Manik 1derful

If you were to travel 1500 km's Northwest of Vancity you would find Prince Rupert. In 1979 this is where a Cree father and Haida mother traveled from Haida Gwaii to birth Derek Edenshaw who is also known now in the entertainment industry as Manik 1derful.

Derek spent the early years of his life in his mothers homeland of Haida Gwaii during the early 80s . There was a very strong movement of activism which was base don the Haida people protecting the highly Lyell Island rainforest which directly meant the lifestyle of the Haida people. Even more importantly there was a cultural and artistic rennasiannce which inspired and built a foundation for his life in performance arts . Derek was born directly into the Rediscovery Dancegroup where he sang and danced traditional Haida songs with his family . The group was also made up of other monumental characters who eventualy went on to change the political and artistic world of not only Haida Gwaii but the world. He traveled with this group everywhere and in November of 1981 young Derek Edenshaw made his first front page headlines in the Province , the Sun and various other papers for dancing at the poleraising of Chief Idinsu Jim Hart.

They say the early years of ones life determines thier future goals which would explain why Derek chose a nonconvetional form of education. Derek has been in many multi media courses in the Vancouver area but the most noteble was the Indigenous Media Arts Groups film program, training at Redwire Magazine which was the first for Native Youth by Native Youth magazine , Gulf Island Filmand television school where he was able to get trained from Legendary Alanis Obamsawin ,the Film and Music Business Program at Pacific Audio Visual Institute and on the job training as associate producer of Multicultural Youth Television on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Program.

After spending the first five years of his life in Haida Gwaii his family left the remote community of Haida Gwaii to go to Victoria. It was a very different place for Derek and it seemed to be a completely differet society and way of life. He fought against the blaytent racism he experienced in Victoria with poetry. This eventually and rather unexpectedly led to a career in the world of hip hop. After his family split his mother moved to East Vancouver . He spent alot of time between the two cities in his teenage years . He walked a fine line of maintaining his traditional roots and learning the fast paced city life. The motive to let the world know who you are by painting on walls was not much different then the Haida art he grew up around. The deep rooted and honest music and competitive original dances to strong drum sounds seemed familiar enough. This connection became the foundation of Derek Edenshaws survival.

Derek has training in the very relevant and complex politics involving First Nations peoples. It really started with the aforementioned protests he experienced as a young child. These experiences were reawoken with his involvement with the Native Youth Movement which gave him hands on training in community organizing. He then went on to be involved with the Union of BC Indian Chiefs as the organizations youth rep. He was also involved in Building Our Legacy Together for Youth which was a province wide group of various Youth Leaders. He was employed by Knowledgable Aboriginal Youth Advocates where he represented and advocated for the First Nations youth of Vancouver. He proudest achievement was been elected by his people as the Vancouver Rep on the Council of Haida Nations which was the greatest hands on training one could get in the field of First Nations land claims. He plans to pursue politics later in life but for now he must conquer the world of multimedia.

Throughout all this life experience Derek noticed the amount of talent in the world of Native Hip Hop explode. There is now artists breaking into the mainstream at amazingly fast rates. He became apart of the NativeHipHop super crew STRESSED STREET. This brought him into the core of the Native world beyond the northwest coast. He always believed the world needed to be imformed of how we really live. He thought who better to explain the current state of the Native peoples then the youth who live it day to day. This led to the creation of the project entitled NativeHood! Derek is the main organizer of the NativeHood project but he knows this will only be possible if he work with a likeminded and equally experienced people.

Derek Edenshaw started recording hip hop in early 2000 under the name Manik 1derful with the release of his first album called Manik Realeyes Realize Real lies. He released this independantly and sold a couple thousand copies hand to hand with no distrubution. This was followed up by a collabrative effort with fellow media medicine man OsTwelve to create the Sunday Skool Dropoutz. Together they released the Media Medicine E.P. and the Bearspray mixtape. Man