David Strickland, commonly referred to as North Eagle, is a catalyst for Toronto’s evolving music scene, landing the role as one of the prominent influences within the ever-changing hip-hop community.
He’s both a legend and significant stalwart for advocating on indigenous inclusion in music, providing added insight surrounding the four elements of hip-hop and how spirituality transcends the art of storytelling. With a unparalleled career that features collaborating with some the industry’s most celebrated pillars of the culture including Method Man, The Clipse, Sade and Drake – his extensive pool of knowledge and experience-based rhetoric knows no limitation.
The Grammy and JUNO Award-winning multidisciplinary talent has been studying hip-hop for more than two decades, further typifying the magnitude of his well-informed perspective.
After reconnecting with his Native American roots, David prioritized exploring the interconnected realm of hip-hop and the indigenous culture by paying homage to what essential characteristics played an integral role in creating this artistic phenomenon many have come to love around the world.
Somewhere at the intersection where passion meets commitment is where you’ll find David’s unwavering fondness for the arts, embedded with his zeal for teaching and keeping the narrative alive.
With a catalog that speaks for itself and a unique aptitude for conscious reasoning, we had the opportunity to unearth what hidden gems permeate David Strickland’s mind through a sweeping, yet keen dialogue exchange.
When the name David Strickland comes to mind, a range of titles come up – sound engineer, producer, activist. In terms of accuracy, how would you describe yourself?
I’m a lot of things – I’m very inclined to stay away from being put into a box by these titles and things because a lot of people get caught up in the hype, when that’s not really what this is about for me.
Music is ceremonial, a lot of our ceremonies begin and end with music. For the most part I’m an engineer and a producer. I’ve been producing more lately than the earlier part of my career, but I kind of got tired of being trapped in the studio all the time.
I started to DJ and get out more.
An engineer’s job is a tough, most people don’t even know about us or what we do.
I’m a producer, DJ, activist, just an all-around nice guy.
You’re from Scarborough, Ontario correct?
Yes, Scarborough bred, Scarborough dead.
What was it like growing up? Your career spans over 25 years in the music industry, I can only imagine the range of things you’ve been fortunate to experience
Where I’m from its kind of like the Brooklyn of Toronto. It was hard to get hip-hop culture in Canada or Toronto back in the day.
If you wanted the styles, the music, you had to go get it, so we would travel all the time.
I didn’t grow up in Forest Hill, which is considered a nice neighborhood here. I couldn’t ask my parents for whatever they wanted; I grew up in the hood.
Most of my friends were into the same things that I was, DJing, MCing, Dancing. For the most part, hip-hop is what kept us out of trouble.
I have a lot of friends in life that used to say to me later on that they never had hope of getting out the hood, but they saw me getting out and would always try to protect me.
We weren’t dirt poor, don’t get me wrong – but the music is what kept me in because that’s where the flavor was.
Do you feel like transitioning into adulthood is when music became more prevalent in your life?
I was always into music, but when I learned about DJing I was really into it. DJing is what led me into producing and engineering.
One of my good friends who was like one of the first rappers from Toronto, he was the first person in Canada with a SP1200, Rumble.
Rumble got it from New York and he was taught how to use it by Scott La Rock.
I didn’t realize it at the time but that was the segway point for me where I got into the other side of the vinyl.
By the time I was 16-17 I was MCing and DJing, I had a crew and we had enough power to where we could walk in a dance and know all the DJs and touch the mic.
People didn’t know we were freestyling up there – a lot of this led me to studio life.
I’m from an era where rappers were young, it was a young man’s game.
Nobody taught us, we didn’t have development, we didn’t have schools – I had to take things upon myself.
How do you manage to blend music and culture as a means to promote civic engagement within communities?
You have to have a balance. We had the conscious era, but sometimes people want to dance, so you have to blend it up a bit.
You don’t want to be preached at all the time – not every song can be about women, not every song can be about the state of the world, you gotta try new things.
I don’t think you can beat people over the head with it, that’s what turns them off.
For me, I like to keep a balance because people wanna have fun to.
Let’s deconstruct the album title for your upcoming project, ‘Spirit Of Hip Hop’. If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly does the spirit of hip hop entail?
I’m not sure if you’re aware of Ernie Paniccioli. Brother Ernie is a photographer, a legend, he grew up in Brooklyn, came up with Bambaataa and them.
Most of the pictures you’ve seen of rappers from the 80’s to early 2000’s, it’s Ernie’s work.
His work speaks volumes, you wouldn’t believe it.
When I started working on the album, I didn’t really have a plan, it was kind of like the two sides of my life coming together – the indigenous culture and hip hop culture.
Ernie had this teaching where he showed me that hip hop is indigenous culture in a modern, technological sense.
The DJ is the drummer, MC is the storyteller, Bboy is the dancer and the graffiti artist is the sand pager.
It’s the same concept, all the elements are what we’re doing across cultures and the storytelling is a huge part of it.
Could you imagine hip-hop without rappers? It just made me realize that my whole life I’ve been practicing my culture in different ways.
That spirit has been around forever, that’s how the title came together. That spirit is with me and my ancestors walk with me.
There’s a lot of deep layers when it comes to hip hop and how It was brought into mainstream.
‘A staple in Toronto hip hop’ is a direct quote stemming from Noisey’s feature documentary covering Indigenous Hip-Hop in Canada, with regard to your influence. In working with artists like The Clipse, Sade and even pillars of the culture like Method Man and Drake, what do you feel like has been the most tangible takeaway from such an impressive run in music?
None of the accolades or acknowledgement is really the focus for me, I’ve been shown that anything can happen, anything is possible.
I’ve gotten to work with my favorite rapper, Redman – blessed to call Red my uncle and spend a lot of time around him.
Having mentors like Erick Sermon and working with legends, those are the things that let me know anything is possible.
I went to go do something a couple weeks ago in New York, some other things happened that were unexpected – I can’t even share it at the moment.
But that’s how it is, if you believe in yourself anything can happen.
If I look back on my career and what I’ve been blessed to do, I wouldn’t believe half of the things I managed to accomplish.
I’ve had times where I tried to quit, leave the industry and get a regular job. Now I’m at this point where I know I’m supposed to do this.
It’s not just me, it’s the spirit.
Anything is possible, we just gotta believe – that’s my takeaway.
With animals playing a prominent role in native/indigenous culture, do you feel like there’s any significance of Drake incorporating the owl concept in his brand?
I’m not sure exactly how they got the owl, but from my point of view it’s excellent branding.
I don’t think there’s a connection to indigenous culture. I think it was during ‘Nothing Was the Same’, around that I was painting a lot.
I would take a couple days off, have some down time and do a painting for 40 (Noah Shebib).
It wasn’t really that (the owl concept) it came from indigenous, even though I know 40 respects our culture and our people in a lot of ways.
Everything has spirit, anything you can think of.
Animals are helpers and we’re equal – we respect them. In a lot of ways, they help us, providing us with tools and resources.
Are there any noticeable differences in the eras of music you’ve experienced throughout the extent of your career?
Oh, hell yeah.
There’s always been singing, but even with mixing – the way you would mix has changed a lot.
You have to keep up with the times.
I’m not one who complains because you got to change, you can’t keep doing the same things.
Doing R&B records is very different than doing hip-hop records, you got to know music and how to harmonize, you got to know music.
It’s definitely has changed. Has it changed for the good or bad, that’s a personal opinion matter, but I try to not hate on anything.
I either like it or I don’t.
Do you feel like hip hop will constantly evolve or has it reached its peak regarding the art of storytelling?
It’s definitely going to keep evolving, it’s not gonna die.
Look at all the different styles and sub-genres.
Hip-hop is such a big force – it’s like how Rock N Roll came with guitars, hip-hop came with turntables and the rest is history.
You can have a rock song and throw a rapper in there, any type of music and throw a rapper in there and it’s going to be considered hip-hop.
You can do that with other music but not to that extent, that’s powerful.
You can have a new type of music be invented and rappers will still come in and dominate it.
