Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 15/05) - Yellowknife hip hop artist Kiera Kolson completed her first demo CD this summer.

With support from the NWT Arts Council, the rising star recorded five original songs over two months at Edmonton's Redd Rocc Records, a subsidiary of the Red Nation label.

R & B and hip hop artist Kiera Kolson holds her new demo CD, recorded at Edmonton's Redd Rocc Records. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

Kolson wrote the lyrics and created three of the five beats on the self-titled disc, blending hip hop and R & B sounds.

However, this is not her recording debut. She provided back up vocals for rapper Perez on his 2004 album Unsigned Hype. Kolson plans to cut a full album next year.

For Kolson, music is a healer. She uses her songs to speak to youth dealing with the stresses of drug abuse, depression and other serious growing pains.

"Teenagers are just figuring out who they are and they face strong pressure to conform and to make other people happy," she says. "What I want to achieve through my music is to offer the same support to others that music has given to me. I want young people to hear my music and relate. Respect is an important word to me."

Her traditional roots are very important, as well. She emphasizes the need for Northern young people to explore and cherish their aboriginal heritage.

"If you don't know where you come from, how can you know where you're going?" she asks.

Kolson will soon audition for the film adaptation of author Eden Robinson's Monkey Beach, a book nominated for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award in 2001. It's a coming of age story about a girl growing up on a reserve.

Next month she will represent the NWT on stage at the Canada Summer Games in Regina.