Date: Tuesday, Oct. 30 Time: 12:30 p.m. Location: R.D. Bell Hall (Room 1-57) QEII Music Building How do musicians and radio stations help build ‘sonic sovereignty’ for Indigenous hip hop artists? Brandon University’s Out of Bounds lecture series brings hip hop scholar Dr. Liz Przybylski from the University of California to tackle this question. Dr. Przybylski is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Riverside. Recent and forthcoming publications on Indigenous hip hop and popular music pedagogy have appeared in Ethnomusicology, Journal of Borderlands Studies, IASPM@Journal, and others. Liz has hosted radio programming on WNUR in Chicago and CJUM in Winnipeg. She is the media reviews editor for the journal American Music. Her talk, “Radio Silence: Changing Mediascapes, Hip Hop, and the future of Indigenous Sonic Sovereignty,” will be presented in Room 1-57 of the QEII Music Building on Tuesday, Oct. 30 from 12:40–1:30 p.m. A pizza reception will follow in the music faculty lounge. Abstract of the talk: It was a classic success story. An innovative group secured funding, staff, and a coveted broadcasting license to start something fresh: a hip hop station playing music by and for the Indigenous community. Listeners got inspired, recorded new tracks, and got them played on air. Until financial pressures and audience expectations tempered that success: grant funding was cut, commercial money was hard to attract, and media professionals tried new strategies to face these difficult challenges. Based in ethnographic work with media experts and hip hop artists at Canada’s first Indigenous hip hop station, this presentation interrogates how professionals navigate conflicts and changes in broadcasting rules, funding priorities, and community needs. As contemporary Indigenous expressive culture is increasingly heard in mainstream venues, media that once served a diverse but relatively small urban Indigenous community now faces new pressures. Centering on a Native-licensed radio station, I find that broadcast and streaming radio simultaneously contribute and respond to shifting ideas of urban Indigeneity in the minds of a Native and non-Native listenership. Changes in practices and policies for “mainstream” broadcast and streaming radio have had pro-found impacts on racial representation in urban pop soundscapes. I extend research that explores the whitening of mainstream radio and detail the implications of this trend on how Indigenous artists are heard — and silenced — through pop music distribution. Building on Michelle Raheja’s work in visual sovereignty, I demonstrate how musicians and media professionals are actively building what I call sonic sovereignty, navigating the expectations of mainstream airplay while pushing aesthetic and political boundaries.

Source:  Brandon Police Service Media Release On Wednesday, Brandon Police Service members executed a firearms search warrant in the 1400 block of 9th Street. Police attended the residence, located and arrested the male resident in front of the residence. Police located two females inside the residence and were placed under arrest. During the search two sawed off twelve gauge shotguns, ammunition and a sawed off .22 caliber rifle were located and seized from the residence. A 33yr old Brandon man was arrested and is in custody facing 16 weapon related charges including three counts of a prohibited firearm. The male will appear in Court on October 25th. Police learned, one of the two females, a 32yr old Brandon woman has an outstanding Warrant of Arrest for Theft Under, Fail to Attend Court x3, Fail to Attend Prints and Breach of Probation. The female was arrested and lodged at  BCC to appear in Court on October 25th. The second female was released without charge.

Source:  Brandon Police Service Media Release On Tuesday evening at approximately 6:16pm, mall security in the 800 block of Rosser Avenue report having a male in custody. Police attended and learned a male had punched the security guard in the head after he was  asked to leave the mall. Police arrested and released a 32yr old Brandon man to appear in Court on December 20th.

OTTAWA, ON, October 24, 2018 – Rob Langston is a teacher on a mission. Whether he is training students how to use the latest cutting edge technologies to solve geography problems, facilitating geo-technology workshops for Manitoba teachers, providing advice on geographic texts, this Geography teacher at École secondaire Neelin High School in Brandon, Manitoba does all this and more simply to advance geographic literacy in Canada.   For his dynamic teaching approach, Rob Langston is being recognized with The Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s (RCGS) 2018 Geographic Literacy Award, which celebrates individuals who have made significant contributions to geographic literacy in Canada. “Rob is energetic and creative and possesses a passion for geography that exceeds the job description of a typical geography teacher,” says Connie Wyatt Anderson, chair of Canadian Geographic Education and vice-president of the RCGS Board. “He goes above and beyond the prescribed curriculum and regularly engages his students in robust fieldwork, scientific studies and ever-changing geo-technologies; as well, he is the GIS go-to for Manitoba teachers.”   “It was an extremely proud moment to be nominated for and to win the Geographic Literacy Award,” says Langston. “With the multiple problems facing the Earth and society today being geographic in nature, it is essential that students are made aware of the importance of geography and that they leave school with the geographic knowledge and skills that will better prepare them for the future. It is an honor to be recognized for my efforts in supporting students and other educators in this area.”   Rob Langston often takes his students out of the classroom to give them a more practical and informed understanding of the complex issues facing our society. For example, Manitoba’s Grade 12 curriculum asks students to identify the major issues facing Indigenous groups in the world today. Working with Kevin Tacan, an Elder from the Sioux Valley Reserve, Neelin students and teachers traveled to Brandon’s former residential school and visited the local reserve to study the community’s culturally significant areas and features. Using GIS, students were able to analyze, organize, and present geographic data, as well as to create bilingual informational posters that have been well received wherever they are presented. Beyond mastering GIS technology, Langston’s students benefitted from gaining a better understanding of life on a reserve, the challenges associated with it, and likely a better appreciation for Indigenous People and their cultures.   Langston’s innovative teaching methods are scoring results. At the Skills Manitoba Competition, a provincial GIS Skills Competition, Neelin students have won 29/33 medals and all 11 gold medals since the GIS testing was added to the competition. “Rob has been an integral part of putting geospatial technology in the hands of students in Manitoba,” says Jean Tong, K-12 Manager at Esri Canada. “Through the many partnerships and projects he has developed, the students have a chance to become citizen scientists and make a difference.”   The Geographic Literacy Award is comprised of a medal and $2,500 prize, split evenly between the award winner and a donation in their name to support geographic education in Canada. Rob Langston will be donating $1,250 to Canadian Geographic Education. Langston will be presented his medal at a medal ceremony on November 1. The ceremony precedes the RCGS College of Fellows dinner taking place at the National Arts Centre.

During the noon hour on Wednesday, Brandon Fire and Emergency Services and Brandon Police Service were on scene of a single vehicle crash in the 1600 block of 6th St. It appeared as though a car left the roadway, drove through a ditch, struck a raised portion of a driveway, and came to rest on the other side of the driveway, visibly tearing up dirt and gravel on the driveway surface. Accel Towing & Transport was called to tow the vehicle from the ditch.  Photos by Liam Pattison Photography.