Aysanabee
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Aysanabee is an Oji-Cree singer-songwriter from Canada, a member of the Sucker Clan of the Sandy Lake First Nation, a remote fly-in community in Northwestern Ontario. Born Evan Pang with a non-inherited surname his mother chose in an attempt to protect him from anti-indigenous racism, he reclaimed his grandfather's surname Aysanabee as an adult. He grew up in Kaministiquia, Ontario, outside Thunder Bay, living off the grid without electricity. A self-taught musician, he worked for a mining company as a teenager and later studied journalism, working as a digital content creator for CTV News. After a near-death experience when he fell through frozen ice while working in the mining industry, he had an epiphany that changed his life's direction. He began actively creating original music as an outlet during the COVID-19 pandemic. After making money on a cryptocurrency trade, he submitted his music to the International Indigenous Music Summit and became the first outside artist signed to Ishkōdé Records, launched in 2021 by Amanda Rheaume and ShoShonna Kish. His debut album "Watin," named for his grandfather and released November 4, 2022, features recordings of his grandfather as spoken interludes. The single "Nomads" reached #1 on the CBC Music Top 20 and the Alternative Rock chart in March 2023, making him the first Indigenous Canadian artist ever to top that chart. He was a JUNO Award nominee for Contemporary Indigenous Artist of the Year in 2023 and made history in 2024 as the first Indigenous Artist to win JUNO Awards for Alternative Album of the Year and Songwriter of the Year for "Here and Now." JUNO-nominated Aysanabee's music merges indie, soul, and electronic sounds with mournful saxophone and pulse-quickening fingerpicking.