Biography

Winner of three 2023 Summer Solstice Indigenous Music Awards for Artistic Video, Pop/Alternative/Rock Album of the Year, and Rising Star, winner of the 2023 Jim Beam Indie Award for Indigenous Artist of the Year, and winner of a 2023 Canadian Live Music Award for New Touring Artist of the Year, Aysanabee (he/him) is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and singer songwriter currently based in Toronto. He is Oji-Cree, Sucker Clan of the Sandy Lake First Nation, a remote fly-in community in the far reaches of Northwestern Ontario. Among his many accomplishments, Aysanabee was also nominated for a 2023 JUNO Award for Contemporary Indigenous Group or Artist of the Year, and became the first Indigenous artist to hit Number 1 on Mediabase Canada's Alternative Rock chart (March 2023). Aysanabee began creating music under his mother’s maiden name during the pandemic when the stillness allowed him to slow down and create music that, he says, more accurately represents himself as an artist. With a swirling mix of indie, soul, and electronic sounds, mournful saxophone, and pulse-quickening fingerpicking, Aysanabee's music is both hypnotic and melodious, and has been compared to Bon Iver, Matt Corby, Don Ross, Kim Churchill, Kings of Leon, and Sam Smith among others. Aysanabee’s much anticipated new single, Somebody Else, releasing June 2023 in support of a full calendar of tour and festival dates for the in-demand artist.