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As Carol Powder holds her drum and pounds a rhythm, her grandson Noah Green stands in front of a microphone and sings with a deep, spine-chilling voice. They are performing before a boisterous audience of thousands outside the Alberta legislature in Edmonton.
This fierce celebration is one of many scenes of their music leaving impact in Chubby Cree: PiMahCiHoWin (The Journey), a new documentary about the Cree music duo based in Edmonton by Vancouver filmmaker Jules Arita Koostachin. A member of the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario, Koostachin was raised by her Cree-speaking grandparents and her mother. She focuses her work on Indigenous storytelling and has won numerous awards, including the prize for best B.C. film at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival.
In Chubby Cree, Koostachin chronicled not only Powder and Green’s music but also their life, their bond and the importance their music carries for future generations.
Chubby Cree started four years ago at that performance outside the Alberta legislature. The occasion was the October 2019 climate rally called the Strike for Climate Action. They played to thousands of people before famed climate activist Greta Thunberg, then 16, took the stage. Since then, Chubby Cree has gained national attention and performed across the country, including at the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation event in Surrey last year.
Powder and Green’s music has also gained considerable traction on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit. Their first single, “Rock Your World,” was released last year through the Vancouver label Unbelievably Spectacular.
Long before the duo’s first performance, Green, now 13, was singing for years. Powder recalls putting her eight-month-old grandson to bed and hearing him mimicking a tune she was singing.
Now Powder carries the rhythm in Chubby Cree through her drumming, and Green is the sole singer.
“What I like about singing is it’s so fun to do,” Green said in the documentary. “And when we sing, we are helping heal people. And we make them happy.”
The name Chubby Cree carries a familial significance. The project is named after Powder’s brother, Rick, who passed away in 2016.
“His nickname was Chubby Cree and he used to always come with us singing; he loved hanging out with us. He always would be saying, ‘When am I going to be singing with you guys?’” Powder told The Tyee.
Powder and Green also see their music as a way to help people. Powder has seen the way people have been moved by their music, from shedding tears to telling them how touched they were by their performance.
“One lady told us she played our music on her phone and put it on [during] her surgery. She sent her whole body to the music,” she said. “I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Chubby Cree also does the work of sharing knowledge across generations. For Powder, knowing where you come from is vital.
“I share what I was taught because it’s very important to the generations now,” Powder said. “I tell them to go seek your culture, learn your language, learn how to sing and drum.”
For her part, filmmaker Koostachin told The Tyee that she is proud to see positive Indigenous representation in film through her work on the documentary.
“We’re seeing this really strong Indigenous youth who has his customs and way of life, being taught from his grandmother. Myself being a filmmaker, I feel that also gives positive representation where we see ourselves in these really amazing, [creative] positions.”
‘Chubby Cree: PiMahCiHoWin’ is now streaming on TELUS originals. ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
Read more: Indigenous, Music, Alberta, Film
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