On music, popularity and preserving language: Jeremy Dutcher chats with aspiring Mi'kmaq singer

With Polaris Prize winner Jeremy Dutcher in St. John's for the Spirit Song Festival, there was perhaps nobody more qualified to sit across from him for an interview than Kassidy Lush.

CBC News recruited the teenaged singer to sit in as a correspondent for the day and interview one of her heroes.

Lush, a member of the prestigious Shallaway Youth Choir, has been singing songs in her ancestral Mi'kmaq language since she was a little girl.

Dutcher is coming off a year that saw him win a Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year.

"You're such a big inspiration to me because of how you don't only sing in your language, but you also sing classically and chorally. One day I'd like to be as well known and as good as you at what you do."

Check out some of the interview here:

The two spoke about the importance of passing culture down through music. Dutcher is from the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick. He's part of a declining population to speak the Wolastoq mother tongue.

"In my Wolastoqiyik language, there's less than 100 fluent speakers left," he told Lush. "So it's really critical right now, in this moment, that you know, we are keeping that language strong. Because it's our world view. It's who we are as people."

At the end of their interview, they sang some of the Mi'kmaq Honour Song together. The song was written by George Paul of the Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick, after a four-day sweat lodge session in the 1980s and has become a staple of the Mi'kmaq culture.

As Dutcher explained, its popularity transcended boundaries into the Wolastoq community and was also sung in their language.

Dutcher performed Friday night at the Arts and Culture Centre in St. John's. He has a show Saturday night at the ACC in Corner Brook, and at the Lawrence O'Brien Arts Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bay on Monday night.

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