Kelly Fraser: “Fight for the Rights”
Summary
Often in mainstream society, activism for marginalized groups is seen as limited purely to the political sphere. Kelly Fraser’s “Fight for the Rights” presents an incredible example of how art - in this case, music - can be used to simultaneously advocate for cultural preservation and increase cultural pride and unity, as well as do so in a way that is uniquely meaningful and proximal to these communities.
Kelly Fraser once said, “My music is to heal people. I need to heal too, and making healing music heals me and it heals people around me.” That sentiment is entirely encapsulated in Fraser’s song, “Fight for the Rights,” which was first released in 2016, and was included in her 2017 album, Sedna. The name of this album connects to the Inuit goddess of the sea which, by centering Inuit tradition, culture, and language, connects to Fraser’s mission of helping her Inuit community heal from intergenerational colonial trauma.
Fraser was born in 1993 and grew up in Nunavut, Canada. Her upbringing in her native Inuit communities and culture shaped her understanding of the struggles faced by Inuit communities, especially the intergenerational trauma that has directly resulted from colonialism imposed upon Indigenous communities for centuries. One such colonial catalyst of this intergenerational trauma for many Indigenous communities, including the Inuit, was the residential school system established in the 19th century by the Canadian government and facilitated by Christian churches. To supply these schools, Indigenous youth were intentionally separated from their families and Indigenous cultures in a racist attempt to “civilize” and “christianize” them.
Fraser often recounted the ways in which she saw the scars of colonialism manifest in her circles, noting that her own mother was taken away from her family at a young age to suffer abuse in residential schools, that her father committed suicide, and that throughout her childhood she had to convince her own friends not to commit suicide. These jarring experiences, especially with suicide, impacted her deeply, as she expressed that, “the worst thing to ever feel is losing someone you could have helped.” And unfortunately, Fraser’s story of close proximity to suicide is not uncommon in Inuit communities. Studies have found that, “Inuit suicide rates are among the highest in the world,” that these high rates are especially tied to higher rates of suicide among Inuit youth, and that suicide rates among the Inuit are exponentially higher than Canadian national rates of suicide.
Witnessing this intergenerational colonial trauma and the declining mental health of Inuit youth, Fraser devoted much of her music to displaying the beauty of Inuit language and expressing messages of hope and solidarity for her community. In fact, she first came to global fame for her unique rendition of several hit songs, including Rihanna’s “Diamonds,” performing them in Inuktitut, her Inuit language. Her goal was to “use pop music as a platform to strengthen her language,” and she maintained this theme in her own original music, producing songs that contained both English and Inuktitut lyrics. One such example was “Fight for the Rights,” a song she produced in response to a proposed land referendum that debated whether Inuit municipal lands could be purchased and sold. In this song, Fraser pleads for her community to uphold Inuit tradition – which opposes ideas of land ownership – and “fight for the rights” of her people. I was not able to find a translation of the Inuktitut lyrics of this song, but it’s English lyrical section expresses her view of how capitalism and land ownership have harmed Inuit communities in the past and will continue to do so if the proposed land referendum were to pass. For example, she sings,
They make money off of our needs
Our culture is the one that bleeds
The animals won’t recover from the mines
Our land won’t become the scene of a crime
In this passage, Fraser explains that the outside capitalistic individuals and groups now seeking Inuit lands are the same entities that have historically profited off of the marginalization, isolation, and subsequent cultural destruction of Inuit communities. In this way, she presents how the land referendum is merely another way in which non-Native forces will get richer by fragmenting Inuit communities, including their wildlife. But she remains determined in her defiance of this proposal. To complement these impactful lyrics, Fraser’s voice throughout her song maintains a strong and resilient tone, which is further emphasized by the prominent use of a drum beat throughout. It’s also worth noting that the proposed land referendum at the subject of her song did not pass.
I truly enjoyed this song, and felt impacted by it as I further learned about the context in which it was developed and situated for Fraser, as well as Fraser’s own backstory. Tragically, Kelly Fraser, after a long battle with negative mental health and PTSD from racism and other discrimination, committed suicide in 2019. But through the preservation of her music, the resilience of her fight for Inuit peoples continues to live on and heal her community, and in this way, Kelly Fraser also continues to impact and educate non-Native peoples to the strength and importance of Inuit culture and community.
Sources:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nunavut-land-referendum-results-1.3574474
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Fraser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Een1HuT5VY
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4501584/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/29/kelly-fraser-inuit-singer-songwriter-dies-at-26