BARRIE – MUSIC – Digging Roots has an answer to the gun violence plaguing the world today: more love, more truth, more music.
“I think we can use the word ‘epidemic’ when it comes to gun violence in society today,” says Singer Shoshona Kish of Digging Roots whose powerful and inspirational new video AK-47 calls for an end to violence and oppression through love and understanding.
The new video is available on YouTube and already creating an instant buzz with its melodic psych-blues soul sound and empowering messages of ending the violence paradigm through peace and courage… and good music.
“This song is very personal and emotional for us. Especially in the wake of the horrific events in Orlando this last week,” says Raven Kanatakta, guitar virtuoso and the second half of Digging Roots.
Digging Roots is a post-psychedelic-blues group, consisting of husband and wife duo Raven Kanatakta and ShoShona Kish, whose music blends influences of folk-rock, reggae, blues and hip hop. They won the JUNO Award for Aboriginal Album of the Year in 2010 for their album WE ARE.
Formed in 2004, the duo released their first album seeds in 2006. The album was a nominee for the Aboriginal Album of the Year at the JUNO Awards of 2007. They followed with WE ARE in 2009, which featured collaborations with Tanya Tagaq, DJ Bear Witness of A Tribe Called Red and Kinnie Starr, who also co-produced the album. Their third album For the Light also JUNO nominated was released in 2014.
The video for AK-47 was produced by media artist and musician, Doug Bedard, (Plex) whose vision of the song runs the gamut from technicolor dreamscapes and bursting flowers to benevolent warriors adrift in a landscape of grenades and soldiers. The clip also features Sarain Carson-Fox, who just this week burst onto the Canadian media scene as the host of VICEland’s controversial documentary ‘Cut Off’ following Justin Trudeau’s recent visit to Shoal Lake 40.
As with any epidemic or public health crisis, the appropriate next step is to design an intervention to stop the spread of the disease. With this new song, it’s a metaphoric call to arms by Digging Roots, that intervention has begun and they want everyone to join them in a violence-free world, chanting the AK-47 anthem of “Nizoogide’e, Nizoogide’e.”
“There’s an Anishinabek word in the chant at the end of the song that distills it all for me,” says ShoShona, “Nizoogide’e. It means ‘My heart is a stronghold.’ AK-47 is about opening fire on hate, oppression and violence, both lateral and physical. Not with bullets and guns but with the full force of love. Cynics might say that we’re naive but to me its the only rational way forward. This song is a proposition that its time to stop oppression and the violence against one another, against ourselves and against the land.”
The song will be available for download on iTunes on July 1.
or tour dates and booking information, please visit: www.DiggingRootsMusic.com
Upcoming Digging Roots Canadian tour dates:
– June 28, 2016, Ottawa Jazz Festival, Ottawa, ON
– July 1, 2016 Pride Toronto, Canada Day, Toronto ON
– July 8, Cultura Festival, Toronto, ON
– July 9-10 2016, Northern Lights Festival Boréal, Sudbury, ON
– July 16, 2016, Wild Mountain Music Festival, Hinton, AB
– July 23, 2016, Great Northern Arts Festival, Inuvik, NT
– August 4, 2016, Montreal First Peoples Festival, Montréal, QC
– August 5-7, 2016, Edmonton Folk Festival, Edmonton, AB
– August 10, 2016, TBA, Winnipeg, MB
– August 19-21, 2016, Salmon Arm Roots & Blues Festival, Salmon Arm, BC
