TORONTO (CelebrityAccess) — Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq has won the 2014 Polaris Music Prize for her album Animism.
Tagaq beat out 9 other nominees on the Polaris shortlist, including Arcade Fire, Basia Bulat, Mac DeMarco, Drake, Jessy Lanza, Owen Pallett, Shad, Timber Timbre, and YAMANTAKA.
“We’ve been doing it our own way without backing down artistically or conforming, so to be recognized in this way and have so many people latch on makes me feel the world is tolerable,” said Tagaq in a statement. “There’s so much hurt in the world and within indigenous cultures with colonialism. Canada is in a desperate need for repair and I think a lot of people are tired of living this way and just to have people understand where we’re coming from makes me have hope that we can move forward and expose the true history of Canada.”
The Polaris Music Prize is an annual award given to the best full length album from a Canadian artist. The winner is selected by a panel of jurors of more than 200 Canadian music journalists, bloggers and broadcasters and the prize is awarded based on artistic merit and jurors do not weigh genre, album sales or label affiliation.
The award ceremony was held on Sept. 22nd at the Carlu in downtowon Toronto, featured performances by six of the 10 nominees, including Basia Bulat, Mac DeMarco, Jessy Lanza, Owen Pallett, Shad and Tanya Tagaq. – Staff Writers
