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Artist
Aysanabee
12+ albums
Canadiansoulpopindieindigenous
about
Aysanabee is an Oji-Cree singer-songwriter from Ontario, Canada, whose debut album Watin was released in 2022. He has won two Juno awards, both in 2024, for Alternative Album of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. A member of the Sandy Lake First Nation, he was born Evan Pang, with a non-inherited surname his mother chose in an attempt to protect him from anti-Indigenous racism: by portraying him to the community as Asian instead of Indigenous. He was raised in Kaministiquia, Ontario, outside of Thunder Bay. He reclaimed his grandfather's surname, Aysanabee, as an adult. Aysanabee worked for a mining company as a teenager, later studying journalism and working as a digital content creator for CTV News. He played in various bands as a sideline, and began actively creating his own original music as an outlet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Aysanabee submitted his music to the International Indigenous Music Summit after making enough money on a cryptocurrency trade to cover the submission fee. He was the first outside artist signed to Ishkōdé Records, a new label launched in 2021 by singer-songwriter Amanda Rheaume and ShoShona Kish of the band Digging Roots. Watin was released November 4, 2022. Named for his grandfather's first name, the album features several recordings of his grandfather, recorded in phone conversations during the pandemic, as spoken interludes. The album was preceded by the single "Nomads", which reached #1 on the CBC Music Top 20 and charted on the Ca
