by VINCENT TINGUELY

Whether reminiscing about summers spent under canvas, or relating the gritty urban destinies of real people like popular Nunavik singer Charlie Adams, spoken word artist Taqralik Partridge evokes her people in vivid colours.

“What I tend to write about or talk about is very personal to me,” says Partridge. “It’s always about Inuit, in the north or in the south. And I have to kind of balance between talking about things that are difficult, and not wanting to offend people. I want it to be truthful, but I try to make things a bit general.”

Partridge weaves a style of spoken word that blends the storytelling chops and sly humour of Inuit culture with the everyday slang and rhythms of the urban Canadian zeitgeist. A veteran of the stage as a traditional throatsinger, Partridge only began performing her pieces a couple of years ago, after hearing Ian Kamau’s contribution to the K-OS track “Papercutz.” “I just had to turn it up, keep rewinding it,” Partridge remembers. “I got kind of obsessed with this guy. I googled him, and I went to Toronto to a book launch for the T-Dot Griots. Man, I was completely taken aback.”

Seeing performers like Kamau and Naila Belvett convinced Partridge that spoken word was what she’d been seeking. Since then, she’s performed at Westfest in Ottawa, and with Geronimo Inutiq, aka DJ Mad Eskimo at Words and Music at the Casa here in Montreal. Her track, “Eskimo Chick,” appeared on a compilation CD with Spirit magazine’s spring 2006 issue, and she’s recently received a Canada Council grant to perform in select northern communities and produce her first spoken word CD.

She’s already brought her work to Kuujjuarapik, where she performed for high school kids. “When I did it for the students, they were taking their breakdance class and I talked to them about what I do, and then I did a few pieces for them, and there were just these blank faces,” says Partridge. “But when the performance came in the evening and the whole community was there, they were yelling, ‘Eskimo Chick’! ‘Eskimo Chick!’”