Singer Jully Black empowers by changing one word of ‘O Canada’

Reggae great, Beres Hammond, sings the power of what one dance can do, in the song of the same name; last Sunday, soulful singer Jully Black sang the power of what one word can do.

The JUNO award-winning and platinum-selling artiste – whose parents are Jamaican and who reps Jamaica with reggae songs and posts on social media – sang the Canadian national anthem, O Canada, for the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star Game at the Salt Lake City stadium in Utah. In a pre-show social media post, Black wrote, “So excited to be part of the NBA All-Star Weekend! Singing our National Anthem at an event of this magnitude has been a lifelong dream!”

Black did an exceptional job of singing a spine-tingling rendition of the anthem of the country in which she was born, but she has since set off tsunami of reaction for changing up one word in the song.

Instead of sticking to the script and singing “O Canada, our home and native land” Black sang “O Canada, our home on native land”, a powerful nod to the indigenous people of Canada.

“I sang the facts. We are walking, breathing, living, experiencing life on native land. On Indigenous land,” Jully Black told The National on Monday.

In an interview with the BBC, Black explained that after some Indigenous communities in Canada said they had found evidence of unmarked graves on the grounds of former residential schools, she stopped singing O Canada.

According to reports, the residential schools forcibly separated Indigenous children from their parents as part of an effort to convert them to Christianity and assimilate them into the wider Canadian culture. In total, 150,000 children from Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit tribes were placed in 139 schools run under government contract – most by the Catholic Church – over a 150-year period up to the 1970s.

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Survivors testified about children who died at the schools, where students were often housed in poorly built, poorly heated, and unsanitary facilities. A 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report concluded that “children were abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country”.

“Our home and native land is a lie. Our home on native land is the truth,” the BBC reported Black as saying.

In July 2022 Pope Francis visited Canada and issued an apology.

“I am sorry. I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Francis said.

Jully Black has been praised by many since making her statement in song.

In the BBC report, Niigaan Sinclair, a professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba, who is Anishinaabe, stated, “What Jully Black did was she shared her power and her opportunity to give us attention. It should be a model for every Canadian. Fundamentally, the national anthem – like the flag, like our laws and policies – has been used to oppress us as indigenous people, and the more that we can challenge that, the better.”

A songwriter, producer and actress, Black has earned the title Canada’s Queen of R&B. According to her biography, she has collaborated with several artistes like Nas, Saukrates, Choclair, Kardinal Offishall, Destiny’s Child and Sean Paul.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1977, she grew up in a musical family and began singing in the church choir at a young age. She released her first single, Rally’n, which became an instant hit and established her as a rising star in the Canadian music scene.

Over the next few years, Jully Black released a series of successful singles and albums, including This Is Me, Revival, and The Black Book. In 2022, she released the critically acclaimed Three Rocks and a Slingshot, which she says is a reference to David and Goliath.

Her bio states that her music draws on a wide range of influences, from classic soul and R&B to hip-hop and reggae, and her lyrics often address issues of social justice, empowerment, and self-love. In 2013, CBC Music named her one of the 25 Greatest Canadian Singers Ever and in 2021 Jully Black was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com