Small-town roots no barrier for Indigenous hip-hop artist Kiva Mh

For highway travellers rolling from the north through the sagebrush hillsides of Cache Creek, the tiny B.C. town is a spot where opportunities present themselves. Drivers can continue south toward the Fraser Canyon and beyond, or they can take a sharp left turn and make tracks toward Kamloops.

For Kiva Morgan-Hall, Cache Creek — 345 kilometres northeast of Vancouver and 84 kilometres west of Kamloops — is a place of opportunity.

Morgan-Hall is an up-and-coming hip-hop artist who grew up in the community of about 900 people and currently lives on its outskirts in Upper Hat Creek. The 25-year-old traces his roots to the Secwépemc and Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations. When he’s on stage, he goes by the name Kiva Mh.

Kiva Mh was raised in a musical family — his parents are both in a contemporary Indigenous alternative/rap fusion group called the Melawmen Collective — and he started making music before he his age hit double digits. He’s now riding the thrill of releasing his latest song, Sleep On Me.

And he’s about to experience another highlight. On Thursday night at the Night Shift On 5th in Kamloops, he’s going to open for the Juno Award-winning Indigenous hip-hop duo, Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

In advance of the show, Kiva Mh spoke with Daybreak South’s Joseph Otoo about his musical upbringing, a workshop he leads for Indigenous youth, and the messages he’s bringing to Indigenous hip-hop.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.  

Kiva, I wonder if you could start by telling us a little bit about your background, because I understand it's really closely tied to the music. Who introduced you to music?

My family has been musical since I can remember. [My] earliest memories [are] of my dad singing me to sleep with his guitar. [That goes] into my mother bringing me to her workshops that she hosted, which were primarily art workshops, but my dad brought this aspect of music and she would actually call me her mini-facilitator.

She brought me in and she actually brought another artist named Geo Ignace. And my dad was just amazed by what [Ignace] could do with a computer because [my dad] was used to recording on these old recording systems where you had to play it all the way through, no mistakes, and Geo could just take a little guitar loop and cut it, loop it. 

[My dad] and Geo would just kind of create some stuff. And then my mom would maybe add to it later with, you know, hints of rap and rock and folk and melodic beautifulness that my mom brings to the equation. So they ended up starting a group called the Melawmen Collective.

And when I was 12 years old, there was a rap part written by Colin John, one of the participants of the workshop at the time, that I took to and I liked. So I reached out to Colin and asked if I could perform his part because it was a song that [the Melawmen Collective] would perform quite often.

So there you are as a kid. You're travelling with the Melawmen Collective. What was that like for you? Did you know then, Oh yeah, I'm going to make music a part of my life when I grow up?

I think when I was young … I love van Gogh and I wanted to be a painter. But now at the age of 14, I really was like, this whole music thing is amazing and makes me feel good and I can tell my stories and people relate to it. So I just continued writing.