Just before dusk on Saturday night, Tanya Tagaq began her performance with the help of a volunteer from the crowd. Together they demonstrated traditional Inuk throat singing for the audience at the Indigenous Arts Festival, held at Fort York.

At the close of the demonstration, she coyly stated something that would become abundantly clear in a few minutes. “I do something like that but a little different.”

As the topic turns to our nation’s politics, the petite beauty speaks with a strong conviction in her voice and a disarming sweetness that belies her vocal performance.

Tagaq’s contemporary fusion of throat singing combined with percussion and violin creates an aural soundscape that is at once haunting, sensual and rhythmic. This enchanting combination, encapsulated so well on her latest album Animism (Six Shooter Records), has won the hearts and ears of the 2015 Juno and Polaris judges and has rightfully brought Tanya Tagaq into the national spotlight