Throat Singer Wins Polaris

Tagaq has already accumulated two Juno awards and was featured on Bjork’s album Medulla, although she is not well known in the U.S.

By winning the Polaris prize, which is voted on by an 11-member jury, she gets awarded C$30,000 ($27,000). The award honors the year’s best recording by a Canadian artist.  

Tagaq was criticized earlier this year for tweeting a photo of her daughter beside a dead seal. During her acceptance speech, Tagaq doubled down on the controversy, which is part of Inuit culture.

“People should wear and eat seal as much as possible because if you can imagine an indigenous culture thriving and surviving on sustainable resource, wearing seal and eating it, it’s delicious and there’s lots of them,” she said. “I really believe that if hipsters can make flower beards in, then you can do it with seal.”