Climate-conscious Grimes supports National Observer Kickstarter

Award-winning singer, songwriter and producer Grimes is a strong advocate of environmental and social justice. Her latest work has been named "Album of the Year", and she's been profiled of late by The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. We're honoured to have her support for National Observer's reporting.

Grimes backed Vancouver Observer's Tar Sands Reporting Project Kickstarter project and she wore the project t-shirt at an LA concert. On top of that, she gave permission for us to use her song "Genesis" — with 36 million views on YouTube, nominated by MuchMusic as Dance Video of the Year— on our second Kickstarter campaign video, "Reports from the Energy Battlegrounds."

Grimes' 2012 album Visions — which contains "Genesis"— was praised by The New York Times as one of the "most impressive albums of the year," while her fourth album, Art Angels, was ranked second best album of the year on Rob Sheffield's Top 20 Albums of 2015, in Rolling Stone magazine, and also topped NME's list as album of the year.

Born in Vancouver as Claire Boucher, Grimes is the daughter of National Observer Associate Editor Sandy Garossino, but her support for environmental reporting began four years ago with support for Vancouver Observer's reporting on pipeline proposals and the people and places impacted by tar sands expansion.

She started her recording career while attending McGill University in Montréal, where she became involved with the underground music scene.

In the early days of her career, she spoke out against the "sexualization of female musicians," and took control of her own music by recording and engineering every aspect of her music herself, rather than relying on outside producers. In addition to her environmental advocacy, she has written and spoken openly about women's rights. Her causes are passionately supported by her 900,000 Facebook fans and her 800,000 Instagram and Twitter followers.

She also creates fashion items featuring her own artwork. The tank tops that you see in the images below were created by Boucher, and are a reward you can get for backing National Observer's Kickstarter campaign, Reports from the Race Against Climate Change

If you love Grimes' work and agree that climate change will be a challenge for the next generation, please pledge today.