Katarina Barruk asks listeners to set aside what they think they know about language and simply feel. An artist from Lusspie (Storuman) in northern Sweden, she sings in Umé Sámi, a dialect spoken by fewer than 30 people and listed on UNESCO’s red list of critically endangered languages. Her work weaves joiking—a traditional Sámi vocal style—into compositions, producing emotional expressions that don’t always translate directly.
Lusspie, a municipality roughly the size of Delaware, carries deep cultural meaning for Barruk. “The joik is what we call a traditional knowledge carrier—it’s one of our foundations,” she says. Joiking is not storytelling about something; it is a way of being inside and honoring people or landscapes through freestyle a cappella expression.
Her acoustic single “Dárbasjub Duv” exemplifies that sound, but Barruk’s music has already reached international stages: Iceland Airwaves, the Royal Albert Hall, Roskilde, Reeperbahn, and Øyafestivalen. She’s contributed vocals to art projects like the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea and Máret Ánne Sara’s “Goavve-Geabbil” at Tate Modern.
Barruk’s music opens a door to the wider Sámi community, which spans Sápmi across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula. Some Sámi maintain reindeer herding traditions tied to seasonal migrations. The Sámi languages cross borders, yet Umé Sámi is among the least spoken. Barruk grew up in an activist family: her father taught, researched, and helped revitalize Umé Sámi—he compiled the Umé Sámi dictionary. Holding that book in 2018 remains one of her key memories; it collected familiar words in one place and moved her to tears.
Her music continues the family mission to raise awareness and help preserve the language. Growing up, she watched elders who spoke Umé Sámi pass away and recognized the urgency of saving it. Carrying the language as a child meant constantly justifying and explaining it to others, she says. Joiking and Umé Sámi are departures from the expectation of direct translation—Barruk values words that describe the Indigenous Sámi world and way of life, and she notes that some of the first Sámi books, published in the 1600s, were written in Umé.
Barruk brings joik into the present by blending traditional vocals with electronic and instrumental elements. Collaborations like “Darbbuo” with electronic duo BICEP show how joik can sit alongside modern production. Her process is deliberate and rooted in place: she prefers to return home when starting new projects because much of her music springs from that earth. She resists rushing work for tours or tight schedules, aiming instead to give each piece the time it deserves.
Asked why she sings only in Umé Sámi, Barruk says it’s a conscious choice. She wants to challenge efforts that would make the language appear smaller than it is and to demonstrate the depth it adds to her music. “This is an Indigenous language that has survived against all odds. Still, it lives,” she says—her music both preserves and celebrates that living tradition.
