 |
She is the first Inuk recording artist signed to a major label (Inuk is singular, Inuuk is two, Inuit is plural; North Americans used to call them Eskimos), but had no knowledge of "hit singles" or "target markets" when she got into the game more than five years ago.
Growing up in the village of Arviat, N.W.T. (now Nunavut), and leaving to work for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in Ottawa, the idea of becoming a recording "star" was alien to her. With the release of her new album, Unsung Heroes, it still is.
"I think most artists would tell you, if we could have the nights unending on stage without the fame and the glory, we would," she says in a recent interview. "I love being on stage. I love performing. It's the most amazing feeling ...unfortunately, there's everything that comes with it."
Whether she wanted it or not, Aglukark's star rose as her EMI debut album This Child sold more than 300,000 copies in Canada. She recalls how she had to practically be dragged kicking and screaming into the Juno Awards ceremony in 1995. She won two that year.
"If I could return those, I would," she says.
Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like Stompin' Tom Connors getting in one of his snits and turning in all his Junos. In Aglukark's case, "it was only because I was so new. I haven't earned them yet. I begged my manager, right up until the very last minute, 'I'd like to go home, I don't belong here right now.' "
Nearly four years and one son ("he's three going on 30") later, she's still not sure. She admits she's "very, very, very uncomfortable" on stage and, while there's nothing wrong with her vocals on record, she's taken singing lessons to bolster her confidence.
As with This Child, Unsung Heroes bucks the trend of female artists who sing confessional songs about themselves. These songs are not about Aglukark - they're about her people. Never Be the Same refers to victims of tuberculosis taken to urban hospitals to die far away from home. E-186 is about a 1930s government policy that gave numbered dog tags to the Inuit. Turn of the Century is a celebration of the new territory of Nunavut.
The title of the album was inspired by her mother, part of the last generation of Inuit to live in the old ways. Aglukark tells a tale of how the government helicoptered her mom five kilometres to a week-long boarding school. Her mother's response was to turn around and walk back home, never to return. Over a flat, vast expanse of frozen tundra, this 12-year-old girl knew exactly where to go.
There's not a single love song on Unsung Heroes, at least not a love song in the classic, gushy sense of the term.
"I'm not that kind of writer," Aglukark says. "I don't love any less. I just haven't found the right words to say it yet."
Writing about her people is something that comes naturally for her, she says. Besides, the stories need to be told before they're forgotten. And although Aglukark says she struggled with the self-imposed burden of being a role-model, nearly quitting completely after a 21/2-year tour of Canada, the artist in her won out.
"I was ready to throw it all in and just stop completely," she says. "I was very tired, emotionally and psychologically more than physically. I took some time to think about everything that had happened and be very sure that I did want to go on with my career
" Two or three weeks later I realized that I loved it. When it gets into your blood, it gets into your blood. And I did enjoy it. And the next thing I went through was sort of an exorcising of demons. I realized through The Child that I had done so much out of a sense of responsibility. I wanted to become the artist, not the role model, not the spokesperson."
As for Susan Aglukark the artist, she claims she knew O Siem (a term for greeting honoured guests) was going to be a hit before she even knew what a "hit" was.
"O Siem was the most telling experience I had of trusting my instincts and letting things happen. When I start to analyse too much, I go back to that one."