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Seven months ago, Ian Campeau quit the musical group he co-founded just as it was gaining considerable acclaim, and headed back to his farm near Perth.
Today the musician known as DJ NDN is growing vegetables, learning Ojibwe, diving more fully into advocacy work, giving motivational speeches, and promoting a cannabis company.
And, at this moment, he is cuddling his youngest child, baby Nenookaase, who has just woken up from her nap and is nuzzling her head in his chest. The school bus will deliver the two older girls, ages 9 and 10, in a few hours.
“No regrets,” says the co-founder of A Tribe Called Red. The Ottawa group combined First Nations beats and electronic music to create a powerful new genre dubbed “powwow step.” They began with “electric pow wow” parties at Babylon Night Club on Bank Street and went on to win three Juno Awards — including Group of the Year in 2018 — and attract a global following. A Tribe Called Red performed across North America, in Europe and Australia.
“It was emotionally taxing,” says Campeau. He constantly felt the tug of what he was missing back home.
“It’s not like we could travel the world with him,” says his wife, Justine, a slip of a woman with a disarmingly open manner and a quick laugh. “We could not afford it. So it was a life of heartbreak … or this.”
This is their 11-acre hobby farm, with a big goofy dog named DJ asleep under the kitchen table, chickens pecking around the yard and downy ducklings under heat lamps in the ramshackle barn.
Neither of them knew much about farming when they moved from an apartment with a balcony on Sunnyside Avenue in Ottawa to the farm three years ago.
As a child, Justine remembers watching her mother gardening in their backyard in Arnprior. Campeau grew up in Orléans.
Today they talk about the deep quiet as night falls on the farm and the pleasure of planting and harvesting lettuce, eggplants, sorghum and tomatoes. They heat the old house with wood and are investigating wind and solar power.
It’s not exactly off the grid, but the helpful, self-reliant neighbours along a rural road off Hwy. 7 are part of the charm.
Justine says she called on them when water began pouring through a leaky roof and Campeau was on tour. She bought hens after a neighbour asked her, incredulously: “You aren’t spending money on chickens at the grocery store, are you?”
“Chicks only cost $1,” says Justine. “If you do the math…”
Campeau says he’s tried to convince friends to join them — quit that job you hate and move to the country! There have been no takers yet, he says with a self-deprecating smile.
A Tribe Called Red, with their turntables and giant screens, performed at a special concert hosted by Heritage Minister Shelly Glover at the National Arts Centre on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, to promote Canadian musicians. Ian Campeau is on the left.
The new life means he has more time for advocacy work, including promoting the Ojibwe language, which he is learning himself, with help from relatives at his ancestral home at Nipissing First Nation as well as classes via Skype. His great grandmother and grandmother spoke Ojibwe, but not his mother.
He pulls out his cellphone to share pictures of birds and their Ojibwe names, marvelling at how the words mimic the actual bird calls.
Campeau is known for speaking out on issues, from Indigenous rights to the need to combat racism to gender-based violence and stigmas surrounding mental illness. He filed a human-rights complaint that convinced a local football team to change its name from the Nepean Redskins to the Eagles.
He has stepped up his public speaking, giving talks to corporate bigwigs and university students.
Campeau also has a paid gig as a “brand ambassador” for Leafly, a website that provides information about cannabis strains and dispensaries. He used the Leafly app extensively himself, he says. He sees the job as a chance to educate Canadians as the country moves toward legalization of recreational marijuana.
It’s also a platform for him to talk about the value of medical cannabis in his own life.
That story began eight years ago, when Justine was breastfeeding their second daughter. She noticed a lump. She was only 25, and her doctor assured her it was nothing to be concerned about, but Justine insisted on an ultrasound.
Shortly after that test, the call came. “Come to the doctor’s office. And do not drive yourself.”
The following months of all-out assault on her Stage 3 cancer — a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation — are a blur for them both.
“I was so ill,” she sighs.
She had trouble lifting her arm where the lymph nodes had been removed, and relied on heavy-duty painkillers.
Their girls were one and three at the time.
Campeau recalls working as a DJ until the early hours, coming home and trying to catch some sleep before rising early to take care of the girls and his gravely ill wife.
He decided to try cannabis to relieve the stress — he remembered smoking pot occasionally in high school and how sleepy it made him.
Today Campeau credits cannabis with helping him control the depression and anxiety that at times over the intervening years became crippling as he coped with not only his wife’s health problems but the growing fame of the band and endless touring.
Campeau began suffering from anxiety attacks that almost derailed the band’s tour in 2015. “It feels like there is a fire in the room and you are tying to put it out, but everything you do makes it worse,” he explains.
Fans probably assumed the colourful mask Campeau sometimes wore on stage was just a fun, theatrical part of the show. It was actually a way to cope with anxiety. “That is why I wore a mask on stage.”
Ian Campeau smoking a joint on his farm near Perth, Ontario.
Justine at first rejected the idea of cannabis after a pain doctor suggested she try it. “I grew up thinking it was the worst thing ever.”
But the cancer left her with nerve damage and chronic pain for which she was prescribed progressively stronger medication. When a doctor suggested she try fentanyl, Justine decided it was time to give cannabis a try.
Today she doesn’t use opioids, she says. She manages her pain by vaporizing with cannabis, using cannabis salve, and putting drops of concentrate into the honey that sweetens her tea. Cannabis also helps control the anxiety she feels about the creeping possibility the disease will come back, she says.
“It was a miracle,” says Campeau. “You can’t tell me this isn’t medicine.”
They are both signed up as legal medical cannabis patients. Justine has applied for a Health Canada licence to grow her own cannabis on the farm.
She no longer feels shy about mentioning her cannabis use — in fact, Justine has a YouTube channel called The Lifted Sisters where she and a friend talk about making cannabis “fun and safe,” explain varieties and review products.
Even Campeau’s occasional music gigs these days are often connected to cannabis. He DJs at a vape lounge in Toronto, with proceeds going to charity.
He says he has no immediate plans to form a new musical group.
“I’m the DJ in this house now,” jokes Justine. “Beyoncé! Beyoncé! Beyoncé!” With a little Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Wiggles thrown in for the baby.
But artistic projects are on the horizon. Maybe a podcast, says Campeau. “I’m feeling the creative itch.”
jmiller@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JacquieAMiller
查看原文...
Today the musician known as DJ NDN is growing vegetables, learning Ojibwe, diving more fully into advocacy work, giving motivational speeches, and promoting a cannabis company.
And, at this moment, he is cuddling his youngest child, baby Nenookaase, who has just woken up from her nap and is nuzzling her head in his chest. The school bus will deliver the two older girls, ages 9 and 10, in a few hours.
“No regrets,” says the co-founder of A Tribe Called Red. The Ottawa group combined First Nations beats and electronic music to create a powerful new genre dubbed “powwow step.” They began with “electric pow wow” parties at Babylon Night Club on Bank Street and went on to win three Juno Awards — including Group of the Year in 2018 — and attract a global following. A Tribe Called Red performed across North America, in Europe and Australia.
“It was emotionally taxing,” says Campeau. He constantly felt the tug of what he was missing back home.
“It’s not like we could travel the world with him,” says his wife, Justine, a slip of a woman with a disarmingly open manner and a quick laugh. “We could not afford it. So it was a life of heartbreak … or this.”
This is their 11-acre hobby farm, with a big goofy dog named DJ asleep under the kitchen table, chickens pecking around the yard and downy ducklings under heat lamps in the ramshackle barn.
Neither of them knew much about farming when they moved from an apartment with a balcony on Sunnyside Avenue in Ottawa to the farm three years ago.
As a child, Justine remembers watching her mother gardening in their backyard in Arnprior. Campeau grew up in Orléans.
Today they talk about the deep quiet as night falls on the farm and the pleasure of planting and harvesting lettuce, eggplants, sorghum and tomatoes. They heat the old house with wood and are investigating wind and solar power.
It’s not exactly off the grid, but the helpful, self-reliant neighbours along a rural road off Hwy. 7 are part of the charm.
Justine says she called on them when water began pouring through a leaky roof and Campeau was on tour. She bought hens after a neighbour asked her, incredulously: “You aren’t spending money on chickens at the grocery store, are you?”
“Chicks only cost $1,” says Justine. “If you do the math…”
Campeau says he’s tried to convince friends to join them — quit that job you hate and move to the country! There have been no takers yet, he says with a self-deprecating smile.
A Tribe Called Red, with their turntables and giant screens, performed at a special concert hosted by Heritage Minister Shelly Glover at the National Arts Centre on Tuesday, May 27, 2014, to promote Canadian musicians. Ian Campeau is on the left.
The new life means he has more time for advocacy work, including promoting the Ojibwe language, which he is learning himself, with help from relatives at his ancestral home at Nipissing First Nation as well as classes via Skype. His great grandmother and grandmother spoke Ojibwe, but not his mother.
He pulls out his cellphone to share pictures of birds and their Ojibwe names, marvelling at how the words mimic the actual bird calls.
Campeau is known for speaking out on issues, from Indigenous rights to the need to combat racism to gender-based violence and stigmas surrounding mental illness. He filed a human-rights complaint that convinced a local football team to change its name from the Nepean Redskins to the Eagles.
He has stepped up his public speaking, giving talks to corporate bigwigs and university students.
Campeau also has a paid gig as a “brand ambassador” for Leafly, a website that provides information about cannabis strains and dispensaries. He used the Leafly app extensively himself, he says. He sees the job as a chance to educate Canadians as the country moves toward legalization of recreational marijuana.
It’s also a platform for him to talk about the value of medical cannabis in his own life.
That story began eight years ago, when Justine was breastfeeding their second daughter. She noticed a lump. She was only 25, and her doctor assured her it was nothing to be concerned about, but Justine insisted on an ultrasound.
Shortly after that test, the call came. “Come to the doctor’s office. And do not drive yourself.”
The following months of all-out assault on her Stage 3 cancer — a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation — are a blur for them both.
“I was so ill,” she sighs.
She had trouble lifting her arm where the lymph nodes had been removed, and relied on heavy-duty painkillers.
Their girls were one and three at the time.
Campeau recalls working as a DJ until the early hours, coming home and trying to catch some sleep before rising early to take care of the girls and his gravely ill wife.
He decided to try cannabis to relieve the stress — he remembered smoking pot occasionally in high school and how sleepy it made him.
Today Campeau credits cannabis with helping him control the depression and anxiety that at times over the intervening years became crippling as he coped with not only his wife’s health problems but the growing fame of the band and endless touring.
Campeau began suffering from anxiety attacks that almost derailed the band’s tour in 2015. “It feels like there is a fire in the room and you are tying to put it out, but everything you do makes it worse,” he explains.
Fans probably assumed the colourful mask Campeau sometimes wore on stage was just a fun, theatrical part of the show. It was actually a way to cope with anxiety. “That is why I wore a mask on stage.”
Ian Campeau smoking a joint on his farm near Perth, Ontario.
Justine at first rejected the idea of cannabis after a pain doctor suggested she try it. “I grew up thinking it was the worst thing ever.”
But the cancer left her with nerve damage and chronic pain for which she was prescribed progressively stronger medication. When a doctor suggested she try fentanyl, Justine decided it was time to give cannabis a try.
Today she doesn’t use opioids, she says. She manages her pain by vaporizing with cannabis, using cannabis salve, and putting drops of concentrate into the honey that sweetens her tea. Cannabis also helps control the anxiety she feels about the creeping possibility the disease will come back, she says.
“It was a miracle,” says Campeau. “You can’t tell me this isn’t medicine.”
They are both signed up as legal medical cannabis patients. Justine has applied for a Health Canada licence to grow her own cannabis on the farm.
She no longer feels shy about mentioning her cannabis use — in fact, Justine has a YouTube channel called The Lifted Sisters where she and a friend talk about making cannabis “fun and safe,” explain varieties and review products.
Even Campeau’s occasional music gigs these days are often connected to cannabis. He DJs at a vape lounge in Toronto, with proceeds going to charity.
He says he has no immediate plans to form a new musical group.
“I’m the DJ in this house now,” jokes Justine. “Beyoncé! Beyoncé! Beyoncé!” With a little Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the Wiggles thrown in for the baby.
But artistic projects are on the horizon. Maybe a podcast, says Campeau. “I’m feeling the creative itch.”
jmiller@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JacquieAMiller
查看原文...
