Juno-winning Indigenous artist steps into his own spotlight at Victoria show

For Aysanabee, working hard is a fact of life – whether it was in his early days doing manual labour, or later creating digital content for news outlets, or spending years shaping his music into something entirely his own. That drive has paid off. At the 2024 Juno Awards, Aysanabee became the first Indigenous musician to win both Songwriter of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year, breaking barriers with his Here and Now EP. “It threw me for a loop,” he admits. “Winning Songwriter of the Year really messed up my writing for a while – I kept thinking, a Songwriter of the Year wouldn’t write that garbage. Then I looked at who’d gotten it before – The Weeknd, Shawn Mendes, Alanis Morissette, Gord Downie – and I thought, wow, I can’t believe I get to be part of that room full of giants. In a way, that just makes me work a bit harder.” Now he’s taking that momentum on the road with his first-ever headline run, The Way We’re Born Tour, which kicks off in Edmonton on Nov. 6 and makes six B.C. stops — Lake Country (Nov. 11 with Sheri Marie Ptolemy), Burnaby (Nov. 13), Vancouver (Nov. 14 with Nimkish), in Victoria’s Wicket Hall (Nov. 15 with Zerowhonnock), Campbell River (Nov. 17 with Hasaatuk) and Vernon (Nov. 19 with Francis Baptiste) — before continuing east. Each date features a different local Indigenous opener, chosen from a flood of applications he personally reviewed. “It’s important to build community,” he says. “Create the music industry you want to be in — one where people get included and share what they know instead of guarding it. It isn’t about that scarcity mentality anymore. We rise and fall together.” The tour supports his sophomore album Edge of the Earth (Ishkodé Records), a collection of reflections from the last two and a half years. “The through line is, this is the first time I have an album that isn’t an album based off the stories of my grandfather. It’s the first time I’m kind of offering people a window into who I am as a person and an artist.” Among the many things Aysanabee brings to the stage are powerful, rich music and a compelling voice — without gimmick or affectation. In our conversation, where Aysanabee spoke to Monday Magazine from Berlin, he talked about hard work, but also learning to take time: “My grandmother used to say, ‘You’re gonna have to work ten times as hard to get half as much.’ I think on social media you see the wins — me on a big stage, or getting an award — but underneath that are thousands of hours of work. I’m trying to dial that back a bit and take the blinders off, because I’m always looking toward the next mountain, the next goal. I’m really making a bigger effort to just appreciate what’s happening around me in the moment.” If the album looks inward, the live show turns that reflection outward. “We’re building a big show for it,” he says. “Presenting the songs the way they were meant to be presented – when it comes to sound, when it comes to lights, when it comes to the production behind the show and the intent. It’ll be lights and it’ll be storytelling, sharing extra stuff as well. You can go to Apple or Spotify and listen to the track, but to be there and hear something really special about the song — that only comes from live.”