A highly progressive Canadian singer has been getting mocked on social media for her unusual performance at the Juno Awards over the weekend.
Tanya Tagaq, an Indigenous activist and artist who blends modern music with Inuit throat singing, performed at the largely state-funded Canadian music awards show on Sunday night.
She sang a tribute melody for pop star Nelly Furtado, who was recently inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and is known for hits such as Maneater. Tagaq incorporated her signature throat singing.
A clip of the performance has been going viral on X, with many users making fun of the way Tagaq melodically grunted, groaned and moaned to the tune of Furtado's song, Powerless.
The singer-activist is moderately successful. She has about 26,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and her most-watched song on YouTube, Retribution, clocks in at just under 320,000 views.
Social media users online who mocked Tagaq's Juno performance also highlighted and made fun of her 2022 song, Colonizer, which is mostly comprised of throat singing but also includes some basic lyrics.
In the song, Tagaq repeats the word 'colonizer' six times before repeating 'oh, you're guilty' three times. She then repeatedly says 'colonizer' ten more times, and then repeats 'you colonizer' 12 more times.
The music video includes imagery of a church burning under the Aurora Borealis.
Tanya Tagaq, an indigenous activist and artist who blends modern music with Inuit throat singing, has been getting mocked on social media for her recent performance
Tagaq sang a tribute melody for pop star Nelly Furtado at the Canadian Juno Awards, in which she incorporated her signature throat singing
Critics of Tagaq's performance also pointed to her song, Colonizer, in which she repeats the word dozens of times. A still from the music video is pictured
Jonathan Kay, the senior editor for the online magazine Quillette, posted a clip of Tagaq's performance on his X account with a caption that read: 'This is called "the juno awards."
'It's a hallowed annual Canadian ritual where government-subsidized Canadians pretend that ordinary Canadians enjoy listening to whatever this is supposed to be.'
He later posted a follow-up tweet pointing out the song Colonizer's rudimentary lyrics and provocative imagery of a church burning.
'In Canada, we call this musical genre, "reconciliation,"' Kay wrote.
Many other users on X posted the clip of Tagaq's performance, and the tweets have collectively received hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of likes and comments.
'All the talent has left Canada. What in the hell would you call this performance at the Juno awards?' one user wrote.
'I think I've heard this Juno lady singing drunk at 2:00 am at Ducky's Karaoke in Calgary,' said another.
'Just died of second hand embarrassment. This is SO bad,' a third user chimed in.
Tagaq is a moderately successful singer with about 26,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. She has won Juno awards in the past and is pictured during her recent performance
This tweet, posted by the senior editor of the online magazine Quillette, was one of many making fun of Tagaq's performance. The person in the paused video is not Tagaq
People in the comments of those posts mostly agreed with the sentiment and took the mocking a step further.
'Even the part using actual words she cannot hit notes,' a user replied to the 'second hand embarrassment' tweet.
But a minority of people who commented did support Tagaq and blasted people for making fun of her performance.
'Mixing Inuit throat singing with modern music. Not to everyone's taste but the concept is brilliant and Tanya has represented Canada around the world and has worked with Bjork, spreading awareness of indigenous Canadian culture,' one supporter wrote.
'If you don't like it, just don't listen to it. But, throat singing is very difficult to do. There are variations of it around the world including Tibet and Mongolia,' the user concluded.
'Yall ignorant c that claim this is the decline are embarrassing,' another supporter said.
'Blending ancient traditions that existed before any instrument was invented w/ modern sounds on a massive stage. Her talent squashes most "singers". You not getting it doesn't change that.'
Tagaq has previously won Juno awards. In 2015, she received the award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year, and in 2017, she received the award for Classical Album of the Year.
The singer-activist was not nominated for any awards this year.