Québec Afro-Indigenous Artist Joseph Sarenhes Returns with New Single “Wendigo Hunt”
Québec-based Afro-Indigenous artist Joseph Sarenhes is stepping into a bold new chapter with the release of his latest single, “Wendigo Hunt.” After a few years away from releasing new music, Sarenhes returns with a track that feels both powerful and intentional, blending hard-hitting hip-hop production with deeply rooted cultural storytelling.
Drawing inspiration from the Wendigo legend in Northern Indigenous traditions, “Wendigo Hunt” reframes fear into strength, shifting the narrative from hunted to hunter. Shaped by conversations with elders in his community of Wendake, the song carries both personal weight and collective meaning, grounded by traditional pow-wow and hand drums layered into a modern, self-produced sound.
With a reputation for dynamic live performances and a genre-blending style that pulls from hip-hop, rock, R&B, and his Afro-Indigenous heritage, Sarenhes continues to carve out a space that is entirely his own. We caught up with him to talk about the inspiration behind “Wendigo Hunt,” the creative process, and what’s ahead for this next wave of music.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I go by the name of Joseph Sarenhes, future Grammy winner. I’m an Afro Indigenous artist from Wendake, Quebec, Canada.
I come from a world where rhythm was never just sound, it was language, memory, and movement. I grew up between cultures, surrounded by dance, percussion, and performance, and that shaped how I understand expression long before I ever stepped into a studio. Over time, that path expanded into formal training in music and theatre, but the core has always stayed the same, telling stories that feel alive and honest.
My music lives in the in between. Rap, RnB, and afro-indigenous influences all meet in the same space, not as separate elements, but as one voice. I don’t see genres as boundaries, more as colours I use to paint something that reflects who I am and where I come from. I hate labels.
“Wendigo Hunt” flips the traditional narrative—moving from fear to empowerment. What sparked the decision to step into the role of the hunter instead of the hunted?
For me, everything starts with one truth. The only real way of life is to move through fear, no matter the cost.
Fear is never just a wall in front of you. It’s a landscape. It reshapes itself depending on how you look at it. Sometimes it feels like a monster chasing you, sometimes like a door sealed shut with endless locks. But most of those locks are not real. They are stories we repeat to ourselves until we start believing the weight of them.
Happiness, fulfillment, pride, serenity, they don’t sit outside of fear like a safe place you eventually arrive at. They exist on the other side of it. And the only passage is through. Not around, not over, but through.
With “Wendigo Hunt,” I wanted to reverse that dynamic completely. The idea of being hunted represents what it feels like to live inside avoidance, inside hesitation, inside all the things we don’t confront. At some point, I realized I didn’t want to be the one running anymore. I wanted to become the one who turns around.
Because fear only has power in motion, in distance, in imagination. It grows when you don’t look at it directly. But the moment you stop, the moment you face it, it starts to lose shape. It stops being this untouchable force and becomes something you can actually engage with.
That’s where the shift happens. The hunted becomes the hunter. Not because the fear disappears, but because you stop negotiating with it. You step forward instead of back. You reach the door instead of circling it. And when you finally place your hand on it, you realize something simple but unsettling.
It was never locked. You were just afraid to try the handle.
You’ve said the track reflects both personal and collective struggles—what were you personally confronting while creating this song?
I was confronting the way fear can quietly organize your entire life if you let it.
Not just the obvious fears, but the subtle ones that shape your decisions without you even noticing. Fear of failing, fear of not being understood, fear of taking space, fear of stepping fully into what you know you are capable of. I realized a lot of my own movement was happening around things instead of through them.
There was also a deeper confrontation with identity and responsibility. Coming from an Afro Indigenous background, carrying those layers of history and culture, there’s a weight to how you choose to show up. Not in a limiting way, but in a way that forces honesty. I couldn’t afford to create from avoidance. I had to create from clarity.
While making “Wendigo Hunt,” I was essentially sitting with the version of myself that hesitates, that questions, that tries to stay safe, and challenging him directly. Not to erase him, but to stop letting him lead.
The song became a way of saying that fear is real, but it doesn’t get to decide the direction anymore. I do.
You mentioned conversations with elders in Wendake shaped this track—what’s one piece of wisdom from those conversations that stayed with you?
During those conversations, the thing that marked me the most was the untold.
Not necessarily what was said directly, but what stayed hanging in the silence after the stories. The regrets. The “what if I had done it,” the “I should have tried,” the moments people could still see clearly, even years later. When I spoke with elders in Wendake about fear, it often came back to that same place, not the fear itself, but what it made them miss.
I realized that most of the real weight people carry in life doesn’t come from the risks they took, but from the ones they avoided. Fear wins quietly. It doesn’t always destroy you in the moment; it convinces you to wait, to postpone, to stay safe… until safe becomes a habit.
That stayed with me. Because it reframed everything. Fear isn’t just an emotion; it’s a decision point. And every regret I heard seemed to come from the same place, a moment where fear was allowed to speak louder than instinct, louder than desire, louder than truth.
That’s what I carry into this song. The idea that the cost of fear is rarely visible when you’re in it, but it becomes very real when you look back.
You self-produced “Wendigo Hunt.” What did having full creative control allow you to do differently this time around?
Except for a few projects here and there, I produce all my work myself, and that’s really important to me.
It’s not about believing I’m the best producer technically. It’s more about a perspective of authenticity. I know I’m the best at being myself, and that’s the part I refuse to outsource.
Having full creative control on “Wendigo Hunt” allowed me to stay inside that honesty from start to finish. Every decision, every sound, every texture came from the same place. It’s a longer and sometimes more difficult process, because I can be very particular, almost obsessive at times, but I’ve learned to accept that as part of the craft.
At the end of it, there’s something very grounding about knowing that my pen, my ears, my fingers, and my soul are all inside the same piece of art. It’s imperfect, but it’s mine in the most real sense, and that’s what makes me proud.
This is your first release in a few years—what changed for you, both personally and artistically, during that time?
Everything changed, but most importantly, for this track and the upcoming ones, I took the time. Probably way too much time in some ways, but it felt right. I stopped rushing the process and started listening to it more. Listening to myself more.
And through that, I found something I had been searching for without really knowing it at the beginning. My sound, but also my maturity as an artist. A way of creating where I’m not trying to prove anything, I’m just trying to be honest and precise with what I feel. Create something that I’m proud of.
Now I feel like I’m entering a new chapter where things are more aligned. Better quality, deeper in meaning. Production-wise, haven’t had fun like that in a minute!
“Wendigo Hunt” kicks off a new series of releases—what themes or stories can we expect to see unfold across these upcoming songs?
The word is ENERGY. Most of these upcoming tracks are built around that raw, fast-paced, intense rap energy. The kind that hits you in the face right away, makes you do that “ew” face while you’re bumping your head.
But beyond the energy, there’s a progression. “Wendigo Hunt” is really just the entry point. The rest of the series moves through different states of mind inside that same world, moments of tension, release, confrontation, and clarity. It’s not just about aggression or intensity for the sake of it; it’s about what that intensity reveals when you sit inside it long enough.
I’m really excited about it because it feels alive. It moves fast, it breathes heavy, and it doesn’t stay comfortable for too long, which is exactly the point.