By Will McGuirk

We’ve taken a look at some of the global artists who are playing Hillside 2025 but the Guelph Island based festival is also known for providing many opportunities for artists closer to home. And for this local spotlight we are going to look at some of the Indigenous artists who are performing this year.

Hillside takes place on Guelph Island Conservation Area July 18 through to 20, 2025. There are a variety of ticket sales available including senior (65+), youth (13-24) and kids under 12 are free. Tickets here ->

Ojibway and Blackfoot DJ, producer, and performer, Classic Roots, has been asked to curate this year’s festival and is bringing the full gamut of Indigenous styles and genres to the Island.

Celeigh Cardinal has the pop chops of great soul artists, deep emotional voice from the bottom end to the bust out of Patti and Aretha and Tina and Whitney, and yet blues too, along the lines of Christine McVie. Mark Celeigh on your schedule.

Drezus is an Anishinaabe/Nehiyaw hip-hop artist, and some may know him from the TV series Yellowstone. Rap references I’d put him on the cool swing of Coolio and the Snoop, but the latest collab with Seb Gaskin ‘Ballad of Bobby Jones’ brings to mind K-Os.

Sebastian Gaskin is playing Hillside too so I’d guess there will be a time to collab live on that track. Gaskin is a Tataskweyak Cree Nation multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter and producer and if you had too I’d say he has the natural soul of City & Colour - he is one that calls you in to his voice, into his space, in the manner Aysanbee and Jeremy Dutcher do.

Heed the call, follow these artists into their world of music.