Indigenous Hitmakerz in the Arctic: negotiating local needs with global ambitions within commercial music industries

ABSTRACT

Although music by Inuit peoples is systematically relegated to the margins, recent artists from Nunavut have garnered limited commercial attention. Using a case study approach with critical political economy theoretical grounding, we focus on Hitmakerz, an independent record label based in the Arctic region of Nunavut. We analyze the ways independent music producers negotiate the commercial music system, specifically the symbolic and economic tensions, to promote Indigenous languages and counterhegemonic discourse. We argue that Hitmakerz has successfully negotiated local needs while pursuing global ambitions, strategically blending Inuktitut, colonial languages, pop, electronic, and rap for subversive purposes, and critiquing colonialism in digital forms produced in local environments and exported globally. Under limited conditions, Indigenous artists can exploit the marketplace to their advantage, as demonstrated by Hitmakerz.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous
• Inuit
• Inuktitut
• political economy
• music industries
• colonialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The problem is flattening Indigenous music into a homogenous segregated genre. However, using the term Indigenous music as an overarching framework to discuss music made by Indigenous musicians, with rich and productive differences, is acceptable (Scales, 2013).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley Cordes

Ashley Cordes (Coquille) is an assistant professor at the University of Oregon. This work was done in part at the University of Utah in the Department of Communication. Her research lies at the intersection of Indigenous studies, digital media, critical/cultural studies, and place-based storytelling. Her recent work in these areas has been published in journals such as Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and Feminist Media Studies.

Christopher Chávez

Christopher Chávez is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, and Director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on global media industries and language ideology. He is the author of The Sound of Exclusion: NPR and the Latinx Public, Reinventing the Latino Television Viewer: Language Ideology and Practice and co-editor of Identity: Beyond Tradition and McWorld Neoliberalism.