Tegan, Sara and Jackie Mittoo receive the 2024 Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize │ Exclamation!

Tegan, Sara and Jackie Mittoo are the two most recent artists to receive the Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Award, the annual award that celebrates Canadian albums created before Polaris’ debut in 2006.

Tegan and Sara’s beloved 2004 album So jealous received this year’s public vote winner, while Jackie Mittoo’s 1970 record Macka Grease wins the Heritage Prize jury. Macka Grease was awarded in part due to its status as an important part of the musical pipeline from Jamaica to Toronto that developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

In a statement, Tegan and Sara said:

Thank you to the Polaris Prize for recognizing one of our favorite albums and honoring us with this award. So jealous is not only loved by our fans; it’s an album that changed our lives forever. With the unwavering support of co-producers John Collins, David Carswell and Howard Redekopp, as well as musicians Matt Sharp, Rob Chursinoff and Chris Carlson, we pushed our musical and songwriting instincts to the extreme.

We are grateful to our former managers, Nick Blasko and Piers Henwood, who encouraged our experimentation and supported us in the face of sexism and homophobia in the press in the months and years following the release of So Jealous. This album inspired us to demand fairer treatment for women and LGBTQ+ people in the music industry.

Thanks to Emy Storey, our Art Director, who created the beautiful album cover, and Dustin Rabin for the photographs included in the album cover. We appreciate Vapor Records for trusting us to make the albums we envisioned, and we are grateful to the countless agents, publicists, label partners, crew members, touring bands, friends and family who have supported us – yesterday and today – through the ups and downs. the lowest of that time.

To the fans who discovered us when we were so desperate to be found, thank you.

Forty-one albums have received the Heritage Award since its introduction in 2015. Previous winning albums include that of Glenn Gould Bach: The Goldberg VariationsKid Koala Carpal tunnel syndromeMain source Break the atoms and Blue Rodeo’s Five days in July.