Kinnie Starr
Encyclopedia
Alida Kinnie Starr Pierre is a Canadian
singer-songwriter
from Calgary
, Alberta
. Her music, which blends hip hop
and alternative rock
, has been described as "hip hop aggro groove
". Her songs have been included on the soundtracks for the TV series The L Word
and the movie Thirteen
. She was nominated for the Juno Award for New Artist of the Year
in 2004.
heritage (her father, Michael Starr, is mixed-blood Mohawk
) both in her music and her life. In 2006 she mentored aspiring Aboriginal musicians at the Manitoba Audio Recording Industry Association's Aboriginal Music Program (AMP) Camp. Starr has also been open about her bisexuality
, making her popular in the queer
community.
and Queen's University. After finishing school, she moved to Vancouver
to pursue her music career. In 1992 she formed her first band there, but it was a trip to New York City
that revealed the true extent of her talent, when a friend pushed her onstage at an East Village
club's open-mic night. Her impromptu spoken-word poetry received three encores from the enthusiastic crowd.
Following a self-released demo called Learning 2 Cook in 1995, she released her debut album Tidy in 1996, mixing rock, punk, pop, and hip-hop, along with her trademark spoken-word poetry. On that album, she rapped in three languages: English
, Spanish
, and French
.
Starr signed to major label group Island/Def Jam
in 1997. The following year, Seagram
bought Polygram
, the parent company of Island Def Jam, and merged it into Universal Music Group
. In the resulting upheaval, Starr felt she was lost in the shuffle and she asked to be released from her contract. The material she recorded for her first album with Island Def Jam, 1998's Mending was never released, though some record labels have talked of releasing the lost album.
Cirque du Soleil
had pursued Starr to sing in their productions, and in 2003 she contracted with them to perform in Zumanity
for two years. After releasing her 2003 album Sun Again, she moved to Las Vegas
. However, she was back home in Canada by the following year.
In 1997, Starr appeared on the Lilith Fair
tour. In the late '90s and in 2004, she toured Canada with Veda Hille
and Oh Susanna
as part of the "Scrappy Bitch Tour".
In 2001, she played Reggie in Down and Out with the Dolls, a Kurt Voss
movie about a fictional all-girl rock band.
Starr creates the visual artwork that appears on her album covers and liner notes.
Starr has enlisted other Canadian musicians to appear on her albums over the years, including Swollen Members
' Moka Only
, Coco Love Alcorn
, former Dream Warrior Spek
and Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara
. Nelly Furtado
credits Starr as an influence. Starr also produced the album We Are... by Digging Roots, which won the Juno Award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year
at the Juno Awards of 2010
.
Starr appeared as a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show on August 11, 2006. On August 31, her single "Anything" was the first-ever #1 single on CBC Radio 3
's new countdown show The R3-30
.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
from Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
. Her music, which blends hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
and alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
, has been described as "hip hop aggro groove
Groove (popular music)
Groove is the sense of propulsive rhythmic "feel" or sense of "swing" created by the interaction of the music played by a band's rhythm section . Groove is a consideration in genres such as salsa, funk, rock, fusion, and soul...
". Her songs have been included on the soundtracks for the TV series The L Word
The L Word
The L Word is an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood...
and the movie Thirteen
Thirteen (film)
Thirteen is a 2003 American drama film directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and written by Hardwicke and Nikki Reed, the film's co-star. The film also stars Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter. It is a semi-autobiographical film inspired by Reed's life at age 12 and 13 with Wood's character "Tracy" being...
. She was nominated for the Juno Award for New Artist of the Year
Juno Award for New Artist of the Year
The Juno Award for New Artist of the Year has been awarded since 1974 as recognition each year for the best new artist/musician in Canada. The category was originally divided by separate awards for men and women...
in 2004.
Biography
Starr is vocal about her AboriginalAboriginal peoples in Canada
Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....
heritage (her father, Michael Starr, is mixed-blood Mohawk
Mohawk nation
Mohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
) both in her music and her life. In 2006 she mentored aspiring Aboriginal musicians at the Manitoba Audio Recording Industry Association's Aboriginal Music Program (AMP) Camp. Starr has also been open about her bisexuality
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
, making her popular in the queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
community.
Career
Starr attended Western Canada High SchoolWestern Canada High School
Western Canada High School is a public senior high school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It has classes for grades 10 through 12. Western is located in the 17th Avenue business district of the Lower Mount Royal community, and is the most centrally located public high school in Calgary.-History:The...
and Queen's University. After finishing school, she moved to Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
to pursue her music career. In 1992 she formed her first band there, but it was a trip to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that revealed the true extent of her talent, when a friend pushed her onstage at an East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
club's open-mic night. Her impromptu spoken-word poetry received three encores from the enthusiastic crowd.
Following a self-released demo called Learning 2 Cook in 1995, she released her debut album Tidy in 1996, mixing rock, punk, pop, and hip-hop, along with her trademark spoken-word poetry. On that album, she rapped in three languages: English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
.
Starr signed to major label group Island/Def Jam
The Island Def Jam Music Group
The Island Def Jam Motown Music Group, formerly The Island Def Jam Music Group, is an umbrella label formed in 1999 when Universal Music Group merged two of its daughter companies, Island Records and Def Jam Recordings, to create a label group. In 2011, Motown Records was split from the Universal...
in 1997. The following year, Seagram
Seagram
The Seagram Company Ltd. was a large corporation headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that was the largest distiller of alcoholic beverages in the world. Toward the end of its independent existence it also controlled various entertainment and other business ventures...
bought Polygram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
, the parent company of Island Def Jam, and merged it into Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
. In the resulting upheaval, Starr felt she was lost in the shuffle and she asked to be released from her contract. The material she recorded for her first album with Island Def Jam, 1998's Mending was never released, though some record labels have talked of releasing the lost album.
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
had pursued Starr to sing in their productions, and in 2003 she contracted with them to perform in Zumanity
Zumanity
Zumanity is a resident cabaret-style show by Cirque du Soleil at the New York-New York Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The production was unveiled on September 20, 2003. It is the first "adult-themed" Cirque du Soleil show, billed as "the sensual side of Cirque du Soleil" or "another side...
for two years. After releasing her 2003 album Sun Again, she moved to Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
. However, she was back home in Canada by the following year.
In 1997, Starr appeared on the Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair
Lilith Fair was a concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the summer of 2010. It...
tour. In the late '90s and in 2004, she toured Canada with Veda Hille
Veda Hille
Veda Hille is a Canadian singer-songwriter.- Biography :Veda Hille was born in 1968 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She started playing piano when she was 6 at her own insistence. Her family moved around a lot, from the city to the country and back again...
and Oh Susanna
Suzie Ungerleider
Suzie Ungerleider, who writes and performs under the name Oh Susanna, is an American-Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter. Born in the United States, she was raised in Vancouver, British Columbia and is currently based in Toronto.-Bio:...
as part of the "Scrappy Bitch Tour".
In 2001, she played Reggie in Down and Out with the Dolls, a Kurt Voss
Kurt Voss
Kurt Voss is an American film director, screenwriter and musician/songwriter. He often works with fellow UCLA alumnus Allison Anders...
movie about a fictional all-girl rock band.
Starr creates the visual artwork that appears on her album covers and liner notes.
Starr has enlisted other Canadian musicians to appear on her albums over the years, including Swollen Members
Swollen Members
Swollen Members is a Canadian hip hop group from Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada consisting mainly of the duo Mad Child, and Prevail. Frequent collaborators include vocalist Moka Only and producer Rob the Viking, an official group member since 2002...
' Moka Only
Moka Only
Daniel Denton , known professionally as Moka Only, is a Canadian hip hop artist. Originally from Langford, British Columbia, near Victoria, he is now based in Vancouver. He was previously part of the hip hop group Swollen Members, and briefly a part of Len. His albums are released by Legendary...
, Coco Love Alcorn
Coco Love Alcorn
Coco Love Alcorn is a Canadian pop and jazz singer. The daughter of jazz singer John Alcorn, she released her debut album in 1995. She subsequently toured as an opening act for Burton Cummings, Chantal Kreviazuk, Jesse Cook and Ani DiFranco, and performed on some Lilith Fair dates.She is also a...
, former Dream Warrior Spek
Spek
Hussain Yoosuf, better known by his stage name Spek, is a Canadian hip-hop artist, best known for his singles "Smell the Coffee" and "I'm a Hippie", and as a member of Canadian hip hop group, Dream Warriors.-Early career:...
and Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara
Tegan and Sara
Tegan and Sara are a Canadian indie band composed of identical twin sisters Tegan Rain Quin and Sara Keirsten Quin . Both Tegan and Sara play guitar and keyboard and write songs.-History:...
. Nelly Furtado
Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Furtado grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.Furtado first gained fame with her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, and its single "I'm Like a Bird", which won a 2001 Juno Award for Single of the Year and a 2002 Grammy...
credits Starr as an influence. Starr also produced the album We Are... by Digging Roots, which won the Juno Award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year
Juno Award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year
The Juno Award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year, formerly known as Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording, is an annual award presented by Canada's Juno Awards for the best album by a Aboriginal peoples in Canada....
at the Juno Awards of 2010
Juno Awards of 2010
The Juno Awards of 2010 honoured music industry achievements in Canada for the latter part of 2008 and for most of 2009. These ceremonies were in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada during the weekend ending 18 April 2010...
.
Starr appeared as a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show on August 11, 2006. On August 31, her single "Anything" was the first-ever #1 single on CBC Radio 3
CBC Radio 3
CBC Radio 3 is a radio station that consists of two parts devoted to Canadian arts and music: a radio service which is available on Sirius Satellite Radio and streaming audio, and several daily and weekly podcasts from the CBC Radio 3 website...
's new countdown show The R3-30
The R3-30
The R3-30 is a weekly record chart show on CBC Radio 3, which counts down the week's top indie rock singles as determined by airplay , listener feedback , and other criteria . The show, hosted by Craig Norris and produced by Pedro Mendes, airs at 11 a.m Eastern time The R3-30 is a weekly record...
.
Discography
- Learn 2 Cook demo (1995)
- TidyTidy (album)Tidy is an album by Kinnie Starr, released in 1996 on Violet Inch Records.-Track listing:# "Grandma's Bicycle"# "Ophelia"# "Stiff Sour Lemon Rind"# "Loons"# "Um...Ah..."# "Spring Again"# "Rime Gone Wrong"# "Woven"# "Month of Trickery"...
(1996) - Tune-Up (2000)
- Sun Again (2003)
- AnythingAnything (Kinnie Starr album)Anything is an album by Kinnie Starr, released in 2006 on MapleMusic Recordings.The album's title track was the first-ever #1 single on CBC Radio 3's new countdown show The R3-30.-Track listing:# "Step Back"# "Anything"# "La Le La La"...
(2006) - A Different Day (2010)
2004
- Juno Awards
- New Artist of the YearJuno Award for New Artist of the YearThe Juno Award for New Artist of the Year has been awarded since 1974 as recognition each year for the best new artist/musician in Canada. The category was originally divided by separate awards for men and women...
(Sun Again) - Nominated
- New Artist of the Year
Music videos
- "Ophelia" Director: Marsha Herle
- "Month of Trickery" Director: Marsha Herle
- "Nearer" Director: Marsha Herle
See also
- Canadian hip hopCanadian hip hopThe Canadian hip hop scene was first established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much more slowly than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained largely an underground phenomenon until the...
- First Nations musicFirst Nations musicAboriginal music of Canada encompasses a wide variety of musical genres created by Canada's Aboriginal people. Before European settlers came to what is now Canada, the region was occupied by a large number of aboriginal peoples, including the West Coast Salish and Haida, the centrally located...
External links
- Kinnie Starr
- http://www.kinniestarr.net