The iconic Buffy Sainte-Marie receives the Polaris Prize

The iconic Buffy Sainte-Marie, Academy Award winner, Golden Globe winner, multiple-Juno award winner, with a Gemini also under her belt, has added a Polaris Music Prize—which comes with $50,000—to her list of accolades. Sainte-Marie has created 20 albums, but her newest, Power in the Blood, is garnering her critical acclaim. “74-year-old Buffy Sainte-Marie reasserts herself as the vital and thrilling musician she is, a Canadian icon we can believe in and a powerhouse provocateur. She’s a voice of reason, as ready with the rallying cries as she is with the pointed indictments of social injustice, racism and corporate greed,” reads a review of the album by CBC Music. Last year, Inuk Tanya Tagaq, a throat singer from Nunavut, won the prize for her album Animism. The Polaris Music Prize is given to the artist who creates the best Canadian album of the year, regardless of genre, label or record sales. The winner is decided by an 11-member jury.