2 Rivers Remix returns with free live event and ‘moveable’ feasts of music and culture

Organizers of the 2 Rivers Remix Feast of Contemporary Indigenous Music and Culture are looking forward to bringing back the free live event, this year from a new location in St’uxwtews/Cache Creek, B.C. The main festival will run from July 8 to July 10, with “moveable” feasts starting June 30.

“2 Rivers Remix festival is an all Indigenous focused, centred and led free festival,” said Meeka Morgan, artistic director of the event.

“It is a festival that focuses on survivors, youth, women and LGBTQ. We try to create an environment of safety, tolerance, value and love,” she explained. Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are welcome.

Morgan said funding for the event is in place to support a wide variety of performers who will take part this year, including acclaimed artist and 2022 Juno winner DJ Shub and War Club Live, hip-hop stars Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Juno winning country gospel singer William Prince, blues soul rockers and Juno winners Digging Roots, Juno winner and northern roots singer Leela Gilday, Juno winner Kinnie Starr, and CTV’s The Launch winner and Mohawk rocker Logan Staats.

“They are coming because they want to support (after) what happened to Lytton,” said Morgan. “I really feel everyone pulling together and holding us up during this time.”

During the summer of 2021, the festival’s host community of Tl’kemtsin/Lytton was destroyed by fire that ripped through the town.

Although some of the clean-up has begun, Morgan said the community is still in a state of disaster and the Remix event held annually there had to move locations.

“The town has not been recovered. It’s barely just been cleaned up right now,” she said. “It’s very sad.”

Organizers also decided to do something completely different this year, reaching out to several other communities requesting they host mini-performances.

The 2 River Remix Movable Feast micro-festivals will visit four interior canyon communities on June 30, July 2, July 4 and July 6.

“I feel we are really bringing life back to these small rural places that people sometimes forget about, but they are very much alive and they are very vibrant and they are very much of value,” Morgan said.

One of the performers, Curtis Clear Sky, expressed his gratitude for being able to participate in this year’s festivities. He said he’s looking forward to performing his new single “Our Home”, which will be released on June 16.

“It’s a song that has been created in the time of COVID-19, and we are now ready and prepared to release it and share it with the world,” said Clear Sky.

“The focus of the music is empowering Indigenous voice and sharing Indigenous narrative,” said Clear Sky. “Overall sharing messages of healing, unity and positivity. The music is focused on uplifting and creating positive outcomes for all of our relatives, Indigenous and non-Indigenous. In an Indigenous narrative we are talking about our home and that is in recognition of our territories and our cultures and in this universe and in this world.”

Clear Sky, lead singer for the band Curtis Clear Sky and the Constellationz, explained how important it is for events such as 2 River Remix to be held. In a time when there has been so much isolation, it is imperative for people to start to come back together, he said, adding Indigenous people have always relied on community and gained strength through being together in celebrations and ceremony.

“The importance of the music, the messages and the traveling tour is to maintain those messages of empowering and bring back those teachings and sharing our perspectives to create a healthier outcome in the future,” he said.

“I’m super thankful for the opportunity to be able to share our voices, share our music, share our messages and just recognize the importance of Indigenous voice, Indigenous story, and creating those spaces for us to be able to have a platform to share our perspectives.”

For more information visit St’uxwtews 2 Rivers Remix – In Person Live/Streamed 3-day Feast of Contemporary Indigenous Music and Culture

Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.