Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize

“I am deeply grateful to be the recipient of the Polaris Heritage Prize for Keyboard Fantasies in 2020. All those years ago when I wrote this music my wish was that I might be able to sell the few copies my little company was able to press. I could not have known that 35 years later this music would be reaching people worldwide, much less receiving this award. Thank you to those now gone and those still living who helped make the recording possible. Thank you to all of you who voted for this music. Thank you to those providing me with professional music business guidance at this time. And my special thanks to my dear wife Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland, my partner in all things. Her tireless efforts over many years helped make this award possible. Blessings one and all.”

— Beverly Glenn-Copeland

"It's My Way! is a powerful and peerless debut. It was 1964 and while almost every other folk singer swaddled themselves in metaphor Buffy Sainte-Marie was writing incisive, compassionate calls to action. Side one begins with ‘Now That the Buffalo's Gone’ reaches ‘Cod'ine’ and ends with ‘Universal Soldier.’ That's just SIDE ONE. It's My Way! is as remarkable now in 2020 as it was in 1964. It's a collection of songs shaped by lived experience, injustice, and radical hope, and delivered as witness, survivor, and truth teller."

— Heritage juror Andrea Warner

“We would like to take a moment to thank Polaris for recognizing Main Source and the album Breaking Atoms. We are very humbled and honoured to have put out something that has been recognized around the world. 2021 will be 30 years of Breaking Atoms and when we made this album we never expected two Canadian kids growing up in Queens, New York would be part of hip-hop culture and history. It’s amazing to see the influence Breaking Atoms has had on hip-hop heads new and old as well as breaking the careers of artists we know today (Nas). This album allowed us to bring the Main Source production and sound to the likes of Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes, Shaq, A Tribe Called Quest, Ice-T, Maestro, MC Lyte, Pharoahe Monch and Common. Thanks to everyone who supported us to this day and who continue to support us.”

— K-Cut, Main Source