Nathan Lawr: Dismantling The System Through Music (The Secret Ingredient - 05/07/14)

The Secret Ingredient

Minotaurs frontman Nathan Lawr joins us in the studio this week to talk music, space, and activism. We discuss the music of The Funkees, an afro-rock group formed in the 1960s in Nigeria. Influenced by Indigenous music and political stagnation, we discuss this band and how people can bring down the system by reclaiming public space for human expression. Lawr discusses his work with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association as an activist and musician. How do you constructively re-claim liberties when many have taken them for granted? "The secret ingredient in art is action: just doing it. So many years being a creative person you encounter people who say they’re not creative. My response is, how do you know that exactly? Have you been told by professionals you shouldn’t bother unless you’re a professional? As soon as you just do it, bang, you’re an artist, essentially. You’re not gonna get anywhere with anything unless you’re doing it." - Nathan Lawr Betasamosake Simpson, Leanne. Dancing on Our Turtle's Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publications, 2011.