Oshke ye ii - Meaning New One in Ojibway is a collection of 10 tracks reflecting the general shift
that inspired its name. Some of the song titles are even infused with humour to convey that everything changes and that
we can all laugh about it.
"When I look back on it, I understand what he wanted to do," Randy says of his father's foresight.
"This particular album, there are new, younger singers jumping on board and guys like myself are getting up there...we realize
that things will eventually change again. Once, we were the young guys who came in."
The new generation draws from their heritage; a long line of singers who's blood is
ingrained with the beat of their grandfathers' drums. Along with the new compositions, they sing their own versions
of the traditional songs rooted in the Whitefish Bay community. Members of the older generation instruct how to weave
creativity into those songs without deviating too far, just as they were taught by their own fathers.
"We sing at a higher pitch,"
Randy explains as the difference between their sound and the purely tradtional form.
"We're more or less contemporary singers. A lot of the songs
we sing are sung in a way that even the songs themselves are different than how my grandfathers sang their songs, We sing
it a lot louder too."
He pauses
"At the heart of it,
the spirit is still there. Like i said, it's kind of in our bloodlines.
-taken from City Life in Kenora (daily miner and news) by Jon Thompson interviewing
Randy White-Whitefishbay Singer, November 2007.
