Alianait is starting something new. Every couple weeks we will take a deep dive into the music industry in Nunavut – from interviews with artists, to discussions on a music style to focusing on a community – we are going on a musical exploration of the North!

Today marks the start of our spotlight series. We spoke on the phone with Shauna Seeteenak, a hip hop artist from Baker Lake whose debut album “Therapy Sessions” will drop this summer.

Shauna is a veteran of the music scene in Nunavut. Music has been the outlet for all her emotions, positive and negative from the moment she discovered rap at the age of 13. Fourteen years later, after many collaborations with other artists in Nunavut and internationally, she is releasing her debut album and has a brand-new single out as of Valentine’s Day. Music has always been her source expression, but like all passions, sometimes you need to take a step back. Shauna took a break from writing lyrics for two years before starting this new project. She wanted to focus on her education and herself, “it’s important to have multiple skills” she said during our conversation. She was also struggling with anxiety, depression and sobriety. “I didn’t feel like myself” said Shauna, “but once I started making music again the inspiration was easy because I was less stressed.”

Therapy Sessions, which is scheduled to be released in the Spring/Summer of 2021, took a year to write, record and produce, with a bit of delay in the release due to Covid-19. And the theme for the album? Simply one word, resiliency. Her album speaks to the truths and challenges she has faced over her life, and yet, she is still here living.

But how do you write a rap song? For Shauna it’s simple. Head over to beatstars.com, listen to some tracks and wait for the lyrics to come. Some of her songs are written in a day, others take more time. The occasional lyric will pop into her head suddenly, forcing her to write the words down or have them disappear forever. And, on the very rare occasion, she has even dreamed a song! That was probably the coolest fact from our conversation. Oh, and that Alianait was one of the launching points of her career! In 2009 she flew to Iqaluit from Baker Lake to perform onstage at the summer festival. That was the last year of evening performances outside in the Canadian North Big Top Tent. The evenings were so cold that local fur designer Rannva Design provided artists on stage coats, mitts and hats for each show.

After a brief trip down memory lane, we spent the last minutes of our conversation discussing future projects and current Spotify playlist artists, funnily enough they shared an artist in common. Jessie Reyez, Polaris prize winner, recently collaborated with Eminem on her latest album. Their collaboration was incredible, the perfect combination of toxic love according to Shauna. Eminem, if you’re reading this, Shauna Seeteenak is ready anytime for a collab! Also on her playlist today, Cryptic Wisdom, an alternative hip hop artist from Arizona. If you haven’t heard of his music, that’s because Shauna spends her time listening to lots of underground music. To all the aspiring musicians out there she shared this tip, “Keep practicing, you’ll get better, it takes a while. Collaborate with other artists. Talk to the music industry, Hitmakerz, Aakuluk, they are there to help you, and they help a lot. And sign up for Alianait!”

Yes! Thank you, Shauna for that shout out!

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