Mari Boine

Who is she?

  • Sami musician

  • From Gámehisnjárga, Karasjok, Finnmark, Norway

  • Born 8th of November, 1956

  • Grew up amid the Laestadian Christian movement with discrimination against her people

More information

"BY TELLING MY OWN PERSONAL STORY AS A SÁMI, I FEEL I’M SHARING A PIECE OF MY PEOPLE’S STORY. "

“IT is not that I was always a political activist. And I certainly never profess to represent Sápmi. It’s just that music gave me a profile and gave me a platform, so I used it. After all, my songs describe the pain of oppression and the struggle to reclaim self-respect, but I also sing about the joy of growing up within a culture that has such a close bond with nature.”

Achivements

  • In 2003, Boine was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize. She was appointed knight, first class in the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for her artistic diversity on 18 September 2009.

  • On 7 October 2012, Boine was appointed as a "statsstipendiat", an artist with national funding, the highest honour that can be bestowed upon any artist in Norway.

Musical style

  • Singing in the traditional Sami yoik style was considered "the devil's work" according to the strict Laestadianism Christianity that was forced upon the Sami people in the middle of the 19th century. The local school that Boine attended reflected a very different world from her family's. All the teaching was in Norwegian. Her songs are strongly rooted in her experience of being a despised minority.

  • As Boine grew up, she started to rebel against the prejudiced attitude of being an inferior "Lappish" woman in Norwegian society.

  • The song 'Oppskrift for Herrefolk' (Recipe for a Master Race) on her breakthrough CD 'Gula Gula', sung in Norwegian unlike the rest of the songs which are in Sami, speaks directly of 'discrimination and hate', and recommends ways of oppressing a minority: "Use bible and booze and bayonet"; "Use articles of law against ancient rights"

  • Even though some of her songs is more negative, most of them are positive singing about the beauty and wildness of Lapland, Sampi.

  • Boine sings in a traditional Sami style, using the "yoik" voice, with a range of accompanying instruments and percussion.

  • Drums, guitar, electric bass clarinet, dozo n'koni, ganga, claypot, darboka, tambourine, seed rattles, cymbal, clarinet, piano, frame drum, saz, drone drum, hammered dulcimer, bosoki, overtone flute, bells, bass, quena, charango and antara are all instruments that she uses.

Album: See the Woman

“SEE the woman” is an album shaped by international cooperation. Most lyrics are from artists descending from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa and the USA. Mari Boine adapted them from poems, songs and prose texts over a period of several years. It is a work of art from a female perspective, reflecting the role of women in today’s society. “It’s not like you fight for something, and then it’s done. You have to be awake. The struggle for equality is an ongoing thing”, says Boine. She stresses the importance of the contributions of Maori singer Moana Maniapoto and the three songs by Native American activists and poets John Trudell and Joy Harjo.

“A good language to sing in, so rich for the voice,”

AS an artist and activist, she has worked tirelessly for the recognition and preservation of the indigenous Sami culture, thus inspiring younger generations to be proud of their unique roots. Even though Boine draws heavily on her musical heritage (Christian Lestadian hymn singing, Sami joik chants, and Norwegian folk music), she masterfully blends these influences with modern musical elements from jazz, rock, and pop.

WHEN Mari Boine made her music debut in the early 1980s, she was an angry young woman. And she had every right to be. Christianity, repression of the Sámi language and the oppressive culture of “the big men down south” – these all weighed heavily on the mind of a girl raised in her native language but discouraged from performing traditional joik.

Want to learn more?

You can visit her own website: https://www.mariboine.no/bio/

A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock, and world.

An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots.

A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for.

A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over.

Mari Boine. She’s got soul.

Bibliography: