A Secwepemcúl’ew-based band blending contemporary Indigenous fusion with thought-provoking lyrics is set to take the stage in downtown Kamloops this month.
The Melawmen Collective is performing live at the Blue Grotto between 8 and 11 p.m. on Sunday, March 22.
“It’s not the phonetic spelling,” Secwepemc and Nuu-Chah-Nulth vocalist Meeka Morgan says about the collective’s name by phone, “but in Secwépemctsín, the name for medicine is melawen, so we used Melawmen so people could easily pronounce it.”
The Secwepemcúl’ew-based band’s members reside from Secwepemcúl’ew all the way out to Nuu-Chah-Nulth lands on Vancouver Island, and chose their name after facilitating the Native Youth Art Workshops series hosted by the Kamloops Art Gallery between 2007 and 2010.
The participating communities wanted to take steps to keep moving forward in an expressive and meaningful way, and a music collective was a way to do that.
“The intergenerational storytelling has always come across really strongly as a theme in our work,” Morgan says. “It’s basically really musically compelling intergenerational storytelling of our lived experiences, and how those lived experiences relate, and can be relatable to many different people from all ages and backgrounds.”
Morgan’s master of arts thesis explored the transformative power of Secwepemc storytelling, and she’s also the founding artistic director of the 2 Rivers Remix Society and Festival, an all-Indigenous contemporary music festival hosted in Nlaka’pamux First Nation territory, Lytton.
What began as a community-driven family arts initiative has since evolved beyond the region over the last year.
“We’re always collecting medicine to support one another and share with our communities,” Morgan says about sharing the power of storytelling from the Indigenous worldview.
“When [the youth art workshop] was ending, it was really significant for a lot of people, and many communities were asking what we were going to do next. That’s what led to this creative project, which has since taken us across Canada and internationally.”
The performance at The Grotto in Kamloops is a bit of a departure from the band’s usual guest spots at family-friendly music festivals and will be an adults-only event.
This stop is part of the last tour leg that includes performances in Ucluelet, Port Alberni, Victoria, Duncan, and will conclude at Ignite the Arts in Penticton.
The group of four recently expanded to having as many as eight musicians, depending on the location of the performance, which now includes a bass player, drummer and multi-instrumentalist artists.
“I started jokingly calling our genre a nonera,” Morgan says with a chuckle, explaining the fusion of music from artists ranging from 20-years-old to 60-years-old bandmates consists of genres from hip hop and rock to country and international music.
“We do some Latin-inspired songs, country-inspired songs, folk-inspired songs, but it’s all mixed with hip hop and we have two emcees.”
You can purchase tickets for the Blue Grotto performance in advance on Eventbrite.
Gaining international momentum
From local workshops to international stages, the collective’s trajectory has been anything but ordinary.
The group recently returned from touring in Bogotá, Colombia, where they performed at the Orígenes Festival, an Indigenous folk music festival, after being invited following a special cameo spot at the 2025 International Indigenous Music Summit in Toronto.
“That opportunity opened the door for more connections in South America,” she says. “Now we’re exploring what’s possible and applying for funding to record a follow-up album.”
Last year, the band’s performances also included the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival and the Sundog Music Festival of Arts and Music in Vernon, which included family-friendly contemporary Indigenous shows that ultimately reclaim cultural stories and identities from both present lives, and past, for each composer.
“We really like the audience to be a part of what we’re doing,” Morgan says. “It’s like a three-way communication between the audience, singers and putting the energy back out to the people who are there. It’s like a reciprocal exchange.”
A full-length album rooted in storytelling
The collective recently released its first studio-recorded album Fire in the Lake on Sept. 26, 2025, produced by award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist John MacArthur Ellis in Abbotsford.
“We used to call records ‘albums’ back in the day,” MacArthur Ellis shared in a recent press release. “You would listen from beginning to the end, then repeat the ritual over and over until it becomes part of your DNA. This is an album in the true sense of the word, and I couldn’t be more proud of it.”
The project reflects the group’s genre-blending approach, while grounding each track in storytelling and cultural expression.
“We’re focusing on the creation and the connection to our creativity and to our audience,” Morgan concluded. “Our priority is on the creation and performance, and the connection to our audiences. From the act of creation, playing and connecting to an audience, not just a single or a picture. We’re providing an experience.”
You can purchase Fire in the Lake at any of the Melawmen Collective’s live performances or at Big Sky Gas Station located at 1000 Trans Canada Highway in Savona / Skeetchestn.
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