Summary
Jannok's music, which she herself has a hard time trying to define, is a mix of jazz, pop, and joik. Joik, a singing style connected to the Sami, was for a long time considered heathen, and many Sami stopped joiking for fear of being cut off from society or being viewed as uncultivated. "I didn't learn to joik at home, for example. That's something that disappeared with my grandmother. I didn't really understand the difference between joiking and singing until I was in my early teens," Jannok says. "Now I realize that with joiking you need a different technique. It's a wonderful way to express feelings for somebody, because it's very intimate. Traditionally, a joik isn't something you do on stage, but I don't really do a classic kind of joik. I like to experiment a bit with it."
When she is on stage, she performs in a white fur coat, peaked shoes, tassels, and silver Sami brooches. Yet, she remains a bit cautious of representing the Sami people. "It's simply natural to me, it's who I am, not something I try to point out. I grew up speaking Sami, my family keeps reindeers, I went to a Sami school. For a Sami, nature is very important... and reindeer keeping. Of course it's a living culture and constantly changing. But as long as the language stays alive, the culture stays alive.""We aren't used to having people give us chords and ready-made music. And Sofia would tell us she wanted the sound of a 'bird with sorrow' or 'like the vast expanses'. That's our way of communication and we understood each other."See the full content of this document
Extract
Sami Girl Takes On New York
24-year old singer Sofia Jannok from Gallivare at the top of Sweden breezed Into the Big Apple to do a radio show at the Sirius Radio Station. Nordic Reach sat down with the young Sami and her band, Peter Tikkanen Trio to hear about joiks, reindeer and the great white expanse of the Nort...
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