This is part of Global Sounds, a collection of stories spotlighting the music trends forging connections in 2024.
Shina Novalinga’s TikTok videos regularly rack up millions of views, but this Indigenous influencer, with her long flowing black locks and traditional facial tattoos, isn’t sharing the hottest new songs or the latest fashionable ’fits with her 4.3 million followers. Rather, over the past few years, the Montreal-based Inuk throat singer has been acquainting a broader audience with a time-honored tradition that faced extinction during Canada’s colonial era. Through throat singing, she’s not only reclaiming a sound; she’s reclaiming an ancestral identity.
“Inuktitut was my first language, but I’m slowly losing it since I don’t really have that opportunity to practice my culture as much as if I lived up north,” she recently said in a TikTok video. “That’s pretty much how I started TikTok—showing my journey reclaiming my culture while living in a big city. I feel that so many people can relate to my story, and I think it’s never too late to learn your culture.”
Known as katajjaq, this musical performance is an ancient call-and-response contest. Traditionally, two women face each other and alternate guttural sounds emulating sounds of the natural world—growling wildlife, blowing wind, flowing rivers. In Novalinga’s videos, she stands chest to chest with her mother, Caroline, both of them dressed in traditional clothing such as silapaaq tops and qauruti headbands with dangling beads. The chantlike melody of sighs and shrieks, grunts and gasps, builds in speed and intensity until one person finally runs out of breath or bursts into laughter.
Though it appears fairly free-flowing, throat singing is a skill that requires years of practice and perseverance. It originated millennia ago in the Arctic as a way for women to stay warm and entertained while men were away on extended hunting trips. Other Indigenous groups across the globe, including the Tuvan peoples of Mongolia and the Xhosa peoples of South Africa, have their own variations, both of which involve manipulating the vocal tract almost like a musical instrument to elicit deep, long tones. Now, the Inuit version is seeing a revival in broader pop culture thanks to a handful of prominent culture bearers like Novalinga.
Tanya Tagaq, another artist pushing throat singing into the ether, is self-taught almost by accident. While she was attending college in Nova Scotia, her mom mailed her a cassette recording of throat singing to ease her homesickness for her native Nunavut—Canada’s northernmost territory with the country’s largest Inuit population. Over the course of a few years, she began practicing in the shower with zero intention of doing it professionally, until she casually performed in front of friends—a festival director who heard her singing then asked her to take it to the stage.
Tagaq’s personal and family story reflects the painful legacy of colonialism: involuntary relocation, forced assimilation at residential schools, sexual assault, substance abuse, and attempted suicide. Now, more than 20 years after she started listening to that cassette over and over again, Tagaq is touching on these resonant issues with songs that blend solo throat singing with vocalizations and experimental backing tracks.
“Many parts of our culture fell through the cracks, but we’re still here and just as vibrant and resilient as ever,” says Tagaq, who now lives in Toronto and performs across North America. “Even though we’ve experienced loss, I also look at what we’ve gained. For me, this revival is less of a resuscitation than it is putting the logs back on the fire and stoking the embers.” This renaissance isn’t just about honoring tradition; it’s also about evolving the sound.
Like Tagaq, musical groups like Silla and PIQSIQ are pushing the boundaries of throat singing ever further. “If we just keep it the way it is, it’s going to stay in the past,” says Charlotte Qamaniq, who alongside friend Cynthia Pitsiulak makes up the award-winning group Silla. “When we contemporize it and bring it forward, it makes it more accessible to younger generations and helps keep it alive.” The duo learned to throat sing together 20 years ago, thanks to the help of other urban Inuit, while experiencing culture shock upon moving from Nunavut to Ottawa. Since then, they’ve collaborated with Ottawa-based DJ Rise Ashen to blend ancestral sounds with electronic dance music.
Sisters Tiffany Kuliktana Ayalik and Kayley Inuksuk Mackay of PIQSIQ grew up throat singing, having heard cousins and aunts perform it, then used it mainly to entertain themselves during camping trips and other outdoor adventures in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Today they also live in Ottawa, home to the largest Inuit population south of the Arctic. Intrigued by the idea of simulating a throat singing choir, the duo uses a looping pedal to layer their own voices onto themselves multiple times, resulting in rich, haunting harmonies.
Unsurprisingly, as throat singing gains momentum in the mainstream, cultural appropriation is also entering the conversation, with non-Inuk artists sampling this distinct sound on their tracks. “Everybody has their eye on the Arctic right now, but there’s a flip side to visibility,” says Ayalik, referring to the growing focus on the region from the tourism and entertainment industries. “We want Inuit to see other Inuit in the mainstream, but once something’s out there in the world, it can quickly be usurped by white voices. It’s happened with every genre of Black music that’s hit the mainstream. We want to have autonomy and ownership over how we’re portrayed—nothing about us without us.”
Pitsiulak of Silla notes there’s a difference between appreciation and appropriation. “You can be an admirer of throat singing without taking it as your own,” she says. “When the colonizers and the missionaries came, they banned our culture. We’re in a very crucial stage of reclaiming this practice for ourselves after it was lost for a generation, so it’s really important for us to protect it.” She’s also eager to dispel the myth of a “pan-Indigenous” identity that lumps together all Native peoples as homogenous. That’s especially vital since the Inuit population is relatively small—just 70,000 people as compared to more than 1 million First Nations people living in Canada, per census data.
These musicians do, however, welcome partnerships with non-Inuk artists to create genre-bending sounds. Tagaq has collaborated with everyone from boundary-pushing Icelandic performer Björk to San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet. Beyond social media, throat singing is also being amplified by TV shows and films like True Detective: Night Country, which included music and a cameo from Tagaq, and the forthcoming Zacharias Kunuk film Uiksarinnggitara (Wrong Husband), which will feature a PIQSIQ-produced score.
No matter how popular it becomes, or how it evolves, throat singing remains firmly rooted in tradition, with a deep connection to the rugged natural environs of the Arctic. “We’re finally in this moment of being recognized,” says Tagaq. “But this is not just sound; it allows us to be us again. It’s attached to everything we’ve been through and how we think, breathe, and exist. Some of these traditional songs we’re singing talk about the death of a lover or the growth of a puppy that wants to be a sled dog—it’s all attached to our language and attached to our land.”
Hear throat singing IRL
Although it’s on the rise, the Inuit throat singing scene remains relatively small, so opportunities to hear it live are still rare IYKYK occasions (there’s no stadium tour just yet). Here are your best bets for listening in.
Follow along. Social media is the most accessible place to listen to throat singing and to keep tabs on when and where your favorite musicians are playing.
Attend a festival. Most performances happen at Indigenous-focused music festivals, such as Sākihiwē (June in Winnipeg), Alianait (July in Iqaluit), and ʔəm̓i ce:p xʷiwəl/Come Toward the Fire (September in Vancouver).
Visit the Arctic. Adventurous globe-trotters who want to get a feel for the place that inspires this tradition can shell out for a trip to one of Nunavut’s regional hubs (Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, or Cambridge Bay). Ottawa, which also has a large Inuit community, is a more affordable and feasible option for most.
Buy the album. It may sound old school, but actually purchasing these artists’ records on their websites is a no-brainer way to support them. (Groundbreaking, we know.)
Educate yourself. Above all, it’s crucial to understand how history has impacted this tradition and how the Inuit have safeguarded it despite countless challenges. A good starting point for delving into Canada’s colonialist past is the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
