Latest / Community Champion of the Week / Sarah Good Medicine, Indigenous hip-hop emcee, deejay and community organizer

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Sarah Good Medicine, Indigenous hip-hop emcee, deejay and community organizer · Community Champion of the Week

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Windspeaker Radio Network, Community Champion of the Week.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: What's good relatives?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Sarah Good Medicine.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I usually her pronouns.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Both my parents are mixed European and Metis.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been in Treaty 7 here for about 15, 16 years.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is amazing.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are so excited to speak with you today.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you are a part of many, many different groups.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have started groups.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: First, let's talk about the youth group.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I run a Two Spirit Youth Group.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: We broadly define the term youth because people are at different places in their life and they also age out of programs quite often.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so our age range is 12 to 29.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have check-ins every day.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We do a smudge.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: We have dinner together.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have some sort of activity.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: That activity could be we've had drag makeup before, we've had outings to the park.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: We've gone and played laser tag.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've had elders come in and give us teachings.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm the auntie for the group.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: They call me Auntie Sarah.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: I run it with Two Spirit Uncle Rivers.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are so lucky to have you in our communities.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You are also working on another group as well.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a bit more about this.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a parental group, is that correct?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I realized probably a year or two ago there's only one other group in the city who does parent supports.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So parents, guardians, grandparents, aunties, uncles, a uncles who are raising two spirit, trans, non-binary youth.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm listening to my youth talk about their experiences with their parents.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: It made me realize they need support too.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: They need a place where they can go and talk about the things that they were told when they were young and work through those things.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we've sort of started that group.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's in partnership with Children's Cottage Society.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Currently, it runs once a month.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have dinner, we have different topics, and we're looking to get the program off the ground.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've been running for about three or four months now.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: But we're looking at making it closed cohort, like maybe like, I don't know, a few month-long course.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so people would be part of that cohort.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So we're just trying to figure out the exact model.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: But right now, people can come and join.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're interested in that, you can shoot me a message on my Instagram at Sarah GoodMedicine.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So your music, you use it as medicine and as a chance to share stories and to share your story.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a bit about your music and what got you into it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started writing, I was little, I used to write letters for people for Christmas.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: They would sort of turn into these poems and stuff.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've always sort of written poems throughout my life.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: In my 20s, I was culturally introduced to hip hop.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I met some hip-hop MCs that sort of started me on my rapping journey.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I do think my art is and my music is medicine.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that can range from medicine like Buckley's, where it tastes awful and it works.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it can be medicine like the sweet smell of sweetgrass.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I host a lot of community events.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And my understanding, guidance, and teaching about hip hop is that MCing is a cultural element.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just something you do.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really try and bring that good energy to community events that I host.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of people actually know me more for DJing than they do rapping or for writing my my own songs.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: But when I'm DJing, I feel like I'm channeling the energy of the universe.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you're it's really a service to be DJing for a group of people and to help them to just experience whatever that event is in a good way.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's how I see DJing is it's an act of service.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: This has been the Windspeaker Radio Network Community Champion of the Week.