Wab Kinew
As a twentysomething he stumbled into a career in broadcasting. Since then, Wab Kinew has put his powerful voice to further use as a hip-hop artist, an author and an activist in the Canadian indigenous community. This week, he hosts Canada Reads, the CBC-helmed, Survivor-for-bookworms reality show, where notable Canuck bibliophiles defend beloved home-grown titles. Last year, Kinew came out on top, defending Joseph Boyden's novel The Orenda. Here, he shares some of the secrets to his success, including how he killed the competition last year.
Keep your ancestors all around
On my arms I have a tattoo of the phrase, 'Live by the drum, die by the drum.' It's a play on the old 'live by the gun, die by the gun' or 'live by the sword, die by the sword,' but it's flipping into a positive thing. Instead of being a warning it becomes a personal maxim. [Live by the Drum is also the title of Kinew's 2009 hip-hop album.] The drum is central to indigenous culture. Ojibwas say that the drum is the heartbeat of our nations – it's our grandmothers and our grandfathers. In my life, having that connection to my culture is so important.
Every summer I go to the Sun Dance ceremony, which is a rite of thanksgiving. We fast and dance for four days. There is pretty much nothing in my day-to-day life that is going to test me to that level, which helps in terms of perspective. The community I come from has always been a source of pride and strength. In the trying times, a connection to those cultural activities and ceremonies and even just speaking the language with my Ojibwa elders really gives me a boost.
Negotiate your victory
My dad, Tobasonakwut Kinew, was a former politician [and Ojibwa chief]. A few years back I was engaged with a pretty serious editorial conflict internal to the CBC [Kinew came into conflict with editorial staff over the use of the term "residential-school survivor," which they did not want to use]. I took a really hard line on it. It was my way or the highway and I even threatened to resign. What my dad told me was that when you're in a conflict, you can't seek to humiliate your opponent. You have to give them a way out that still lets them feel good about themselves. That helped me in resolving that particular situation and since then I have found that it's useful in any kind of dispute or disagreement. Nobody wants to feel foolish – that's something we all share. In the end, we came to the decision that "residential-school survivor" didn't have to be used exclusively as long as it was an option. That was a win for us, but it wasn't a loss for them. When we're growing up, we see victory as a question of black and white, when in real life that is very rare.
To win the prize, ride the wave
[BlackBerry co-founder] Jim Balsillie has this line that he shares with a lot of the people he mentors. He says you have to play for emergence and what he means is that you don't rush for the first sure thing, just because it's for sure. People are so set on certainty and having something locked down that they often rush and don't get the best outcome. If you can kind of ride the wave and keep your options open, that's when the really big opportunities arise. That philosophy pretty much describes my entire life. I went to university and started training to become an economist, but then through writing a letter to the editor, I fell into a career in broadcast journalism and then I rode that wave and then Canada Reads came along last year and that opened up a lot of doors to the publishing world and now I've got this book deal. It's not like I set out with a plan, like: Step 1, work my way up in the newsroom; step 2, cross over into other fields of broadcasting, and so on. I just kind of believe that you put yourself out there and do the best you can with every opportunity and see what happens.
Don't knock the Boy Scouts
I think my secret with Canada Reads [Kinew won last year's competition] was about the amount of prep I put in. I read all of the books and evaluated strengths and weaknesses for each of them. After I had all of my own notes and thoughts together, I used social media as part of my strategy. I would put arguments for and against the various books on Twitter and whichever ideas got the most attention, I took to be the strongest ones. It was sort of like a focus group. Being clever and charismatic is helpful, particularly in not getting voted off on the first day. But over the course of the week you delve deep. It was the preparation that got me to the finish line.
I started doing jiu jitsu about six years ago. I'm a huge MMA nerd and some of my friends got me into it. For a sport that's about strength and defeating your opponent, it's surprisingly meditative. Once you get into a training session you enter into a kind of flow state. I will reflect on any issues I have been having and think about the future. I try to do it a couple of times a week. When I'm on the road, I like to check out other jiu-jitsu academies. It's kind of a fun thing to do.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said he came into conflict with The CBC over the use of the term "residential school survivor" while he was the host of the CBC documentary series 8th Fire. In fact, the conflict with CBC occurred in 2008 and the series 8th Fire aired in 2012.