a track about dealing with imposter syndrome. He asked himself: “Will I have enough strength? Can I really keep this going?” Because when you essentially get to live out your dream, there needs to be catch, right? “The Way We Are Born”, on the other hand, deals with the realization that he would need to part from a close friend. It was just after Trump started his second term and this person started to show a new side that was just not compatible with the singer:
“I realized that one friend, to whom I was so close with, we just differed idealistically. I remember trying to explain to him what systemic oppression was and like sitting there, trying to put myself in his shoes and then coming to the point that he’s not trying to do that at all for me. ‘The Way We’re Born’ encapsulates that moment for me. Like, some people will never understand and sometimes you just need to let go of that person.”
But as overwhelming as the years between his records may have been, Aysanabee still overcame his worries. The title of Edge of the Earth suggests this discrepancy of a turning point – being both at the edge of isolation and possibility. Is this the end or the beginning? Will I remain the same, or will I emerge as something new?
No More Fight Or Flight
For Aysanabee, it meant to welcome change and accept its power. He underlines this with an anecdote about a serene moment of realization he had in Italy, ever the storyteller he is. Somewhere in the hectic of a touring schedule, he found himself with a rare moment of downtime. The small port city of Barletta was just breaking into its morning routine of shops being set up, “old men having espresso”, and the town slowly coming to life, when Aysanabee took the opportunity to roam the cobblestone streets. Having only been to Europe a handful of times, the environment was novel to the singer, a native to snowier and more non-pedestrian friendly surroundings. He describes taking it all in and realizing how and why he got there as almost surreal:
“It was the first time in my life where I realized I’ve always been in a fight or flight mode. But this was just a moment of clarity where maybe for the first time in my life, I felt like I’m half going to a place that I want to get to. And there was such a weird comfort in that.”
Edge of the Earth came with the shedding of an old skin, a letting go and trusting yourself to keep going – and arriving.
Photo by Lindsay Duncan
Raise Your Voice
At the same time, Aysanabee was plagued with guilty conscience. From Watin and its historiographical aspect of telling his grandfather’s stories, to now touring with this new material, centering so much more on his own emotions and experiences, Aysanabee told me about his mixed feelings about the album promotion:
“It’s because of what was happening in Gaza, what was happening in the U.S. I found it really difficult to take up space and be like: ‘Look at this album about my feelings’. I felt kind of like a car salesman every time I would take up space. So, that made it really difficult to promote this album for me.”
This dilemma is all too familiar to any conscious person operating in this capitalist and imperialist world. Everything you do appears minuscule to whatever pain and misery is afflicted upon the most marginalized. We need to highlight the hypocrisy of industries all too willing to prioritize profit over human dignity. And who is more suitable to shine a light on that than the truth-tellers of a community? The singers and poets. Especially the ones keeping the tradition of story- und truth-telling alive.
“I’m definitely looking to leaving the place better than I found it. […] Music to me was always like an offering. It wasn’t that I needed someone to experience it or needed them to take something from it. I’ve never approached music in that way. But I’m curious to explore that now, whether that means making an album that is more relevant to what’s happening right now or writing an album about hope.“
Edge of the Earth is out now. Keep up to date with Aysanabee via Instagram.