Hamilton-produced music featured in Indigenous land fight documentary

YINTAH, now on Netflix, chronicles a decade-long battle by the Wet’suwet’en people over 22,000 square kilometres in northern British Columbia.

The documentary YINTAH, added to Netflix in the fall, follows the Wet’suwet’en people’s ongoing fight for their rights as Indigenous people in British Columbia. It has a Hamilton connection.

YINTAH (meaning “land”) includes footage spanning more than a decade and primarily focuses on two Wet’suwet’en leaders, Freda Huson and Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, and their struggle to protect their homelands from what Gidimt’en Checkpoint land defenders describe as Canadian state invasion.

The checkpoint is the site of resistance against the Coastal Gas Link (CGL) pipeline, which is proposed to run through the Wet'suwet'en territory in British Columbia.

Featured in the documentary is a song by Hamilton MC and rapper Lee Reed, produced by fellow Hamiltonian and producer and rapper Cee Reality called, “Get (The Fuck) Off the Yintah.” 

HAMILTON CITY Magazine spoke to Reed about being included on the soundtrack. 

He met Wickam when he was on tour in 2013 with the rap group Test Their Logik.

“We were going to play a show in Unistʼotʼen Camp, which was the only camp at the time out there, but the weather was so bad we ended up playing in Smithers, which is a town not far from Unistʼotʼen,” Reed told HCM. “We stayed with Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, I met Molly there, and I met her sister Jen Wickham, one of the producers and directors of the film. I got to know them then and just sort of stayed in touch over the years, then when things kicked off out there I was in more regular contact.”

For Reed, being included on the film’s soundtrack was a “career highlight,” and one he is “honestly honoured” to have been given.

“I was meant to go out there and perform for the folks who were staying on the land, and I wrote a song to perform for them, but just before I went out there was another round of arrests in late 2021,” said Reed. “When the arrests happened they told me not to come, because it was bad timing. So I called the trip off.”

He then went to Cee Reality’s place where they recorded “Get (The Fuck) Off the Yintah” and sent it to the resistors. He says it was embraced by the group. Reed then set up a Bandcamp page called Wet’suwet’en Hibi C’in, which translates to “their songs,” and made a call to artists to submit tracks. Ten artists joined the Bandcamp project and contributed songs. All the streaming funds go to Gidimt’en Checkpoint.

Cee Reality didn’t realize that the song he helped create was added to the movie’s soundtrack until the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in May. 

““I was sitting with Lee and a massive grin spread on my face. I started chanting with the track, along with much of the audience, I was extremely happy and proud to have the song included.”

Reed describes YINTAH as “gutting, but at the same time, so beautiful.”

“It really accurately captures the relationship between the Canadian state and Indigenous people,” said Reed. “Canada is the world capital of mining, and it plays out across Turtle Island, every place is built off of stealing resources from Indigenous folks. The film gets right to the heart of that matter and shows us how Canada uses its police and paramilitary forces to enforce resource extraction. The Wet’suwet’en folks are on unceded land, that means that they have the final say in what goes on there, they use a Hereditary Chief model of governance, and Canada does not have the permission of the Hereditary Chiefs.”

“Canada is a settler colonial project,” said Cee Reality. “In my opinion, the culture and economic system imposed on Indigenous peoples and their land, through genocide and dispossession, is the same system that is inflicting genocide on Gaza and pushing the whole world into climate catastrophe. For everyone's sake, we need to dismantle these systems, and Land Back and Indigenous sovereignty is one of the most important steps we need to take collectively to solve these massive problems.”

Reed says YINTAH “should be required viewing for young Canadians. It’s an artifact, a really important documentary.”

The artists hope that Netflix’s addition of the documentary will attract eyes that wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to the film, and will further educate Canadians about the shared struggles of Indigenous folks within Turtle Island.

“I hope it helps them get recognized, and through that, raise the profile of what’s going on out there, and maybe it would have some amount of pressure,” said Reed. “Just to think how amazing it is, how widely watched it will be. I’m excited.”