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Indigenous-focused concert in Boston Bar designed to lift spirits after Lytton fire

We Are Still Here being held this Sunday at Tuckkwiohum Village and available online
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Gerald Charlie and the Black Owl Blues is just one of several Indigenous groups that will play this Sunday in Boston Bar. (Hope Standard file photo)

This Sunday will be filled with music and cultural expression at Tuckkwiohum Village, near Boston Bar.

2 Rivers Remix Society (2RMX) is presenting We Are Still Here on May 22, bringing incredibly talented and diverse Indigenous artists, including the Mohawk blues musician Murray Porter and Metis Mi’kmaq rocker Helene Duguay and band, Gerald Charlie and Black Owl Blues, St’at’imc reggae rockers The Spiritual Warriors, Dakehl grassroots activist warrioress Hujune, and Secwepemc/Dakehl warrior woman duo JUST, and Secwepemc-based hip hop fusion of The Melawmen Collective.

Opening for this stacked spring line up will be the emerging, spirit-connecting Indigenous youth MC Kiva MH, prolific Secwepemc/Cree legendary MC GEO aka The Voice, and two-spirit artist Warrior Bunny.

The event runs from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. and is free to attend but requires registration. It is also being streamed online to be available to anyone.

2RMX was held on June 26, 2021, outdoors at Tlk’emtsin (Lytton) on Nlaka’pamux territory. Just four days later, Lytton was lost to a devastating fire.

Some of the staff, board members and families of the 2 Rivers Remix Society are still evacuated, almost a year later.

“Our office, festival archive, youth project exhibitions, and sound/video equipment was reduced to ashes,” a press release states. “The 2RMX Feast has pivoted to become a ‘Movable Feast’ because of this catastrophic fire that destroyed the previous festival site - along with 90 per cent of Lytton.”

It was another tragedy to affect local Indigenous people.

“2 Rivers Remix Society continues to support our affected Indigenous communities that have in the last year suffered from the COVID pandemic, catastrophic wildfires/flooding/infrastructure destruction and the confirmations of hundreds more unmarked graves at Indian Residential Schools across Turtle Island,” they state.

Their event has been an annual multi-day feast of contemporary Indigenous music and culture, focusing on women, youth, elders, survivors, and two-spirit people — creating an environment of safety, tolerance and value for all people.

“We Are Still Here is not just a mere sentiment we hear often, it is an affirmation of our continued and evolving existence as human beings with our Mother Earth,” says Artistic Director of 2RMX, Meeka Noelle Morgan. “It is remembering our ancestors, acknowledging what they had to do for us to survive, it is a reminder that we not only exist with ourselves, and the fact that WE ARE STILL HERE shows how that act in itself propels us to continue to exist in the face of incredible adversity.”

The 2RMX Movable Feast Tour 2022 will be bringing their musical magic to a variety of Indigenous communities within and neighbouring to the N’lakapamux Nation, such as the Secwepemc and St’at’imc territories. Watch for more details as they are confirmed.

To register for May 22, visit https://virtualfeast.ca/events/m22/.

READ MORE: Buffy Sainte-Marie to headline virtual B.C. Indigenous music festival


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Jessica Peters

About the Author: Jessica Peters

I began my career in 1999, covering communities across the Fraser Valley ever since.
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