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Abstract: This essay positions the award-winning band Pamyua's "Afro-lnuit" soundscapes and business acumen as characteristic of Inuit modernities, interrupting static notions of cultural music and questioning what "Native" can mean at this moment. 1 situate Pamyua's personal and musical alliances along a historical trajectory of circumpolar inuit transnationalism to illustrate the ways in which the group's musical modernities are uniquely rooted in each member's familial and sociocultural soundscapes. 1 also explore the development of "Pamyua, Inc." and Arctic Voice Records as a means to subvert what I call "sound quantum" politics through the revisioning of music industry practices using inuit knowledge.
Résumé : Cet essai présente les paysages sonores « ajro-inuits » et le sens des affaires du groupe primé Pamyua comme caractéristiques des modernités inuites, rompant avec les conceptions statiques de la musique culturelle et interrogeant les significations possibles du terme « autochtone » aujourd'hui. Je situe les alliances personnelles et musicales de Pamyua sur une trajectoire historique du transnationalisme circumpolaire inuit afin d'illustrer les façons dont les modernités musicales du groupe sont enracinées dans les paysages sonores familiaux et socioculturels singuliers de chaque membre. J'explore également le développement de « Pamyua, Inc. » et Arctic Voice Records comme moyens de subvertir ce que j'appelle les politiques de « quantums sonores » par la transformation des pratiques de l'industrie musicale sur la base de la connaissance inuite.
[Our] well-mixed sound re -interrupts what cultural music is all about. We're creating a sound that has its own culture - it's African - it's Inuit. We have created a sound that will make you believe that there is an actual musical tradition for our mixed heritage.
- Pamyua (http://tribalfunk.wordpress.com)
A kutaq is a metaphor commonly used throughout circumpolar Inuit /l communities that literally means "mixture" (from the Central Yup'ik verb akute, "to mix, to stir") and refers more specifically to a mixture of berries, sugar, seal oil, and shortening (and sometimes boned fish or meat) known as "Eskimo ice cream."1 In her most recent collaborative work on contemporary Yup'ik drum-dance performance practices in Alaska 'sYukon-Kuskokwim Delta region, anthropologist Ann Fienup-Riordan describes several layers of mixing through dance as analogous to akutaq. The drum-dance layers to which she refers include mixtures of content (stories and...