Growing up, Indigenous singer and classical composer Jeremy Dutcher—a Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Canada—was introduced to his people’s native language, an increasingly rare form of communication. Though he did not know Wolastoqey until later in life, he heard it spoken by one of his community elders and mentors named Maggie Paul. His mother, Lisa Perley-Dutcher, had also known the language, but she attended Indian Day School as a child, where speaking the language was forbidden. This caused her to no longer be fluent. “When my mom was growing up, it was the language of the community,” says Dutcher. “It was the everyday language that everyone spoke. Now, we have very few speakers left—there’s only around 500 speakers left.”
When Dutcher moved to Toronto and Montreal (where he is now based) to pursue music as a tenor, he quickly became focused on revitalizing the Wolastoqey language. “[My music] tells the story of somebody who has been reclaiming my language,” says Dutcher. “I didn’t grow up as a fluent speaker, but I’ve worked darn hard to make sure that it’s part of my everyday experience.”
His 2018 debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, was sung entirely in Wolastoqey and in Dutcher’s signature operatic style. The artist composed new songs based on traditional Wolastoqey ones, which were transcribed from wax-cylinder recordings from the early 20th century that were found in the archives of the Canadian Museum of History. Some of them included recordings of his ancestors from more than 100 years ago. “Our songs are stories, and they carry a lot of teachings,” says Dutcher.
Though many of Dutcher’s new listeners did not necessarily understand the lyrics or the language, Dutcher’s first album resonated anyway. It received critical acclaim, winning a Juno Award and the the 2018 Polaris Music Prize. “I wanted to orient that project towards my community and the people that were involved in revitalizing our language,” says Dutcher. “I didn’t put [English] translations in there because I wanted it to be an intercommunity conversation.”
However, for his sophomore album, Motewolonuwok (released earlier this month), Dutcher wanted to continue creating in Wolastoqey while also giving his English-speaking fans something to connect with. “For me, it had to be both [languages],” says Dutcher. “All these people came around [for the first album] that wanted to listen to our stories, so I was like, ‘How can I speak to them?’”
Motewolonuwok may be Dutcher’s first foray into writing music in English, but the singer has continued to spotlight Indigenous stories and culture. His poignant track “Ancestors Too Young” tackles the suicide epidemic amongst Indigenous youth. “That [song] came from going up north to communities in Ontario and seeing the devastation of the suicide epidemic,” says Dutcher. “Sometimes groups of young people get wiped out, like a chain reaction. I wanted to shine a light on people telling these really hard stories, but also seeing them surrounded by community, music, and healing.” Meanwhile, the song “Take My Hand” was inspired by a number that his mentor Paul performed for him. “She sang me a song in English for the first time,” says Dutcher, “and she said, ‘Go sing this for the young people. They’re forgetting how to love each other.’”
Dutcher’s performance style is as powerful as his lyrics, though. The singer—who is embarking on a Canadian tour through the end of the year—just played in New York and Paris, and he has used his stage style as another means to spotlight Indigenous resilience. “For me, it’s really important to connect with and lift up Indigenous designers,” says Dutcher. “There’s something really, really cool happening in Indigenous fashion. [Designers] are weaving together classic aesthetics and our traditional ways of constructing silhouettes.”
For Dutcher’s show at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust in September, which featured an opening set from White Mountain Apache musician Laura Ortman, he opted for a special multicolor coat made by French Anishinaabe artist Caroline Monnet. “It was completely woven out of recycled housing materials,” says Dutcher. “She wanted to tell a story about the housing crisis. In our communities, housing still continues to be an issue, and it has been since the time that my mother was young.” For Monnet, collaborating with Dutcher on the outfit presented an opportunity to spotlight a much larger issue. “The use of these materials in fashion reads as subversion,” she says. “It’s a way to address social and environmental issues through design. What a better way than having a prominent artist such as Jeremy Dutcher wear this garment and advocate for Indigenous lived realities?”
Dutcher—who is two-spirit, a traditional Indigenous term for those fluidly moving through the gender spectrum—also sees his wardrobe as an opportunity to play up his Indigenous queer identity. Having worn statement garments from labels like Lesley Hampton, Luxx, and Zoff (don’t miss the epic floral cape he wore to the Junos), the artist says that what he wears can shift perceptions of what people think an Indigenous artist can—and should—wear. “There’s a lot that a garment can say without having words on it,” says Dutcher. “I want [my style] to dance a line between the traditional and classical, and what people might expect somebody to wear when they come to a concert. And then, queer it up.”
