Since a near-tragedy more than a decade ago, tour de force DJ Orene Askew has been continuously gaining momentum
Rebecca Bollwitt
Writer
Politician, activist and purveyor of good times and tunes, Orene Askew — a.k.a. DJ O Show — is a highly sought after motivational speaker and DJ who can be seen on stages, screens and at sporting events across the province.
Born and raised in North Vancouver, Askew is Afro- Indigenous, two-spirit and a member of the Squamish Nation. She got her start in music at a young age by making mix CDs for friends, which led her to BCIT’s broadcasting program and internships at major market radio stations in B.C. and Washington State.
Today, you can see her on stage at major festivals, or spinning tracks at Vancouver Canucks games or Whitecaps matches.
“I started my own DJ business in 2012, because before that I was working for mobile companies which were mostly owned by men in this city. I felt they were getting paid thousands of dollars to play off iTunes and I just thought, ‘I need to cut out the middleman’,” Askew says.
She started by booking weddings and birthday parties, and her popularity grew.
“Basically being the only one [DJing] who’s from Musqueam, Squamish or Tsleil-Waututh, people really started to pay attention to what I was doing and how I was doing it.”
Working her way up in the local DJ and media scene, Askew was a student at a production school, became a teacher, then the head instructor and ended up running the whole show. That’s when a devastating event changed the course of her life, turning what could have been ruin into motivation.
“In 2012, my house was involved in a fire,” recounts Askew.
The fire started at her neighbours’ home and spread to her own. She woke up to the neighbours pounding on her door to rouse her.
“I was the last one to get out, and the only thing I thought to grab was my DJ gear.”
From a distance, she could only watch as her house and all of her possessions went up in flames. Telling this story of survival led to her career in motivational speaking.
“I get tears from people when I share the story because people understand, especially it happening on a reserve. It happens a lot and many times kids don’t make it out.”
Askew felt lucky to be alive and realized it meant she was here for a higher purpose.
“There’s a lot of bad things out there, but not much worse than being displaced by a fire. I lost a lot of stuff but I got out of there with my life, and it’s totally changed my perspective. I always turn back to that. People ask how I can be so positive and I’m like, ‘I got out of a fire, I’m a superhero!’ I don’t need to be worrying about things.”
Since that fateful day more than a decade ago, Askew’s work has continuously gained momentum.
“The most important thing in my life was my livelihood: my turntables and my Macbook, that’s all I saw and I just literally ran out.”
The fire gave Askew perspective on how people often think that they have to go through a life-altering event in order to come through the other side triumphant, when in reality, they can succeed and thrive on their own from the get-go.
“Everybody has a story to tell,” says Askew, who recently signed with the Talent Bureau agency for her speaking engagements. She’s given more than 100 speeches across North America — mostly for Indigenous youth or talking to entrepreneurs — about the things that happen that will be out of their control and how they can move forward through them.
For Askew, the speeches are just talking about her life and telling her story, but she’s learned that to others, there are so many layers and insights she didn’t even realize had developed.
“It all started with telling the story about the fire, and now I get a lot of requests for DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) talks, which is very popular right now,” Askew says. “It’s funny, because I always said I didn’t want to get into that work. I don’t teach, I don’t sit down with workbooks and do anti-racism classes or anything like that, but I feel like I’m doing it by telling my story, without the workbook. I just tell my story and people are going to get out of it what they will, which is more than I ever imagined. It’s actually really cool.”
After a speaking engagement at BCIT, Sharad and Nisha Khar. of Human Biography approached her to talk about working on a documentary [https://www.humanbiography. com/the-o-show], The O Show, which began filming in 2020.
“It was challenging because of COVID, but they sent cameras right away. Back then I was on Squamish Nation Council so I was doing different events around the city, like territorial acknowledgements, and it was right around the time that George Floyd was murdered [in the U.S.] so things started to pick up a lot. They said they wanted to be around me all the time.”
They followed Askew for several months for the 20-minute short, and interviewed many people close to her — from her family, to students and business mentors.
“It’s cool because I talk about what I do, but to actually see it in a film… I think they captured it perfectly, and they got all that footage down to 20 minutes. I don’t know how they did that!” Askew says with a laugh. “It all just fit together and it was a lot of fun to film.”
Thanks to a TELUS StoryHive grant, The O Show premiered in 2021 to rave reviews. It won Best Documentary and Best Editing at the Vancouver Short Film Festival (VSFF 2022), Best Short at the Squamish International Film Festival (SIFF 2021) and Best Short Documentary at V.I.Z. Fest in 2021.
“It’s so powerful that people can do that with their story, and how you can change the world by just being your authentic self. I tell young people, ’Just be yourself, the world will open up for you.’ I know it’s tough because of the way the world is right now, but it’s just so much easier and a weight lifted off your shoulders when you’re not wearing like 10 different masks, you can just be yourself,” says Askew.
Askew was on Squamish Nation Council from 2017 to 2021, and while she thought she’d be out of politics after that, within a year she had joined the Assembly of First Nations as the B.C. representative on the 2SLGBTQ+ council.
“It can be tough some days,” she says, “but being so intersectional I feel like I have to be a voice for all of these intersections, and I feel like I’m not even controlling it, like somebody else is controlling it.”
“I’m just drawn to things that I want changed for my people.”
Askew travels back and forth to Ottawa with this work, and visits Indigenous communities that she would not otherwise be able to see.
“Doing this on the national level, and the fact that I’m on a two-spirit council, getting to do that work, it’s really awesome,” Askew says, adding that her mom told her she’ll be heading to the United Nations next.
“I’m trying to get younger people interested in politics because I remember having that attitude, like, ‘Someone else will take care of that, I don’t have to take care of that.’ But we’re older now and we’re the ones that have to take care of it.”
Askew encourages all young people to get involved in their community in some way, shape or form.
“My belief is if these councils and these boards don’t reflect people in the community, then change isn’t going to happen because they’ll keep doing the same things they’ve done before but that doesn’t work anymore,” she says.
For Askew, keeping up with her creative side balances out her political work. DJ O Show is working on a new 4-song EP this year with producer Jane Aurora, who also produced the track Status & Clarity, which was released in 2021.
She performed the song at The Path Forward in June of 2023, a day-long Vancouver Symphony Orchestra event curated by the VSO Indigenous Council, aligning with and honouring Canada’s National Indigenous Peoples Day. It was the first time the VSO had collaborated with a hip-hop artist.
“Fighting for a seat at the table for you and the people… that’s got to be one of the toughest things I’ve ever done, but it’s amazing,” says Askew. “I wouldn’t change it for the world because I’m making change in my community, then I get to go and write a song about it.”
For Askew, writing is almost like therapy.
“You’re writing out what you see, and your feelings and stuff, then Jane helped me put it into a hip-hop cadence. She’s been great, a total mentor to me, and she’s worked in the industry for years.”
When giving so much of herself to others through her councils, volunteer work and speaking engagements, Askew always makes time for her own mental health and the work that gives her joy. Whether it’s working out, speaking to a counsellor, or other forms of self-care, Askew says if you don’t nurture your mental health, everything else isn’t going to work.
“Taking care of yourself is actually community work, because you’re then going out into the world and you’re thinking about things in a better way,” she says.
As far a motivation goes, it’s the young people in her community that not only inspire her, but also teach the teacher.
“There’s a lot of young people in my Squamish Nation community and they teach me so much all the time,” Askew says. “I call them my niblings, but we keep in touch like on social media and stuff and they see the world completely differently.”
Her mother went to residential day school in North Vancouver, so Askew sits in the middle of these two generations.
“I’m in the middle just watching these young people thrive and be able to say what they want to do, what they don’t want to do, or protest. Then I look at my mom’s generation, and they weren’t allowed to do that. They were forced into these horrible schools. You know they didn’t have a choice,” she says. “Being around survivors, I love it because their stories are incredible and they teach you so much, but they weren’t allowed to say their feelings, or they have a hard time saying their feelings. Then the younger people, they’ll say it — with no problem whatsoever. So it’s interesting.”
She admits she often feels envious of young people, because she believes they will truly change the world.
“That’s what motivates me to keep doing what I’m doing, because I’m like if you’re not helping the younger generation, what are you doing? We’re going to get older and they’re going to take care of us. It’s the circle of life.”
In March, Askew was part of the annual Gathering Our Voices conference, hosted by The BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres and The Provincial Aboriginal Youth Council.
“I think people underestimate storytelling. They’re like, ‘My story is boring’. No. There’s something that happened in your life that if you talk about it, it’s going to change somebody else’s life, or they can relate to you about it.”
Orene Askew received a 2015 BC Indigenous Business Award, a 2018 Stand Out Award from the Vancouver Pride Society, a 2021 Alumni of Excellence Award from Capilano University, and a 2022 International Indigenous Hip Hop Award for DJ of the Year. This May, she’ll be at the 41st annual YWCA Women of Distinction Awards as a nominee in the Arts, Culture & Design category.
Rebecca Bollwitt
Writer
Rebecca Bollwitt has been writing about events and travel in B.C. since 2004 on the multi-award-winning blog Miss604.com. With 25 years of digital publishing experience, she has co-authored and technically edited five books on the subject, and founded her own agency which assists clients across North America with their social media strategies and website development. Community is at the heart of her mission, and Rebecca partners with and sponsors campaigns for more than 20 charities each year. She also serves as a board executive for two local non-profit organizations.
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