Watch A Tribe Called Red’s New Mini-Doc “The Manawan Session”

In a new short documentary "The Manawan Session," released today on National Aboriginal Day in Canada, A Tribe Called Red travel to Manawan, Quebec to collaborate with Black Bear, a native drum group that ATCR's 2oolman calls his "favorite right now."

The short film, which focuses on the recording of ATCR and Black Bear as well as a performance at a local high school, is a wealth of insight into a traditional drum group's writing process and sound. One member of Black Bear says: "When you ask our Mother Earth for what you need, just like a baby he has to scream and cry when he asks his mother for help. That is why we sing in this way."

ATCR's politics of representation are laid bare, next to footage of the group winning Breakthrough Group of the Year at the 2014 Juno Awards. "We need this music within popular culture that defines us," Bear Witness said on that stage. "It's time for us to come out and finally depict ourselves in a way that we wanna be seen. There's this history of Indigenous people being portrayed always by the outsider, always looking in. We're here to represent Indigenous people in the realest way that we've never had a chance to show ourselves [in] before."

Watch above via The National Post. And listen to the finished result of this collaboration, "Stadium Pow Wow," here.