Sámi artist Ella Marie: “Minorities can not keep fighting battles by themselves – we need allies”

Sámi singer-songwriter Ella Marie has launched her new single ‘Gina’, and spoken to NME about the importance of showing solidarity with minorities – especially when it comes to keeping dying languages and cultures alive.

Marie, formerly a member of pioneering band ISÁK, is a well-known activist for the preservation of the rights and culture of the Sámi people – the indigenous people of parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

Performing twice at this week’s Øya Festival in Oslo – once on a boat for visiting music industry and again on the Vindfruen stage to a large crowd – Marie stunned with her songs delivered in her native tongue.

“It truly is an honour,” she told the crowd. “For many years the Nordic state has tried to erase my culture, but I am living proof that we are still alive.”

One of the songs that landed best was new single ‘Gina’, a tender track written to honour Marie’s friend and fellow campaigner, Norwegian environmentalist Gina Glyver.

“It feels good to release a tribute to someone I care about,” Marie told NME. “My music and my writing has been inspired by a lot of the demonstrations that I have been leading together with Gina over the last two years. We had large demonstrations against the human rights violations against my people. All of the songs that I have released as a solo artist have been inspired by those events, because they were so life-changing.

“This is my third solo single, and it feels really good to show everyone how much I appreciate the work that Gina has done for my people – but also for this movement. She’s not Sámi herself, but she’s dedicated so much time and effort. She’s put all of herself into this fight, and that’s so special. It’s something I want others to be inspired by. Minorities can not keep fighting battles by themselves – we need allies.

Marie added: “We need allyship, solidarity and empathy to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. I just think she’s a perfect example of that.”

Check out the rest of our interview below, as Marie tells NME about how her fight for survival and solidarity is only becoming more prevalent and universal as world events such as the situation in Gaza and the UK race riots unfold.

NME: Hello Ella Marie. For those unaware, how would you describe the current situation facing the Sámi?

Ella Marie: “We’re being threatened in many different ways. Not just through climate change, but our lands are being taken away from us. We are a minority group and have suffered different kinds of assimilation processes under these states. They tried to take our language away from us, along with our lands and our culture. Even the Yoik [a style of singing native to the Sámi people] has been forbidden for many years in the past.

“We’re still trying to gain back alot of what has been lost. We’re dealing with trauma of the past, but it’s not all historical – it’s still ongoing in my eyes.”

And you must feel a connection to other minorities around the world going through similar battles?

“Yes, this takes up a lot of my time, but it’s still important for me to appreciate how privileged I am on a world scale. There are minorities all over the world, especially the victims of war on the Gaza strip, so it’s important for me to also use my voice to shine a light on those things and stand in solidarity with other oppressed groups.”

What have been some of the more difficult fights you’ve had to go through?

“The case I’ve been really involved in for these past few years is about this human rights violation that lasted for almost 1,000 days in the state of Norway. The state built illegal wind turbines on Sámi land, which forced Sámi people and the reindeer to move out of the area. The Supreme Court ruled it as a human rights violation. Our rights are still being threatened, and every day we have to fight to keep our livelihoods going and to preserve our culture.

“The human cost of being in constant battle is something that a lot of Sámi youth are affected by. Do we have a future? Will our children be able to learn Sámi in school? Will we be able to live off the traditions and lands that our mothers and fathers did? It feels very existential.”

How does living with that shape you as an artist?

“I feel so free to be able to combine my activism with my art. It’s been impossible for me to separate the two. All of these struggles across the political landscape are affecting my art. I need to be able to put out that music. I need to be able to be honest about my reality and how I see the world.”

Have you found people coming to your music out of love, regardless of the language?

“I would definitely say so. The comment that I’ve got the most throughout my career was, ‘Oh, the music was so beautiful – even though I couldn’t understand a single word’. It’s beautiful to witness my audience having that experience – realising how much of a universal language music is. It feels meaningful to give people that experience. I would never expect anyone to understand what I’m singing because we are only around 20,000 people who speak it around the world and we’re living in very different places.

“That challenges me as an artist and entertainer as to how I get my message across. Instead of limiting me, I feel like it really opens doors, opens people’s eyes and expands their view of what music can be. It really just brings me closer to the audiences who are there to understand and not letting themselves be limited by language barriers.”

Especially when one endangered language dies every 14 days? 

“I hate those statistics.! I have such a vivid memory of being six-years-old and reading UNESCO’s list of threatened languages and seeing my own language in there. At that time, it would have taken 100 years for my language to be extinct. It’s hard to accept those statistics and numbers. The language has been such of my being, so to have someone tell you that a part of you will die is frightening. I choose not to believe that.

“If we work, we can get numbers growing again and actually inspire children to speak it and take back the language. It doesn’t feel like a real alternative to just let the language die. It’s not up for debate!”

And if these songs exist and people are singing them, then the language can never die? 

“I love that! I really think that too. I’ve been in a band for seven years called CHECK, and I’ve just stepped out of that project to become a solo artist for the first time. In that transition, I also chose to never write an English or Norwegian language song again. I only want to spend my time writing in Sámi because it will somehow live on forever… as long as the streaming platforms are up and running!”

So you don’t dream of having a worldwide Billboard Number One smash? 

“Of course I’d like to have a lot of people listening to my songs, but the most important thing for me is just to do something meaningful and feel like the music I’m putting out is something genuine.

“When it’s been forbidden and almost disappeared, it means so much to giving my people these Sámi songs as we don’t have a lot coming out. That’s my Billboard chart!”

What’s next for you? 

“I’m working on my debut solo album. It really is a ‘punch in the gut’ kind of album. I wanted to be brutally honest about the struggles my people are facing, but also about the internal battles. All oppressed people at some point will start attacking each other, because we are in a vulnerable space. Those lyrics are even harder to write because I don’t want to attack anyone in music. Well, apart from the Minister Of Energy who I actually tried to attack with a diss track earlier this summer.

“It’s so important to use art as the way of reconciling and lifting the conversation up to a higher level. We as a people are going through so much at the same time, and I want the music to hurt and be healing at the same time. It would be the greatest gift for me, if people could feel like they’ve been healed by their pain being expressed in my music and lyrics. It doesn’t have to even be for Sámi or minority groups; a lot of the things I’m writing about are universal. Everyone needs to feel like there’s a place for them in the world. Everyone needs to feel like they belong somewhere, and that they’re accepted.”

‘Gina’ by Ella Marie is out now. Visit back at NME for more from Øya Festival 2024. 

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