New album from Kuujjuaq rocker political, but playful

The new English and Inuktitut-language album Culture Shock is available at stores in Kuujjuaq, Malikkaat in Iqaluit or online through iTunes. (SUBMITTED IMAGE)

Kuujjuaq rocker Sinuupa has released his first album in more than a decade — a bluesy blend of north and south aimed at an even wider audience.

The album, titled Culture Shock, is clean in its composition, easy on the ears, but the album’s goal is also to evoke the “shakiness, weirdness of how an Inuk feels” out of his element, says Etua Snowball, the singer and songwriter also know as Sinuupa.

The album draws on more than 25 years of song writing from this Kuujjuaq-based musician, with some of the album’s dozen tracks originating from Snowball’s adolescent creations.

Snowball spent a good part of his youth on the land northeast of Kuujjuaq, at a fishing camp managed by his father, Bobby Snowball.

It was there that a young teenaged Snowball discovered his first guitar, taking instantly to the strings and strumming out his own melodies.

“It was pretty much my first time holding a guitar, and I knew for sure that I wanted one,” Snowball said.

When Snowball was 22, he released his first album, called Nunaga (My Land) – a theme that factored largely into the Inuktitut-language album.

“When I think of that time, I was a lot more innocent, naïve,” Snowball recalled. “A lot of that first album was about the land, where I grew up and being Inuk.”

Three years later – with the experience of the foreign South under his belt — Snowball put out a second album, Arctic Darkness. He says he used the album to soul-search, feeling “shaken” from the realities of another life lived parallel to his own.

Now, more than a decade later, 39-year-old Snowball calls himself older, more focused and sensible – and Culture Shock, he says, is a reflection of that.

But the album hasn’t stopped exploring the gap between southern and Inuit culture, notes the Kuujjuaq-based father and teacher.

“It’s about what matters to me,” he said. “It’s political, but it’s still playful.”

Indeed, the album’s dozen songs are upbeat, with clean and bluesy riffs that make it easy for any audience to enjoy.

Snowball’s singing is versatile too, switching effortlessly from a gravelly growl to a gentle croon, and back and forth from English to Inuktitut.

But his message can be slightly darker, probing southern attitudes towards Inuit culture.

In the track, Killer, Snowball sings: “Sinner, they make me out to be/ They don’t understand who I am/ don’t even wanna see.

“Hey burger man or woman/ Exit head out of ass/ All you know is the tip of your nose/ You’re ignorant and crass /So, you think you really know/ Anytime you wanna put your feet in my shoes’ you just oughta let me know.”

And in Culture Shock, the album’s title track, Snowball describes his struggle “living out of my element in the south.”

“Drivers racing everywhere like/ Seals chased by polar bears/ Speeding over artificial grounds/ I’m pleading not to make a sound, yeah/ Curious, yet hiding in my room/ Delirious, I need to go home soon/ They see me as an animal/ They see me as a cannibal.

“Culture shock is what I feel/ Losing my pride, all just emotions.”

“I definitely made the album for me,” Snowball said. “But it’s also for Inuit, and for southerners to be less ignorant of who we are.

“I also felt the need to help my language stay alive.”

Snowball recorded the album in Montreal with long-time band members Rob MacDonald, Dave Neil and Pat Blonk – with the help a cultural grant from Avataq Cultural Institute.

Sinuupa has already toured extensively across Nunavik, Nunavut and in southern cities over the past decade.

And while he’s got other projects on the go, including children and a teaching career, he hopes to tour the new album this year “at his own pace.”

So far, he says the feedback to Culture Shock has been positive, with new listeners posting praise on Sinuupa’s Facebook page.

“People are checking out the album from all over the world,” he said. “It’s exciting – it’s getting noticed.”

Sinuupa’s Culture Shock is available in Kuujjuaq stores and Malikkaat in Iqaluit. Fans can also log onto www.songcastmusic.com/profiles/Sinuupa to listen online, or to download the new album on iTunes.

Etua Snowball, who heads the band Sinuupa, plays here at the 2010 Aqpik Jam in Kujjuaq. Sinuupa just released his first album in over a decade, titled Culture Shock. (PHOTO BY ISABELLE DUBOIS)