Family Day: The Halluci Nation | Xiuhtezcatl | Asase Yaa Youth Ensemble

The Halluci Nation is real. 

After starting a new cycle, 3-time Juno Award Winners Bear Witness and Tim “2oolman” Hill of A Tribe Called Red reintroduced themselves as The Halluci Nation to reflect the evolution of their music and mission. The Halluci Nation took its name from a phrase coined by John Trudell, to describe the vast global community of people who remember at their core, what it means to be human. As a visionary artist and activist, Trudell recognized the connection between his accomplishments and what ATCR did intuitively through music and art. 

Trudell’s voice was the first heard on Tribe’s record, We Are The Halluci Nation, and fittingly, is also the first you hear on The Halluci Nation’s record One More Saturday Night. The album is a love letter to the Electric Pow Wow gatherings launched at Ottawa’s Babylon nightclub in 2007. It represents an imagined denouement to the biweekly Saturday-night parties that ended abruptly in 2017, without ever getting the proper send-off. One More Saturday Night thus pays homage to the parties’ energy and momentum that elevated The Halluci Nation to this pivotal point in their career of fully mastering their own music style while also moving beyond club music; or “mixing dance music with dance music,” as Bear Witness succinctly puts it. 

This is a beginning, not an end, after all. The Halluci Nation maintains focus on what they feel they can impact most: how Indigenous people are seen. Through groundbreaking stage shows and ever-changing visuals, Bear Witness and 2oolman are working to create media that reflects the modern day Indigenous identity. They see themselves simply as contributors to a necessary conversation around a subtle and complex representation of the contemporary Indigenous experience. 

In November 2023 The Halluci Nation continue to contribute to that conversation with their next project, “The Road To Halluci Mania,” a 2-part EP themed around their love for professional wrestling and overcoming obstacles by remaining an authentic representation of oneself. 

“The last album we wrapped up a whole decade of experience up and closed that cycle. In doing so we gave the coordinates of where the future was headed. So that’s what this EP is,” says Bear. “it’s where we are in this present moment and gives another look into plans for the future of The Halluci Nation. It’s a project that people can dance to, but it still has the strong message we are known for. This time we wanted to show it through a bit of a different lens to help further push the conversation about indigenous representation and how we can all impact change”.

“Path of The Heel” exposes listeners to the “Heel” side of professional wrestling and the plot to take down the “baby face” Tag Team Champions by a group named “The Alie Nation.” This concept is played out through the production of hard hitting Dub-Step and Drum & Bass tracks, combined with further experimentation of cross-genre collaborations featuring Damian Abraham, and drum group Northern Cree. The result catapults The Halluci Nation’s classic sound and their message into the present and beyond.

“We wanted to take our music to a place it’s never been before and really challenge our abilities with this project,” says 2oolman. “We showed a little bit of our ambitious side on our last record by making a lot of songs that we’d been wanting to do for a long time. But that was just the beginning. We are at a point where we are making music we love, that is inspired by our everyday lives and all the incredible people that we have been lucky to surround ourselves with. This isn’t even a fraction of it… We’ve got so much more coming.”

This is just the START of THE HALLUCI NATION.

Xiuhtezcatl is a musician, activist, and a prolific voice for his generation. Since taking the global stage by storm at the early age of 6, his art and his voice thrive at the intersection of his many identities. Xiuhtezcatl’s first relationship with music was as a means of preserving his Indigenous culture and language, which influence the sound and direction of his releases to this day. His thought-provoking lyrics are anchored by his Xochimilca and Mexican roots, and the environmental justice work his mother raised him in.

Growing up with deep ties to family and community on both sides of the US and Mexico border, he incorporates Spanish and English interchangeably into his music, which has become an outlet for representing his generation, and his people. Alongside his decades of work as a community activist, Xiuhtezcatl has always believed in the role music and art have to play in creating social change. Xiuhtezcatl began touring the world and sharpening his musical craft at the age of 17. He has performed and collaborated with artists such as Raury, WILLOW, and Jaden, while building outside the boundaries of the music industry to use art to challenge systems of injustice.

Formerly the Youth Director of Earth Guardians, a global environmental activist organization, Xiuhtezcatl has given multiple TED talks, has delivered several speeches before the United Nations, and was named TIMES next 100 in 2019.

X has hosted podcasts, published multiple books on the intersections of community organizing, art, and culture, and continues to use his voice and his art to reclaim space, build community, and engage his generation in reimagining our future.