Hey all,
I know it's not a huge deal, but figured I'd give a little bit of transparency with the ListenBrainz playlist and something that's come up recently.
A few days ago I shared a track by the name of "Sons of Labrador" by the Gregoire Boys. While I've been trying to keep the playlist in order, getting this track to it's proper place in the playlist had a little bit of a roadblock considering how obscure the album it's from seems to be.
It's more or less normal coming across a situation where a track and the single, EP, or album it's on needs to be added to the MusicBrainz database in order for it to be added to the playlist, that in general is no issue and has popped up a few times beforehand, such as when adding Photoromance by BeLI, Well Oh Well by Cousin Harley, or Nalligigakku by Joey Nowyuk to the playlist.
However, the issue that came up with Sons of Labrador was that the release, Puamun, has never seemed to have a full digital release before. Sons of Labrador is the only track available off the album on Nikamowin, and beyond that and the fact it was released on CD, no information online. I needed to ask in the MusicBrainz Matrix room how to add a release I didn't know the tracklist for, and thankfully they helped me input the limited data into the database properly.
If anything this ordeal goes to show how much we can neglect music talents here in Canada, especially those in Indigenous communities such as the Gregoire Boys, who hail from a very remote small town in Northern Labrador that can only be accessed by plane.
Hopefully similar situations don't arise in the future, as it would be unfortunate knowing other Canadian music is facing the same fate, but should that be the case, adding the tracks in question to MusicBrainz shouldn't be an issue going forward.
"Not a tiny selection of them who want to maximize rent seeking".
Ah yes, indigenous people. The greediest people in the country. Get the fuck out of here with your garbage. Human rights are not on the debate table, and you frankly saying they want to "maximize rent" as if they're leeching to profit off the country rather than have a means to reasonably support themselves fiscally is downright disgusting.
If a rich person decided to buy the resources off the indigenous, and they decided it was in their best interest to take the offer, then yeah, while I'd be opposed to the idea of that, it's still their treaty rights to decide for themselves.
Treaty rights are human rights and they are not on the table, and to suggest otherwise in any matter is to ignore the bullshit indigenous people have had to deal with for generations. They are to be included in the conversation because they are quite literally more "Canadian" than anybody else in the country and deserve to have their voices heard and their standard of living raised just as any other person's should be with harvesting our natural resources.