To talk about Sámi music we first need to talk a little bit about the Sámi people.

   They are the indigenous people of the North of Europe, an area they call Sápmi, which extend from the Middle-North of present-day Sweden in the South, to the North Cape and the Kola peninsula in Russia in the East. Hey, here's a map !

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   In a (very) few words, Sámi people have been subjected to colonization from their neighbors of the South, with all of the usual hardships that comes along such processes. The different nation-states had different types of racist policies over the centuries, but overall : forced christianization, forced labour, displacements of populations, amongst many other things.

   In particular, Sámi cultural practices linked to their pagan beliefs got forbidden under European rule. For example, playing their goavddis - ancestral sacred drums - was prohibited, and the noaidi - shaman - that would risk themselves to play them would face severe consequences, all the way to death sentences. Many drums were confiscated, many were hidden, many were lost.

   In the same way, the act of joiking, traditional form of singing and essential to Sámi culture, was also prohibited by assimilation policies by the Nordic states.

   This whole process of colonization also affected durably the Sámis' relationships to their own languages. It is estimated that only about 40% of the Sámi population actually speaks Sámi, due to historical reasons. Still relatively recently, kids were prevented to use their languages at school, for example.

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   This relatively long but necessary introduction out of the way, let's talk about music !

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   This introduction was necessary to understand the context surrounding a lot of contemporary Sámi artists. There as been and is a huge movement of re-appropriation of their culture, their heritage & their languages, which of course is perceptible in their art.