The name of Tim Hill’s electro music group, A Tribe Called Red, gives a head nod to their hip-hop predecessor, A Tribe Called Quest. But it’s also a bit of wordplay: Hill, along with Tribe’s two other DJs and founding members Bear Witness and Ian Campeau, belongs to one of the recognized indigenous groups of people in Canada (collectively, the hundreds of indigenous bands are known as the First Nations). The DJs background are more than just a fun fact—Tribe blends together First Nations music with dubstep, hip-hop, and electronic dance music to create their own unique sound. When Bear and Ian first debuted their thunderous sound at parties in Ottawa eight years ago, they dubbed it “electric pow wow."

Hill, who also goes by “2oolman” (pronounced: toolman), spoke with us over the phone to discuss Tribe’s latest album, We Are The Halluci Nation. Along the way, he let us in on who inspires them, what exactly “electric pow wow” means, and what they think of headdress at music festivals, Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest, and the North Dakota pipeline battle at Standing Rock.

TrackRecord: Your new album We Are The Halluci Nation came out last week—congratulations. What was the recording process like? And what are some things you want to accomplish with this new record?
Tim “2oolman” Hill: This was the most existential work that Tribe’s put in a record. A lot of time [in the past], we’ve recorded in a home studio, so this was one of the first times that the group has gone to recording studios. We went to studios all over the world, but this is one of the first times we got to go record a drum group [in the studio].

TR: Where exactly did you record?
TH: We went to Manawan. We worked with a longtime collaborator, Black Bear. We went up there, hung out at their home studio, helped write songs, talked, ate dinner together. We basically built it. We were already friends, but it’s great to have that moment with them. And then we went to, I can’t remember the studio off-hand, but we went to a Northern Quebec studio, about an hour or two out of South Manawan.

TR: Where exactly is Manawan?
TH: Manawan is in Northern Quebec.

TR: Ok, cool, my knowledge of Canadian geography isn’t that strong.
TH: [Laughs] Yeah, I’ve never been that far up Northern Quebec before. It was a pretty secluded, small community, and we got to throw a show there. That was pretty cool. There was a gymnasium there. We put a show on for the entire community. The next day, we went south and we recorded with [Black Bear]. It was awesome. That recording process was crazy. We basically got to record a pow wow record the way we would want to record a pow wow record. So, for me—I’m the tech-y guy in the group—I got all geeked out, tried a bunch of different mic'ing techniques. We had a drum in the studio. It was awesome to get different one-shots and patterns and different things on its own. We had a pack of drums—just alone, all by itself—that we’ve managed to collect. It was great managing to record the guys—getting their vocals to sound nice and clean and crisp and warm—and women separately. The women usually stand behind the group and sing over the tops of the men, to give it this kind of body. It was really awesome to get those separated and record them in takes rather than straight through. I have to give a shout out to Black Bear though, because these guys have been singing together since they were kids, and they’ve never been through a recording process like this. It was new for them. It’s a testament to their true musicianship of how professional and how great they are as a group. It was awesome to be locked up in a studio for two days with our friends who just happen to be one of the best groups in the world right now.

TR: You’ve described your music as "electric pow wow." Could you break down what exactly that means?
TH: Electric pow wow started eight years ago in a club. Bear and Ian wanted to throw a party in Ottawa for the indigenous community in the city. A lot of indigenous people will come down to school in Ottawa from rural communities or rural reserves, and when you come to the city, you know, you might feel displaced or feel separated from your home, and it’s really hard for people to get out there. Ian and Bear wanted to throw a party to gather everybody. At first, there was no pow wow at all at this thing. It was all club music. After seeing how much of a success [the party] was, it [became] a monthly thing. After the next night or the night after that, they decided to throw pow wow with dubstep or whatever music was poppin’ at the time. There was a huge response. That birthed the idea of “Hey, we should make our songs.” The first song actually ever done was “Electric Pow Wow,” and that was how it all was created.

TR: You’ve already shouted out Black Bear, but are there other Native artists or musicians do you draw inspiration from?
TH: Yeah, of course, Buffy Saint-Marie is a huge one. Basically, all the Native artists before us. We hold them super high. We’ve got a chance to work with a lot of them now. We’ve got a checklist that we’re continuing on checking off. We’ve already worked with Buffy Saint-Marie; she’s a sweetheart.

TR: Is there someone on your checklist that you’d like to work with that you haven’t yet?
TH: At this point in time, I’m not too sure. I feel like we’ve successfully got to work with the people that we would like to. I’m sure Bear and Ian might have a different opinion, but for me? I’m really super happy to have worked with the people that we’ve happened to work with. This time around, we’ve worked with not just pow wow groups, but homies of ours, past collaborators, new ones... We got to make friends... And we got to work with our heroes... We feel blessed obviously that someone like John Trudell would agree to work with us... That is crazy to us.

TR: That’s fantastic. I’ve also read and have been curious about your activism. You’ve gone on record to ask fans who attend your shows not to wear tribal war paint and headdresses at your shows. Do you feel that your fans are more progressive than people who aren’t familiar with your music? Do they understand certain etiquette more than other fans would be?
TH: Yes, and this is the reason why. We recently did a show in Halifax, and someone came in with war paint on their face. It’s ignorant. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not racist, and they’re not trying to make fun of us, but what they are really doing is making fun of us. Like without a doubt, they’re using us for their enjoyment. For fun.

TR: They’re using your identity as a costume.
TH: Exactly. It’s definitely cultural appropriation. But here’s the thing, there’s been times where we’ve had to stop the music and tell them, “You need to go wash your face or take the headless off,” or whatever we need to do to make that the space we’ve created remains safe.

TR: You’ve actually stopped the music?
TH: It’s happened, for sure. The last time [in Halifax], we didn’t see them; other people saw them. This is what the people need to worry about. It’s not us calling you out or stopping the music that they need to worry about. They need to worry about the fans in the crowd because they all know. The fans went and told them that they needed to do that. They needed to wash their face. There’s a Rebecca Thomas quote: "Would you wear blackface to a Beyonce concert? Why is it okay to wear redface to a Tribe Called Red concert?”

That’s why our fans are the best. We’ve been talking about headdresses at festivals [for years], and they’re banning them. I’m not saying that we’re the reason why it’s happening, but I love the fact that there’s a conversation. We’re just happy to be part of the conversation to end this kind of stuff, and for everyone to get it. And to understand that we don’t want this kind of appropriation at all. I’m really happy that our fans are out there and they get it.

It’s more or less the privileged people that are not Natives that want to play us, to dress as us in costumes for their own enjoyment. Those are the people that are a little hard-headed. They’re faced with a little dose of reality. This [cultural appropriation] affects people, and it’s not appropriate to do this. We’re running into this less and less these days. In the last two years, we haven’t had to stop the music at all.

TR: Is there a difference in audience between your American versus Canadian fans? Do yo find that one set of fans are more culturally sensitive than the other?
TH: Canadian and American fans are pretty much the same. It can happen anywhere, at any given time because it happened in Halifax, Canada… We played a show in Slovakia. It was amazing, it was in a metal factory. They converted it into a festival area. The set was amazing, the fans were crazy, it was a packed house. There must’ve been a couple of thousand people there. After the show, we went to meet with the fans, and one of the fans came up to me and was like, “Hey, how’s it going? I really love you guys.” And he said, “I wanted to tell you something though, when I heard you were coming, I went out and bought a headdress just because I wanted to go all in with it, but I saw an interview you guys did a couple of years ago, and I decided not to wear it and I got rid of it. I just wanted to let you know, that I’m not trying to disrespect your or anything like that.”

Someone in Slovakia said that. Someone across the world, so it’s really no excuse. For the most part, it’s great to see that the interviews we do when we talk about these things really do reach people... I’ve been calling interviews lately “conversations.” I’m not really looking at it like a question and answer type of thing...

TR: It’s more like a dialogue.
TH: Exactly. That’s exactly what we need to create. We all need to talk, and eventually, we’ll come to a consensus where it’s kind of, “Yeah I do see it that way now.” Especially when it comes to sports teams that have the [names] Redskins or the Cleveland Indians. It’s very important for us to say what that is, to say what we want to change it. It confronts a lot of heartfelt sport fans, but like, that’s just sports teams. It really affects us, it’s real for us. It’s not real for them because they have all the privilege in the world. What I’m loving right is now that people are beginning to understand. I don’t want to pigeonhole people, but it seems to be that the younger people really get it. I think people are ready to grow up. It doesn’t make sense to have … that way of thinking anymore, it doesn’t make sense to be racist anymore. None of this stuff. Human rights and being a human being seems to be the most important thing right now.

TR: That’s funny that you mention mention sports and football. Do you have any thoughts Colin Kapernick's kneeling protest?
TH: It’s great. It’s just weird that people are so upset by it, and I understand from a patriotic... if I want to put myself in those shoes, I can understand it. The non-blacks don’t see it. They just don’t see the things that people of color go through. They don’t see that this world wasn’t built for us. It wasn’t made for us. We were displaced. We were either colonized or brought over from another country to a place that’s not home. With us [aboriginal people] specifically, with residential schools. If you don’t know residential schools, it was basically where they would take kids in the early 1900s, the last one closed in '96 I believe. They would take kids from homes and the whole M.O. was to "kill the Indian within the Indian." We already deal with a society that wasn’t made for us, it’s made for non-indigenous white people to prosper. It’s really made for them. For us to see the things that we go through, it’s really hard for them to see it, I guess. What he’s doing is such a great job because he’s basically confronting it in a kind of a messy way.

Personally, I never stood up for the anthem here in Canada. I remember being at a lacrosse game and the Canadian anthem was playing, and my father was in the crowd with me and my mother. I saw everyone standing up. It’s my first time seeing this, and he basically told us to keep sitting down, and I didn’t know what was going on. I was looking around and I see people looking at me, and I don’t know what’s going on... I looked around and there were other Native families in the crowd and they weren’t standing either.

TR: Is there a particular reason why your father and other Native families weren’t standing for that anthem? Is it along the same lines of Kaepernick’s protest?
TH: No. After the game, I asked him. And he said, “We’re a sovereign nation still, and they don’t recognize us or stand anything that we have for, so this is the reason why [we don't stand for the Canadian anthem.]” I was like “Ok, I get it. I totally get it.” I’ve kind of carried that on throughout my life.

I know that what Kapernick is doing is going to get results. There’s a lot of injustices going on in communities, and this is a way he can use his platform to say something. He can only get pushed so much before you have to fight back at some point, and this is his is way of doing it, and he’s great for doing it.

TR: I want to revisit the statements that you made about displacement and this country not being built for people of color. Have you been keeping up with what’s been going on in North Dakota regarding pipeline in Standing Rock?
TH: Yeah I have... It hurts. We're touring all the time, and there is literally no time for us to go there. We are trying to find anything that we can possibly do... We are having a lot of conversations with people that are there supporting... A lot of them are friends and fans of ours. They’ll use our music for whatever they need it for. It’s crazy what’s going on right now. It’s awesome that’s Obama’s administration stopped it. That’s an amazing thing. It’s just temporary.

TR: I heard it was a partial stop.
TH: The win would be to just scrap the pipeline altogether like they did in Keystone. That would be an amazing endgame. Because all we want is to just have clean water for our kids and our kid’s kids… I believe the people at Standing Rock are all there for one purpose, and everyone has the same mindset. This is for the kids, this is for the future. It’s worth fighting for, it is worth all the worries that we have. This is completely legitimate. There is a real reason that this is happening. I don’t like the word “protest,” really. For this situation, I really like “protecting.” It’s worth it. All of this fuss going is worth. Hopefully, it gets halted by good. I’m a huge supporter of everyone out there, and they tell me what it’s like out there and how the spirits are out there.

TR: Is there anything that anyone can do to help the people out there?
TH: It’s a huge camp out there. Obviously, you need to feed them... They have a GoFundMe page for the First Nation’s legal defense to battle it if it came down to it because I’m sure this is something that’s not going to go away. It’s going to be a fight. The crazy thing is that it’s not just one tribe doing it. It’s multiple tribes. Tons of people are there. My people [the Mohawk tribe] are there! A drive to North Dakota for us would be 36 hours.

This interview was originally published on TrackRecord and has been edited and condensed for clarity.