ABOVE: Lido Pimienta and Witch Prophet. Photos courtesy Polaris Music Prize’s Facebook page.
An annual, grant-based music award from Canada celebrated the spectrum of LGBTQ diversity with its 2020 shortlist.
The Polaris Music Prize is a music nonprofit that seeks to “honor and reward artists who produce Canadian music albums of distinction,” according to the organization’s official website.
Ten artists are selected by an “independent jury of music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers from across Canada” to appear on the annual shortlist. Eleven individuals from this jury are then chosen to create a grand jury, which is responsible for choosing one of the shortlisted artists to receive the Polaris Music Prize, a $50,000 award given to an artist who is deemed as creating the Canadian Album of the Year. The remaining nine artists who were also shortlisted each receive an award of $3,000.
It is also worth noting that on this year’s shortlist, half the artists featured are self-identified members of the LGBTQ community.
Backxwash is a Black, trans rapper from Montreal whose album “God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It” landed her a spot on the Polaris shortlist.
The album is inspired by the rapper’s religious upbringing – “watching sermons on television at her grandmother’s place” – and she hopes that this music speaks to “queers who were raised in the church and had those same experiences.”
“God Has Nothing To Do With This Leave Him Out Of It” also finds Backxwash reconciling her feelings on her past with her current reality as an openly-trans woman, as explained by Erik Leijon in the Montreal publication Cult MTL.
“The last track on the album, ‘Redemption,’ samples one of those TV sermons she watched as a kid, and lyrically it gets to the heart of where Backxwash is at right now,” Leijon wrote. “She’s mostly left the church behind but has become closer to her tribe, and the album finds her battling each side in real time.”
Kaytranada is a Haitian-Canadian DJ who specializes in electronic music. He briefly opened for Madonna on her Rebel Heart World Tour in 2015 and his debut album “99.9%” nabbed him the $50,000 Polaris Music Prize in 2016. His second album “Bubba” earned him an additional nomination on this year’s shortlist.
In a 2016 interview with The Fader, Kaytranada shared how the suppression of his sexuality and the emotional pain it caused ultimately drove him to come out as gay.
“I just snapped,” he told the magazine. “Something inside me was like, ‘Wake the fuck up.’ I felt like there were two people inside me. I was trying to be somebody I was not, and I was frustrated that people didn’t know who I was.”
He also went on to discuss how the decision to come out to his mother and brother was a significant turning point in his life.
“I feel better than I ever have, you know?” he said. “I’ve been sad my whole life, but fuck that. I know I have good things ahead. I don’t know honestly if I’m fully, 100 percent happy, but I’m starting to get there.”
Pantayo is a queer, all-women band based in Toronto, who reimagine their Filipino heritage through their experimental musical compositions. The group “blends kulintang music from the Maguindanoan and T’boli peoples in the southern region of the [Philippines] with contrasting genres like R&B and punk,” according to Tom Tom Mag. Their self-titled debut album “Pantayo” garnered them recognition from the Polaris Music Prize.
One of the songs on the album, “Heto Na” took inspiration from the sense of camaraderie the women have found in LGBTQ+ spaces.
“We think about the different queer dance parties that we go to and how it is a place for community to gather and a safe space to be yourself,” Pantayo member Kat Estacio told Kristine Villanueva in an interview for Tom Tom Mag.
The band was “overwhelmed” with gratitude upon learning that their album had been shortlisted.
We are so overwhelmed with the love and support right now!! Thank you jurors, @alaskabeef @TeleExplosion and @OntarioCreates @FACTORCanada @ONArtsCouncil and numerous teachers, family and friends behind our first album offering 🌺🍄💕⚡️ https://t.co/qN2nyXt6no
— PANTAYO (@pantayo) July 15, 2020
Colombian-Canadian artist Lido Pimienta is no stranger to the Polaris Music Prize. Pimienta’s album “La Papessa” was chosen as Canadian Album of the Year and won her the $50,000 award in 2017. Her most recent album “Miss Colombia” scored her another nomination.
Pimienta has been outspoken about the exclusion she sometimes feels within the LGBTQ+ community as a queer Latinx woman. In an interview with Torontoist, she said this erasure is most visible at Pride Month events, which she views as centering whiteness in their setup.
“At the parties, white men take up way more space,” Pimienta told the web publication in a 2016 interview. “So then their voices are heard more. It’s a hierarchy so they’re at the top.”
Pimienta took to Twitter to acknowledge her nomination, which she called “un gran honor” (a great honor).
We did it! @PrinceNifty 🌸🌸🌸
Me volvieron a nominar al premio Polaris esta año, un gran honor https://t.co/jHayCeWc6W
— Lido Pimienta (@LidoPimienta) July 15, 2020
Described as “Erykah Badu meets Lauryn Hill meets Jill Scott,” Witch Prophet is a queer singer/songwriter of Ethiopian and Eritrean descent. Her album “DNA Activation” secured her a spot on the Polaris shortlist.
She also serves as the director and co-founder of 88 Days of Fortune, a Toronto collective which she used to help empower emerging LGBTQ artists.
“We created a platform for a lot of young, queer, trans, gender non-conforming and non-binary people to come and showcase their art and music, and just be free,” she shared with Red Bull in a 2018 interview.
The singer describes the experience of being shortlisted as being “very overwhelming in the best possible way.”
Thank you so much to everyone hitting me up to congratulate. It’s all very overwhelming in the best possible way 😂
— WITCH PROPHET (@WitchProphet) July 16, 2020
The 2020 Canadian Album of the Year is set to be revealed during a live broadcast special that pays tribute to and celebrates the artists and works featured on this year’s shortlist. The special will be broadcast on Oct. 19 across the CBC Gem streaming service, CBC Music’s official Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages and at CBCMusic.ca/Polaris
