Mattmac makes room for another music prize

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This article was published 25/08/2023 (744 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The accolades keep pouring in for Mattmac.

The latest honours for the Oji-Cree rapper and producer from Garden Hill First Nation is the CBC Music’s Searchlight contest’s grand prize for his song Rez (Remix).

“I didn’t think all of this stuff would happen this fast, but at the same time, this is cool, I’m super down for this,” Mattmac says. “It makes everything you do worthwhile.”

Mattmac’s career has surged remarkably since he released his debut album, 20/20, in 2020.

He won the rap/electronica album of the year at the Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Award and the Canadian Radio Awards gave him its emerging artist award in 2021.

He scooped up the emerging musician award from Canada’s Walk of Fame a year later and the hip-hop album of the year from the International Indigenous Hip-Hop Awards earlier in 2023.

Mattmac, 23, who is Matthew Monias away from the microphone and is now based in Winnipeg, received nearly instant encouragement early on in his recording career when his track Paradise made it into the top 100 of the Searchlight contest in 2020.

While the trap beats and R&B influences give Rez (remix) a cool, contemporary sound, Mattmac’s raps about the difficulties of living on First Nations land echo the experiences generations of other Indigenous people have felt.

“I need some guidance believe me. Life on the rez it ain’t easy,” Mattmac raps during the track, which features Indigenous artists Dakota Bear and Okema. “I lost my cousins, my uncle, my brother, rest easy.”

He says the song’s message came to him with little effort. He had some parts prepared when he recorded the track for his 2022 album, Blurred Visions, but part of his raps were spontaneous.

“It does speak to Indigenous life in a way, in a really deep place,” says Mattmac. “I’m Indigenous and I make songs that pertain to me growing up on a reserve or reservation problems but I make music for everybody, not just one group of people.

“That’s not all of the story. There’s a whole bunch of layers of Mattmac that people have yet to uncover.”

Mattmac got some inspiration for Rez (Remix) from Ghetto, a 2004 track by American rapper Akon, which Mattmac heard on a CD of songs his older sister April burned and gave to him for a listen when he was a kid looking for something new to hear.

“It stuck with me for a while and then I thought, ‘I’ll make my own version of it,’” he says.

Encore, the Winnipeg pop-rock duo of Donald and Richard Plant, won the Searchlight’s songwriting prize. The Ontario duo Rosewood Ave won the outstanding country artist award and Calgary garage rockers Miesha and the Spanks won the outstanding Indigenous artist award.

The Searchlight grand prize includes a spot in the Allan Slaight Juno Master Class artist development program in October, a video and promotional package, a $1,000 gift certificate from Long & McQuade and a recording residency at the National Music Centre in Calgary.

Getting studio time hasn’t been a problem for Mattmac, who does his own recording and producing at home, but he’s curious to see what the Calgary experience will be like.

“This is more like going to a fancy studio because the majority of my work is done in my apartment, in my bedroom, sometimes a hotel,” he says. “I always think there’s room for a studio and I think winning this award will present that.”

He’s done most of the work for new songs, a new album and videos that are scheduled to come out in the fall.

Mattmac has been blind since birth, but he recognizes creating music videos for fans to watch is part of the music-making machinery, even if he is unable to enjoy them the same way as sighted people.

“I know people have a lot of questions. ‘How do you experience this as a blind person?’” he says. “That’s kind of like why I’m here. Like I said, there are many layers yet to be uncovered.”

A trip to the Juno Awards in 2024 is also part of the winning prize, and but there’s a chance, if his career arc continues to progress, that he won’t be just a spectator.

“I know there might be a couple of performance opportunities there, but (a Juno nomination) would be cool,” he says.

“Who knows? We’re just getting started.”

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall