The Folk on the Rocks lineup will be equal parts North and South this year.
Those Northern acts are highlighted by a local underground rap group taking center stage Friday evening as 'Ororo Mohawk' will close out Warm the Rocks. The band, that is named after a superhero from the popular comic book series X-men, who carries the nickname ‘Storm’ that can control the weather. The band's lead rapper, Alex Weir describes their groups style as having Heavy 808's and Dense Lyricism.
“The other thing about storm and this whole weather witch motif is that sort of conceptually it frees us up to do any kind of style of music that we want, because weather is chaotic it can be anything,” said Weir.
“The main theme of our new album LILITH, and Ororo Mohawk as a project, is about the power and beauty of darkness. Our music is a way to indulge in darkness, to harness and expel that wild energy. That's why we rip so hard if I do say so myself.”
Weir says that this year's Warm the Rocks event will be the band's final hurrah, meaning the band will have come full circle after the pair first got connected through the annual festival.
Weir first got paired with music producer Nick Walker, the other half of Ororo Mohawk, after they heard each other perform on separate year's at the annual youth competition Rock the Folks.
“So in high school he had this monologue to explain his thought process for his musical set (when he played at the festival) and I really dug it so in 2014 or 2015 I messaged him like hey can i have the transcript for your set. Then eventually he messaged me later” said Weir, “so I also did Rock the Folks, I did a rap set and then that pinged me on his radar I guess. Eventually we just established contact through that.”
Walker expanded by noting that at the same time that Weir was performing Rock the Folks, he was looking to produce more Rap beats, so that once they got connected it felt natural that they would continue to work together.
“I had just finished going from Ottawa to Montreal and um I was done with what i was doing in Ottawa and I really wanted to work with a rapper, I really wanted to produce in the summer and the only person i could think of that would be dope enough and would be really chill was Alex,” said Walker. “So i just sent him a message one day and was like 'yo i think we have similar brains wanna hang out and see what happens.'"
The pair then debuted as Ororo Mohawk in 2016 by hosting a number of shows in Weir's basement.
“We just started having basement shows like frig, instead of booking some like Black Knight show or whatever lets just pack like 40 people in here and see how rowdy we can get,” said Walker.
From there the pair went on to play a show at After 8 pub, NWT Pride and The Raven Pub. Now they will be coming back to where it all began at Folk on the Rocks. The pair will be the last act of the night, meaning they will play after one of Yellowknife's most well known musicians, Tanya Tagaq, who is the headliner for Friday’s show.
“She's playing before us, that's messed up, I think she should be playing after us, it's one of those Wayne's world moments where we're like 'We're not worthy, we're not worthy','' said Walker.
Joining Ororo Mohawk and Tanya Tagaq on the Friday will be another Yellowknife musician, Andrea Bettger who will be playing earlier in the evening at Somba K'e plaza. But while Friday will heavily feature local acts, the weekend will be headlined by acts from Southern Canada. Whitehorse will close out Saturday and 'Stars' will be the last act on Sunday before the Yellowknife Dene First Nation's drummers close out the entire festival.
This will be Whitehorse's second time playing in Yellowknife and Luke Doucet a member of the band says that the band feels a connection to Northern Canada despite being from the south.
“We seriously considered calling ourselves Yellowknife, we wanted to use a Canadian Geographic for our name,” said Doucet. “Our music uses a lot of space and loneliness and cold and we thought that is an indicator of what people think of the north.”
Folk attendees can expect just over an hour of rock 'n' roll from the Saturday headliner that is now a threesome after going through a bit of a transition.
“In the past we've been a duo, we started off as a folk duo but then we expanded into a whole bunch of technology and creating sound scapes and textures. Now were a pretty leaned three piece rock and roll band,” said Doucet. “Very quickly we realized that this is the best version of this band that we've had.”
While Ororo Mohawk will be disbanding after this year's Folk festival, the marquee Yellowknife will just be another stop for the more established Whitehorse.
“We're flying straight to Denver, Colorado to play with Sarah McLaughlin,” said Doucet.