By Will McGuirk

“Fuck War. Fuck genocide. Fuck rabid colonial systems breeding strange alien billionaires. Fuck people following them like drooling zombies. Fuck your violence. Fuck your short sightedness. Fuck your lies. Fuck your propaganda. Fuck killing for profit. Fuck your rewritten histories. This embodies the frustration and disgust bearing witness to the corruption and immorality of the world. Fuck pedos. Eat the rich.” - from a FB post by Tanya Tagaq

Fearless, visceral, real; Tanya Tagaq needs no one to explain her, to try and contextualize her work. The improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and bestselling author, member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, emotes, expresses but fearlessly - but why, so not to explain but maybe seeing from my side, as Irish, as a descendent of an indigenous people who had land, language, a litany of genocidal actions unleashed, perhaps from my side the fearlessness comes from an understanding that we are stories and that our story as a people is the most important thing. We are not monetary policy, we are not a business, we are a people and we rage, and roar, and we win as long as one is left, and even if all are gone the story stored becomes known and we rise and we win and yes we are angry. Its why I think Tagaq is this times Mitchell, and Cohen, and Young, and also not even them but entirely her. A new album ‘Saputjiji’ is out March 6 2026.