By Jim Barber
If music is drugs, because it most assuredly is, then those that apply this drugs are certainly healers. They might not mend damaged bones, however they will soothe damaged hearts. They will’t enhance your circulation, however they will improve the circulation of positivity, empathy, ardour and perseverance in your spirit. They will’t carry out open coronary heart surgical procedure, however they’re specialists at open soul surgical procedure.
That music has the facility to heal is not a discredited and dismissed idea. It’s empirical, evidence-based fact.
For roots/conventional singer-songwriter Mimi O’Bonsawin, as somebody with a deep and abiding respect for her Indigenous heritage and its customs, therapeutic practices and the integral manner dance and music permeate many Indigenous nations, creating music, performing music and absorbing music as an viewers is a profoundly highly effective drugs certainly.
“I don’t assume it’s normal Indigenous instructing, however I’ve spoken to some elders who shared with me the significance of music. I believe it’s common. I don’t really feel music belongs to anyone, however it additionally belongs to everyone. It’s not one thing you’ll be able to actually contact and decide up – you’ll be able to decide up the medium it’s recorded onto like a CD – however music constituted of a human in entrance of one other human, you’ll be able to’t seize it, however you’ll be able to study from it, you’ll be able to take in it, you’ll be able to carry it in your coronary heart, however it’s not a ‘factor.’ And I don’t actually know different issues which might be that highly effective on this world. I believe that is sensible why folks use it in worship, in therapeutic, in ceremony, in meditation, in remedy. There’s so some ways it helps folks,” she mentioned.
“My grandfather was the singer in our household and I believe I get my love for singing from him. He had Alzheimer’s and later in his life all he actually had left was this pleasure for music and performing. He was a really reserved dude however in a while he would simply mild up with music and his outdated songs, and Elvis. Music would deliver him again to himself. So, I imagine 100 per cent that music is drugs, music is therapeutic. We frequently speak as of late about synthetic music, synthetic intelligence taking music away from folks like us who make it. I don’t assume you may ever take away the facility of an individual making music in entrance of one other particular person. To me, that’s all the things.
“Even simply occupied with it, I put that into not simply music in life. I consider meals as drugs. I consider group as drugs. There are such a lot of issues which might be interconnected for me. The thought of music as drugs, the sharing of music – when folks sing collectively, when folks come collectively, when folks dance collectively we’re all actually therapeutic one thing inside us, or on the land, or out within the universe. There’s such a robust vitality created from that have that’s undeniably therapeutic.”
A toddler of each Abenaki and French-Canadian cultures, O’Bonsawin spent her childhood enmeshed in these communities in northern Ontario, consuming in a deep, reverent connection for the land and all its inhabitants – natural world alive. It’s the elementary to the best way she goes about her life and her artistry.
Together with her background and life experiences. she understands at a stage that almost all of us can not, that nature isn’t a grocery retailer of assets to be exploited, however a fancy, interdependent system of life and vitality of which people are solely a small half. And this complexity and bounty is one thing for which she says she is going to all the time be grateful. The land is her instructor, her supplier and her inspiration.
“There’s quite a lot of gratitude in my music and in my life. In my private life, creating a extremely robust reference to the land is one thing that I can’t ignore. It’s simply all the time been in me; it’s been in my household. It’s been handed down for generations that this stuff are actually necessary in our universe, in my universe. Being grateful for that journey, being grateful for that connection and that studying and relearning – there’s quite a bit to have gratitude for, and quite a lot of area for extra progress. There’s all the time area for studying extra and all the time strengthening that relationship with the land and the world round us.”
O’Bonsawin’s music is mirrored within the very sounds she makes on her devices (together with her exceptionally emotive harp enjoying) and the language she composes to accompany that music. The metaphor of a backyard isn’t merely a intelligent literary system or affectation. It’s a foundational touchstone for her songwriting.
Her songs are infused with shops and imagery of gardens, of planting, nurturing, of seeds, of pruning, the altering seasons, life, dying, rebirth, adaptation, survival and the important co-operative co-existence that’s core to the best way nature endures and thrives.
“[The Songwriting impulse] typically simply comes from experiencing one thing, and it’s typically out on the land. This drugs of songwriting, this therapeutic of songwriting it simply occurs and you then see your self mirrored in that and also you’re like, ‘okay, that’s the lesson I wanted to study.’ I believe that solely occurred as soon as I began really not forcing issues, and actually telling my tales from an genuine expertise. It’s actual issues that I’m dwelling that I’m speaking about and I would like my songs to replicate that,” O’Bonsawin mentioned.
“I made a decision at one level that I’m going to inform my tales, so then I by no means have to fret about if I’m proper or fallacious. If I’m speaking about issues that I’m dwelling and that I’m seeing and that I’m experiencing and touching, then I’m sharing one thing that’s actual and true. I believe these issues we’re speaking about, nature, rising, planting, being grateful for the earth and all the things it offers are simply the issues which might be necessary to me and that’s the lens I see the world via. I’m simply so fortunate that it really comes via within the songs.”
And it’s a listing of songs that has expanded by leaps and bounds even over simply the previous half decade. Elle Danse (EP) got here out in 2020, adopted by the instrumental album Fiddleheads & Ferns in 2022. Spring 2023 noticed the issuance of the masterful 14-song album, Willow, adopted six months later by O’Bonsawin’s first ever French-language album, Boreale. Mimi O’Bonsawin: Stay in Live performance got here out digitally in 2024, and a brand new studio album is predicted in 2026.
Her’s is a symbiotic, co-operative relationship with nature. It’s shut, intimate, virtually conversational. And it’s mirrored in her relationship along with her life accomplice/husband and musical accompanist, the sensible and progressive drummer/percussionist, Ryan Schurman. The 2 have been collectively for nearly a decade, and enjoying as a duo for six of these years.
“I had been placing out information and touring earlier than I met Ryan. I had another wonderful musicians in my band on the time and it wasn’t like I mentioned goodbye and forgot them. They’re my brothers and I nonetheless communicate; they’re nonetheless my good mates. So, there was a little bit of a transition from that to what Ryan and I do now. When the pandemic occurred we’d been touring as a DIY duo form of factor and at the moment we determined to make it extra right into a present, so it was a really pure development,” she mentioned, including that there’s a distinctive dynamic as a result of the couple actually are collaborators, however it’s nonetheless O’Bonsawin’s title on the marquee and on the quilt of the album.
“It’s all the time been a bizarre feeling for me as a result of I don’t need to be the centre of consideration or something like that. And I additionally know that I wouldn’t be capable of do what I do, the best way I do it, with out Ryan. Everybody who involves our present or who is aware of us can see that Ryan has such an enormous half to play in my songs. However I nonetheless write quite a lot of songs all on my own in my little room in our cabin. Later I current them to Ryan after which we work on them collectively after I’ve written them, and he places his little twists and activates them. By this entire factor, there’s ranges the place it all the time begins with me on my own after which Ryan is available in, he provides his stuff after which it goes out into the larger world.
“Onstage, he is sort of a safety blanket for me, as a result of prior to now I did tour a bit bit as a solo performer and I used to be a small, younger feminine artist on the street on my own, I simply don’t assume that I’d need to do this once more. So, we constructed this little unit collectively the place it was like in every single place we go we deliver that house, we deliver that what I name ‘gnome vitality.’ It’s my secure area; it’s my consolation zone. And it doesn’t matter what’s happening, whether or not it’s a pageant or home live performance, or no matter, I do know that me and Ryan are tight. And I actually, actually respect that. For me I believe that’s what’s helped me discover my confidence, discover my voice, discover my energy in my enjoying and my writing, as a result of I’ve that security internet there.”
For Schurman’s half, the previous few years have seen him evolve as a musician as he and O’Bonsawin navigate their manner via the music trade. With progressive rock chops, and a deft, however hard-hitting fashion, as a percussionist his method has develop into extra refined and various to match the moods of O’Bonsawin’s songs.
“Not each present is an enormous, open, out of doors pageant. So, we really needed to recalibrate and Ryan needed to work actually exhausting. And he did work actually exhausting, and he completely nailed it by way of being extra percussive, particularly in performing arts centres and smaller venues and never leaning into the drums like in exhausting rock. He’s realized to adapt to the areas we’re enjoying in and adopting a extra storytelling method, and utilizing various things like shakers. I believe for him; the consolation zone was huge drums and it was superior and we each went there. However then we realized there’s really energy in enjoying much less busy or much less loud in some moments, after which letting it go in different moments. That’s been an entire completely different lens to see the music via and I believe it’s actually, actually helped us. We encourage each other to discover extra and despite the fact that it was exhausting for him at first, as a result of it’s such an enormous change, it shortly grew to become a little bit of a superpower to the purpose the place he really prefers to play much less in sure locations as a result of that’s what serves the tune.”
After excursions, the couple retreat again to their beautiful little cabin within the woods; their little Hobbit gap in northeastern Ontario, and revert to their deep sense of interdependence and connection to the land. Having initially moved right down to Toronto to embark on her music profession, now this shared homestead offers not solely emotional sustenance and a spot to unwind, to decelerate and revel within the quiet and solitude, but additionally literal sustenance for O’Bonsawin as she maintains gardens, cans preserves and lives off the sweat of her forehead and her data of planting, rising and nurturing. There are these phrases once more!
“I grew up within the bush in northern Ontario. For my entire childhood we all the time lived exterior of city, so I spent quite a lot of time within the forest on my own and it was like that every one my life, apart from this blip between ages 18 and 26 the place I moved to Toronto. I used to be looking for myself, and that’s a extremely exhausting time in most individuals’s lives. I all the time wished to have this life that was self-sufficient. I all the time dreamt of dwelling my tradition [she is a member of the Odanak First Nation] and talking my language and feeding myself via music. But it surely was all the time this dream that appeared actually distant,” she mentioned of her time in Toronto which, as with every huge life selection, had its good factors and it’s not-so-good factors.
“I believe I surrounded myself with individuals who weren’t serving these goals. I had folks round me telling me what to put on, what to do, the right way to play, the right way to write. I had some actually exhausting issues to take care of. I used to be advised stuff the place I believed, ‘that is form of bizarre.’ And looking out again you recognize it was not proper. However within the second, I simply wished to do music so dangerous that I used to be keen to compromise myself a bit bit. Whenever you’re younger, you have a tendency to do this extra. However now I’m 32, so, no, that’s not occurring once more. However, as an artist, you’re actually inventive when the chaos is throughout you, so I wrote some actually good songs that imply quite a bit to me to this present day throughout that point interval. Anyone in my household, or anybody who is aware of me would say that I positively blossomed as soon as I met Ryan and he grew to become a part of my life. I believe that was an enormous tipping level for me. As an artist, and as an individual who’s really feeding themselves via music, I believe that was an enormous second for me.
“I moved to Toronto proper after highschool to maintain engaged on music. And I met quite a lot of actually wonderful folks. Popping out of highschool, not going to music faculty or something like that, I simply dove proper into touring and enjoying reveals and surrounding myself with wonderful session musicians. That, for me, was my training. I consider that report I did [her self-titled debut, released in 2014 when she was 21] was very a lot about studying and absorbing as a lot as I might concerning the trade and the prices of being an artist. And I additionally made mates with so many wonderful feminine artists, who’re actually my sisters. I really feel particularly as girls, it’s necessary for us to have that circle the place we will speak to 1 one other. It’s nice to have that community and that outlet, particularly in music. There’s a lot to study from them from the artist facet but additionally on the trade facet.”
With an adventurous spirit that has seen her and Ryan tour as far afield as France and Australia, in addition to all through Canada, has opened O’Bonsawin’s thoughts and spirit to different lives lived, different cultures, different music. It’s additionally introduced her into contact with different creators, a few of whom have been deeply inspiring. It has led her to hunt out extra musical collaboration in her profession, with the primary such intertwining of kinds coming within the type of an progressive remix of her tune ‘Elle Danse’ by the groundbreaking and sensible Boogat, identified for his seamless mixing of conventional Latin American music kinds with trendy hip hop..
“I approached him as a result of I used to be all the time an excellent fan of his music. I noticed him play at a pageant in Sherbrooke after which we lastly met after and we’d speak backwards and forwards. After I noticed him once more eventually 12 months’s Summerfolk in Owen Sound [Ontario]. I requested him, ‘I don’t know if that is your factor, however do you need to perhaps reimagine this tune?’ And he was completely into it. So, I initiated it and I’m not all the time the primary particular person to ask for issues that I would like, however I used to be feeling courageous and he was recreation for it, and now we’re good buddies,” she mentioned.
“Once we play that tune reside, there’s fairly a bit extra drums in there and it turns into like a dancing second in our present. From the studio model, which we recorded fairly a number of years in the past to now the place it’s develop into this participating second within the reside present, it’s picked up a bit extra vitality. And what I like about music is that on this case it’s kind of folks meets electro with that upbeat vitality, that danceable vitality. I believe I believed that was a pocket or groove that he [Boogat] would be capable of work with. I wished it to have the vitality that the tune has now in our reveals, after which his fashion on high of it.
“We first despatched him a reside model of us enjoying the tune to a metronome after which we form of constructed the entire monitor round that efficiency. We supplied the form of the tune, the skeleton of it and mentioned to him, ‘do your factor,’ and he despatched one thing again to us. It took some time, as a result of I used to be on tour and was actually busy, however then after I lastly heard it I keep in mind considering, ‘oh my God, he nailed it.’ I liked it. After which I went again and redid the vocals and changed a number of little issues. However for probably the most half, he did all of it, and it was so thrilling to get it again and see, ‘wow, that is the way you re-imagine a tune.’ “
The end result speaks for itself as ‘Elle Danse’ now provides a component of stylish modernity, worldwide aptitude and honest-to-goodness infectiousness to what was already a beautiful piece of music. The constructive consequence has O’Bonsawin considering that maybe extra collaborations, extra re-imaginings and even partnering on music from scratch with different distinctive artists could be within the offing.
“We spent final winter, once we got here again from Australia, recording the brand new album. I’ve all these songs fleshed out and I’m excited to get them out into the world. After which we positively have a few concepts of issues that could possibly be re-imagined or revisited sooner or later. And I’m open to it. That is pageant season proper now, so we’re going to make mates. We’re going to satisfy another music making friends and see if perhaps a tune resonates with somebody and so they need to reimagine it and even collab on one thing unique,” O’Bonsawin mentioned, including that the brand new report is predicted to be launched on the finish of 2026, with singles beginning to trickle out beginning this fall.
“And for this new report, for the primary time, we invited folks to form of be on it as particular options. We’ve got some very particular folks, particular friends on this report. However I’m positively open to attempting one thing new. Generally folks come as much as me and say, ‘are you aware this artist? It is best to collaborate with them.’ I don’t have a selected plan in thoughts, however I’m open to it.”
The listing of accolades and awards O’Bonsawin has earned over the previous decade or so is spectacular and properly deserved and, frankly, too prolonged to say (take a look at her web site!!) They’re recognition from friends, from followers, from critics, from the trade, from cultural establishments and from communities. They’re proof of the reality of how music can affect hearts and minds, transfer spirits and souls, and make a special for the higher on this world.
“For me, it’s about being accepted right into a group of those who I actually look as much as. For instance, the Trille Or Awards is for francophone artists dwelling exterior of Quebec [Mimi was named Solo Artist of the Year for 2025], the primary time I obtained nominated for that award I used to be like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m a part of this group now. I’m a part of the scene. I’m a part of this wonderful group if artists making cool music.’ And the identical factor with the Indigenous Music Awards. My first nomination for them was in 2017 and I felt the identical. I’m a part of this group too and perhaps I belong right here now. It’s not one thing to only placed on a shelf, for me it’s a welcome. It’s folks saying, ‘you’re certainly one of us,’” she mentioned.
“It’s encouraging. It makes me need to proceed to do the work. However for me the true feeling comes from successful over folks, of constructing an viewers. I used to be in Kingston just lately enjoying on the Skeleton Park Arts Competition. We had performed in Kingston a bunch of occasions again within the day. And I’m fairly positive one of many first occasions I performed to 2 or three folks. I made fifty bucks and drove again to Toronto. Now, we’re enjoying this nice pageant after which there was a road present after the pageant in downtown Kingston and there was 150 or so who confirmed up for that, and this was after the pageant was over. They had been all singing, dancing and cheering.
“And for me, it was a little bit of an emotional expertise as a result of I believed, all that point spent enjoying reveals with two or three folks, after which really being invited again to play, and now we have all these folks popping out eager to share this expertise with us. To me, meaning greater than something. So, awards are wonderful, and I believe it’s actually necessary to acknowledge folks for the work they do. However I’m a musician who likes to play, so having folks come out to your present is the most effective. That’s the continuing award for me.”
On the horizon, O’Bonsawin goals of enjoying even additional afield that she already has, excited to embrace the chance to satisfy new folks and expertise new cultures and methods of dwelling and creating music.
“I’d like to play music in, like Norway or one thing. I’d additionally actually like to go play music at some cool festivals in like, Senegal or any African nation the place folks actually like to bop and really feel good. We’ve completed a few small reveals down in Mexico, so enjoying in South America, or Mexico once more or Central America can be simply superior,” she mentioned.
For extra data, go to Mimi O’Bonsawin on her social media accounts, or
Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and writer primarily based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for greater than 30 years. Apart from his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and advertising and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his group. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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