Jully Black: ‘O Canada’ Anthem Lyric Change Was a ‘Remix,’ Land ‘Is Not Ours’

Canadian singer Jully Black described her change to the lyrics of Canada’s national anthem as a “remix” in a Tuesday interview.

At Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game on Sunday in Salt Lake City, UT. Black sang different lyrics for O Canada. Black switched out the original verse, “O Canada! Our home and native land!” for “O Canada! Our home on native land!”

Black rejected Canadian sovereignty in her remarks by framing Canadian territory as a sovereign territory of unspecified Aboriginal tribes.

She remarked, “As a songwriter, I didn’t want to disrespect the songwriter, but I also realize that we are on the land — like, on it — we don’t own it, it’s not ours. I wish I could kind of sit with the songwriter and say, ‘Hey, you might have got the facts wrong, and could we do a bit of a remix?'”

Black said her revision of O Canada amounted to a “land acknowledgment.”

“This is an opportunity for me, as a black woman, to walk my talk,” she added, “and be the support that I’ve been asking for my whole life, be the ally, and the accomplice, the co-conspirator.”

She continued, “I really hope that my the amplification of this story will shed more light on what changes need to happen. I’m right away.”

Black concluded by calling for unity among “BIPOC” persons. She said:

 

The indigenous community have my back, and this phrase came out many years ago — BIPOC, black indigenous people of color — but what people don’t realize is all of the cultures I mentioned, we haven’t been able to support one another, because we’re so disenfranchised. 

I’ve been focusing on, ‘I’m black. What about me?’, ‘Indigenous, we’re indigenous, what about us?’, ‘People of color, what about us?’ 

But now, this bridge can start to be built, but one by one, we can come together and really be support each other.

Black ended the interview by thanking CTV for its “support” of her conduct.

Recent years have seen growing use among politicians and other government figures prefacing public remarks on Canadian territory with declarations of land being “unceded” by various Aboriginal Canadian tribes.

In 2018, the Canadian government changed its official composition of O Canada to remove the word “sons” as part of an effort to make the anthem “gender neutral.”

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.