A native Montrealer, NEeMA grew to love poetry and traveling while still very young. She spent much of her time on the road, working with street children in Egypt, Tibetan monks in India and the Tlicho First Nation People in Canada's far north. She is blessed with an honest, soothing voice, which finds expression in contemporary folk and spoken word. Since the release of her 2006 debut album Masi Cho ("thank you" in Tlicho), she has toured the world, finally visiting the Festival in 2009. NEeMA returned the following year to unveil a new self-produced CD, Watching You Think, created with the help of Leonard Cohen and Pierre Marchand.