Stolen People on Stolen Land

the ship and try to listen again. It stove knife. I'm rhyming reckless. Your whole mind is feckless. I roll the blutt and then I smoke or drinking wine for breakfast. This is the forty five mark. I'll give it ninety seconds. Then I'll keep your cardio straight. You never found me breathless. I called it vintage. You can say I got a funny flow. You're talking to a stack of books. You're talking to your money. Though, I really need a snack.

I eat a wrapper like a honey roll. It was gonna give the stimulus, but now the fucking money froze juxtaposed just supposed that I'm just the bro. No one's home was my clothes. Oh, it's just the road. Hey, my name is Lingua Franca. I'm dope night on remations. Oh my god, that's perfect. I feel like that prevalent capitulate swear. This week, it's been. It's been a heck of a week. It definitely happens. So, I mean, what's gone on this week? We took last week off, as

you guys don't know, um, but what has happened? Oh? I got stopped by the cops when I was canvasing. That was fun. That was fun. We were canvasing. I don't even want to say it was a pro Trump neighborhood. There was definitely a lot more Trump signs than I had seen in a lot of the places we had been at. But you know, we're walking through and I just had a feeling, you know, And then the next thing I know, we hear somebody and they're like, hey, can I talked to you guys around? It's like a

loan cop. We're like, oh word. We I automatically was putting together what happened. But the ship that was the surprising part. Was like the three other dragon Neet squad cars that like pulled up, like the dudes popping out as if there was some ship already going on. So that was cool. I love that. Love getting a racially

profiled while trying to just get people to vote. I mean, I don't even know if it was racially profile I think it was like straight up attempted murder, you know, because whoever called the cop, whoever called the cops, they saw us like talking to their neighbors before they called the cops. So it's not even like a situation where we were just like some sketchy black dudes and like okay talking to people. Yeah, the moment we rolled in, we were talking to people, you know what I'm saying.

So they saw us talking and smiling and that we were handing out uh you know, literature and ship and you know, I'm pretty sure they in that neighborhood know who's the Biden people who's not, because it's not like we're knocking up not Biden people, but who's for we're knocking also who's not. And it's not like we were knocking on doors at random, you know what I'm saying, Like we're going to Yeah, we we, I mean our

and we've been targeting low propensity Democratic voters. So folks that, like, according to their voting records are Democrats, but like don't usually get out and vote and like runoffs or special elections or things like that. Yeah, so that was whack. Yeah, I mean I've been through that before. But yeah, we did get a new kitten. Though we did get new kitten that's bringing some joy into the household. You know,

doesn't replace eggs. I still miss eggs. And he's like, so you know that the surly face he's always had, he always looked mad, but then he kicked him up and like spin him around and flop his head and he would just like love it. And even though he looked mad a whole things like that, I still miss X. But you know, is adorable. He is. I'm sure he'll be big enough to be cause in ruck as while

we're recording. And yeah, and I would like the world to know that his name Sinks are a combination of future Congresswoman Nita Turner and the fictional movie gangster Nino Brown from New Jack City. So we've both got to like do have part of our you know, nerdiness reflected in the cat's name. And there's mad incriminating pictures of me being sweet and adorable with the cat. Listeners, Listeners, check this out, mac love for this cat is so pure.

We're just saying, such a grown ass man, this crumble at the feet of tiny. We can't let any of that imagery get out there. I'm a rapper, don't used to wrap this funny cat. Yeah, all these three credits done so Oh as if I had any street cred to begin with. But now that's gonna kill. That's gonna kill a little there was. Yeah, well, um, so what

are we What are we talking about today? We're revisiting an interview that we did several months ago with an activist, an indigenous activist from New Mexico named La La june Um. I had a really insightful conversation with her about the

ways that indigeneity influences her political organizing and worldview. And I just feel like, especially in the in like the wake of our recent conversation with Daniel Blackman about a Great New Deal, I thought these perspectives on the environmental injustice and you know, equally sustainability and land stewardship could be like a cool follow up for that. No, I agree, nout Um. We're also gonna be talking about how COVID

does disproportionately affecting Indigenous communities. And for the music discussion, we've got a real dope crop of Indigenous Native artists that we're gonna check out. It also comes on the

tail of a reason. Uh, I don't even want to call it snapoo, but our current Georgia Republican Senators Kelly Leffler and David Purdue came out with a strong statement in support of the name of the Atlanta Braves, as if there's nothing more important to be if you know, they're you know, going back and forth between science is the most important election of a lifetime. While meanwhile, taking a break from the campaign trail to staunchly stand behind colonialists,

uh garbage. They put out a statement, this is a per CBS News. They said, we adamantly oppose any effort to rename the Atlanta Braves, one of our state's most storied and successful sport franchises. They said this on Monday, so this would have been last Monday when we took the week off, not on we are the Braves Georgia institution with the history spanning fifty four years in Atlanta,

they are an American institution. I did not know the Atlanta Braves were this fucking important to Ship outside of baseball until I just read that statement an American institution. You know what else was a story in American institution, Uh Native tribes that like who this land belongs to thousands of years before we were and who were genocided by uh colonialist maniacs. But oh, let's let's not let's

you know, make sure to put that aside. For the fifty four year history of the Atlanta Atlanta Braves, it's pretty much just right wing virtue signaling at this point. I mean, Ship, it's just reaching out to the you know, to whatever unactivated racist or left in Georgia. Like a guys, don't forget we don't think too much about Native Americans. Also, do you understand you here? Just in case you're mistaken thinking it's all about rack socialism and antiva what them engines,

there's parity of themselves at this point. So um, anyway, Yeah, wherever you are, where you'rever, you're listening kick back. I'm about to light went up and we're gonna get into it after the job. And so something that I drew a lot from in my talk with Lather that you all are going to hear in a little bit UM was kind of thinking about the ways that the federal government's attempts to prescribe indigeneity kind of parallel and if it's sometimes impacted um, black people living in this land

is well. And that led me to kind of do a little bit of research about what blood quantums are and you know, how they have impacted Native American communities as well as Black folks. Surprisingly, so if you're not familiar with the idea, um, blood quantums is this measurement of how much Indian Native American blood did you have in your body as a way of determining your rightful belonging to a tribe and duste how much the federal government you know, like how big, how big the tribe is?

You know, whether or not you qualify for programs that are specifically for Native people's things like that. It can affect your identity, your relationships, and whether or not you

or your children, um can become a citizen of your tribe. UM. So many Native nations, including the Navajo Nation and the Turnital Mountain band of the Chippewa Indians still use it as citizenship requirements, although among like American uh Native communities, there's a lot of disagreement about the ways that blood quantums kind of like contradicts or runs contrary to like

their conceptions of what makes one native um. Some tribes accepted, others go with more of a linear lineal um determination of you know, if you belong to the tribe, and some others have sort of thrown out the metric entirely because it's just it's imposed upon them by the federal government, not it's not like something they even want. Yeah. Um, the Navajo Nation requires a minimum of Navajo blood, and Turtle Mountain requires a minimum of of any Indian blood

as long as it's a combination with some Turtle Mountain. Yeah. So different tribes kind of do it in different ways, and ultimately it kind of restricts who can be a citizen of the tribe if you've got, for example, you know, nate Navajo blood. According to that tribes bloo quantum standards, if you have children with someone who has a lower blood quantum, maybe someone who is only an eighth Navajo,

or maybe someone's not Navajo at all. Technically your children wouldn't be able to enroll as members of the Navajo nation. So the federal government, this is what it just gets really under my skin and find kind of creepy um issues. Was called a certified degree of Indian blood. There's a card similar to an ID card um that shows you know whether or not you are technically of a certain

tribe and um. It's usually calculated using you know, your blood quantums calculated by using tribal documents, official tribal documents or government official um ortin sorry, so usually it's like a tribal official or government official that calculates it for me, for you. But one of the major problems with blood quantum is that a lot of times the people who were taking the federal taking the roles for the federal government, we're unfamiliar with Native ways of defining their own communities.

And so you have people come in who would just look around, just look at folks and say you look pretty Navajo. U so I the white guy, UM say you're so Tho's actually former black slaves who are living as just fully like incorporated members of Indian tribes um who you know, when the government officials will come in and take the rules were they would take one look at them. I was like this, this Nigga is clearly a nigga um and so you are not of this tribe.

And they would get excluded, even um and even those with mixed heritage if they were black in indiand if they look black, they would get um listed on the separate role. And so today the ramification is that they don't have the original. They don't have that original unrollly in their past, so they don't have enough blood quantum to be extended tribal membership, even though in every way

cultural and social they might be fully incorporated into the tribe. Now, the one drop rule is similar to the one drop rules I think listeners would probably be more familiar with.

But yeah, go ahead and tell them about them. Oh about the one So the one drop rule is measured by the amount of black blood that black people had in society, and that ensured that every person who had at least one drop would be considered black and would be covered under the would be covered under these discriminatory laws.

And even in the earlier days, enslaves so yeah, this is a part of this legacy of the federal government needing to inscribe racial rules onto people, sometimes to provision services, but also in a certain sense to limit the scope of those services, because like, well, if we're able to whittle down the number of people we say are a part of this tribe, that means we don't have to

ensure services to as many folks. Yeah. On the flip side, with African Americans, you know, if you have one drop of black blood, if we're able to like quantify and therefore categorize you racially, uh, then we can also we can discriminate against you. It's just this weird, this weird

thing the federal government does. So Yeah, the same way that like, uh, one drop was enough to classify as black blood, quantum emerges a way to measure Indian this um and also serve as a way to ensure that Indians would literally breed themselves out of existence and read the federal government of their legal responsibility to uphold treaty obligations.

And technically there are no longer members of the tribe because all of their descendants have married into people of other races and no one has high enough blood wants them to qualify as a member of the tribe. So it was all of this stuff like UM pushed by the federal government. So the actual tribes themselves had nothing

to do with these determinations. I mean, some tribes, it sounds like, do it in different ways, but to me, it still seems like it was impos most upon them and it's something their own, uh sense of identity and worldview. It wasn't It wasn't like endogenous to these communities. There's one tribe I recall in my research that actually UM somewhere in Canada that did away with all sorts of lineal or blood quantum requirements entirely. Anyone can be a

member of the tribe. They just said, anybody, you're in UM. And so it really varies from tribe to tribe. But UM, I just like you know, we were sure about hip hop. We talk about black issues a lot, but moments to sort of pause and consider the ways our struggles intersect and UM are impacted by similar vehicles of policy, like similar public policy vehicles through like federal, state and local governments. UM. I think it's always interesting kind of helps build solidarity.

And so I found this way, I found this like really fruitful for like thinking more deeply about um, just like what our shared battles are and how we can sort of come together to fight fight off all these ways that people try to define who we are for us. Have you ever have you ever thought about or have you already like tried to look into what your native roots are? I mean, I'm I'm I'm aware of UM,

I'm Native American. UM. I talked a little bit about this in my interview with Lila, But I grew up going to like pow wows on the reservation and other than that though not really participating in any ceremonies or

learning about the culture whatsoever. But like, um, yeah, like every time I drive home, there's like, you know, the tribal we passed the tribal government office and like you know, reading the newspaper about the chiefs and what's going on with the tribe, and there you know, decision like legislation, decisions are making for the community. Uh. And I think it's really interesting and something I've grappled with a lot.

It's an adult is that because of the one drop rule and things like this, And I guess as well to a lesser degree than was like, um obvious to me growing up or in my like I don't know political transformation as a young adult. Um uh an account of like the way that blood quantum has also worked, uh the one drop rules, so that like if you are like a little bit black, you're black. Doesn't matter. If you're Mexican doesn't matter, if you're Filipino, doesn't matter,

if you are um whatever. Well, like if you got a little bit black, you're black. And so, like I've grown, I was raised a black person despite the fact that like my like grandfather was the chief of the tribe. Okay, so you're so that's so as far as your roots go. So your great grandfather was fully Native American. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Well, I mean, and that's the thing, fully,

what do you mean by that? Because like from everybody, everybody like, well, I guess what I would mean is like a pretty light skinned person, and like where I come from, everybody looks like me. Where it's like you would probably lump them into the category of black because of the way that the race is made of binary in the United States. But like we're all Native Americans and we're all members of the tribe, even though maybe there's some you know, some European American mix in, etcetera.

But like it's more of a cultural um affinity and cultural affiliation than it is so like like well, well who was your daddy pure blood or anything like that. It's just about like we're a community and if you're from here, this is a part of who you are. UM, And so trying to nap our own sense of who we are as a people onto like this greater cultural um framework that that like just like it's tries to

compartmentalize people in ways that just doesn't work. Um is the struggle and something I'm trying to learn how to resist as they get older, Like on my forms, trying to like, you know, check that I am Alti Native American because time I didn't, because that's not why people from the outside told me that I was when they look at me. Um. The basketball player Kyrie Irving a couple of years ago went to the Standing Rock Reservation

to get in touch with his Sioux heritage. I guess his mother was born into the Sioux tribe before she was adopted, and he's been going on a little bit of a you know, finding his inner self journey the last few years and reconnecting with that part of his heritage seems to be doing the trick a little bit. Yeah, so and and and Lylon, Lylon and I talked a little bit about this in the episode in the interview, so hopefully for other for other people were interested in

this for themselves. Um, I think you'll find this really insightful and hopefully helpful for you in your journey and reconnecting with your native roots. So let's actually go to the Leila interview right now and check that out. So this is my interview with Lela June, environmental justice activists, spoken word artists, and warmer candidate for house in the

state of New Mexico. With forgiveness as my bow and my prayers as my animals pull them back and let go and fly like sparrows have ho So, Lyla, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got here, and how hip hop and spoken word have played a role in your life. Well, I always wanted to share my message with the world as an Indigenous woman, because much of our story has never been told to the non native world in our own voice. And so I stopped.

I stumbled upon spoken word when I was in high school, um, and I won a bunch of national poetry slams and things of things like that. And hip hop, of course is uh an incredible tool that I'm forever indebted to the African American population, and a lot of marginalized communities are indebted to the African American population for giving us that tool to not to elevate their communities, but they gave it to many marginalized communities to help us elevate

our communities as well. And so it's been a real joy to use these tools also as a musician with my guitar and singer songwriter to elevate my my story so that we can increase visibility for indigenous peoples and our struggles. Can you talk a little bit about your

earliest exposures to hip hop? Wow? Well, I think my earliest exposures to hip hop and I don't know if i'd call it hip hop, but was mainstream pop music, uh, And I never really resonated with that because a lot of it was degrading women and and encouraging what I've viewed as unhealthy things, and so I've never really understood that hip hop was more than just a tool of oppression that if you used it correctly, it could be

a tool of liberation. And so once once I discovered that, I think the first person I don't know if you know Blackly just, but he was probably the first person who opened my eyes to how this UM tool could

be used to elevate all people. Yeah. Yeah, I had a similar journey with hip hop as a young person, kind of not really identifying with it when I was an adolescent because of its misogyny and in its mainstream incarnations, and later finding artists that were inspiring that UM kind of brought me around to see how it could be used as a tool proliberation. So I feel you a

lot on UM, I'll feel you a lot on that. UM. Do you see an advantage to using hip hop in particular to get certain message and points across more effectively than in other medium's? Absolutely? Um. Well, you know we learn our A B c's through song, right, because when you're learning something through song and rhythm, you remember it much more easily. I remember learning songs when I was very very young, and I still remember them as a

thirty year old woman. And I remember commercials. You know, industries used that against us, and they get us to member arize their slogans and the names of their brands with song, you know. And so we can utilize song too and rhythm to translate messages to people that they can keep, that they can remember, that they can carry with them throughout their lives. And as a Denay woman, as an indigenous woman or as some people call it, Native American woman, which we think that term is problematic,

but um, yeah, all of our are. A lot of our cultural knowledge was passed down to generation and generation through song, and so our wisdom and our way of life was encoded in song. And so I think hip hop is another iteration of the natural human inclination to share information via song, and I think it's incredibly effective. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

I think that the way that song can kind of act as a mnemonic in a certain sense for making a message become embedded in your mind is really powerful too. And as I think a lot of my dariences with performing also helped prepare me for speaking out for public service. Do you feel the same about your the linkages between

your music experience and your experience of public service. Now, you know, that's a very interesting question that I haven't thought about, but now that I reflect on it, absolutely, I mean getting in front of crowd after crowd after crowd, starting at age fourteen as a spoken word artist, you really learned to soak up the nervousness and the awkwardness and the fear that comes with public speaking and and metabolize that that raw, energetic moment where you everyone is

hanging on every word you say, and you turn that from a place of fear and doubt into a place of beauty and even even control to a certain extent, and leveraging that control with a lot of integrity and gentleness to the crowd. So that UM as a spoken word artist and as a musician who's spoken in and crowds of anything from twenty people to uh six thousand people, UM recently did a speech at the um My First Arena, you know, and so we're we're in that situation where

we have that experience and that doesn't daunt us. And so now that you think about it, I think that absolutely helps and and helps me kind of own the stage.

Throughout the campaign trip, I've struggled a lot as I've come to become an adult and realized how little I know about my native heritage, despite the fact that like growing up it was symnthathized to me that like we did have this part of us, but like my parents didn't pass down to me those traditions, like figuring out how to get back in touch with my roots, get back in tou touch with my culture, especially living away from our lands. Now my people are from North Carolina.

I'm here in Georgia, and so having that physical distance between like the tribal lands and like myself now, like what is it what would you say to someone like myself that you know, I given given the way at race works in America and like the one drop rule and the binarization of race, have grown up thinking, you know, myself as African American, Like, what would you say as

would be my first steps into recovering my ancestral identity. Well, I think you need help from people like me who quote unquote look native and quote unquote are our native

and are are connected to our roots. We need to validate people's indigenous identity, and we need to say we need to give people permission to say yes, claim that because all of this uh politics of oh well you're not you're not really native you're just a thirty sixth Cherokee that needs to go because people are Native and if we block them and shame them from claiming that, then they don't even need to do genocide on us. We're doing it to ourselves. We do it to each other.

And so it's very important, I think, for my folks who kind of have the brown's in and the brown eyes and the brown hair and and we still know the songs and the ceremonies, etcetera, to really look at our counterparts who are not just African American, but also those who look white, and say, listen, we want you to honor who you are, and we need you to honor who you are because that's the only way we're going to get out of this mess. So that's number.

What Number two is, um if no one gives you permission to claim it, just go on and claim it yourself. We don't need someone's permission to claim it. To know who you are and and take that, take hold of that. And number three is be sensitive to place. You know, if you're in Georgia now, then you are in the

homeland of a different nation and that's okay. And so find the nation who you are standing on their land, which in your case they might be relocated to Oklahoma, but nevertheless, there's always repatriation work going on where they're giving land back to indigenous peoples and if there isn't,

become a part of that. And my personal feeling is wherever land you're standing on, uplift the nations who used to take care of those lands, because those are the songs, those are the ceremonies, those are the traditional ecological knowledge bases that are suited to that specific biome, that specific ecological context, and those are the ones who have the answers of how to become sovereign in terms of food security right there in that place. Yeah, that's really valuable.

I appreciate it from a personal from a personal place. Um, I'll definitely keep all of that mind as well as in my policy making and thinking about repatriation and like what that might look for us, look like for us as a local government. Thank you for all the work you do, and again, thank you for honoring your indigenous ancestry. It's been really fun to be a part of supporting that. I lived in Alabama for about a year once and all the people I met were indigenous from some community somewhere.

Most of them, i'd say a good whether they look black or they look white. We're a lot of us are shirring that. And so my last message I'll just leave us with is, you know, please honor that and and research that and and give yourself permission to carry that with you wherever you go. Okay, great, all right, Well I know where to find you. I'm following you. I just bought your album, uh to the people's knowledge on band campus, that cloud Instagram, it's just Lila June Twitter.

It's Lila June for in Him And yeah, thank you so much for having me. This is a very interesting and beautiful conversation, and I hope it inspires many many listeners out there, whether they're you know, seasoned politicians or everyday citizens like us, you know, to stand up and and run for office and know and believe in yourself that you're completely worthy of doing so. Thank you so much. Have a great rest of your day. All right, thanks

for your time, guys. Bye, just right now. As with like a lot of other aspects of society, one of the clearest ways to see the inequalities and hardships that face indigenous populations is through the COVID lens. Now it's well known that people of color face greater greater risk than others from the deadly virus, and that risk only

increases with Indigenous folk. We came across a really dope article in The Atlantic by University of Oregon history professor Jeffrey Ostler, titled Disease has Never been Just disease for Native Americans. It references virgin soil epidemics, which is a theory popularized by Jared Diamonds, Guns, Germs, and Steel that when Europeans arrived in the Western hemisphere, they brought diseases, particularly things like smallpox and measles, that Indigenous people had

never experienced before. Because we had no immunity to these diseases, the resulting epidemic took the lives of or more of the native of population throughout the America's However, new search has shown that centuries after the Europeans came post contact, effects of diseases devastated indigenous peoples, not because of the lack of immunity, but due to the conditions created by

the Europeans and US colonialisms. It made commute native communities more vulnerable to this, The article goes on to state to understand how dire the COVID nineteen the situation is becoming for these communities. Consider the situation and folding for the Navajo Nation people with homelands in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. As of a sixty infections and fifty dats have been reported among the Navajo reservations a hundred and seventy thousand people a mortality rate of thirty thousands. Only

six states have a higher per capita toll. That's nuts, yeah, um. Now, part part of what making what makes combating COVID so difficult UH are the ongoing effects of colonialism. So the Navajo, they already have a high incidence of conditions like diabetes, hypertension, lung disease that increase their chances of getting gravely ill from the virus. That in the lack of access to

clean water, hand sanitizer, hospital beds, and medical personnel. It all helps like spread and compact and compound the whole situation. Racial misclassification and exclusion of Indigenous communities from data sets and analysis that are used to make public health policies also play a role in this. So Trump appropriated ten billion dollars to travel governments after initially resisting but um as of now, the Treasury Department tasks but distributing these

funds has failed to disperse them properly. The CDC initially denied tribal epidemiology centers, including the Urban Indian Health Institute, access to data about testing and confirmed to COVID nineteen cases, even though it was making those data available to states. Data collected by tribes, local and state health departments, and national agencies are also often inconsistent. The social demographer for the University of California and Los Angeles and citizen of

the Northern Cheyenne Nation, Desis Rodriguez Lone Bear. He said, for so long data has been used against our people. For example, the U S Census, which begins seventeen ninety, excluded American Indians until eighteen sixty and didn't count those living on reservations until the nineteen hundreds. The census data was then used to justify the invasion of settlements and

supposedly empty land. And so I feel like again we're saying this like this, this uh eurocentric colonialist desire and impulse to quantify things and to reduce things into data and to like, uh, to be able to you know, put things on a fucking biograph as used implicitly as a tool for the destruction of people who fall outside of that, who don't who don't subscribe to those world views.

And then if you go off of like the logic of blood quantums, it's like, as folks continue to marry outside of their tribes or you know, reduce those quantifiable like that quantified aple indigenuity among their descendants, are fewer and fewer people that technically count as stative American And so this thing we're like, oh, you know, since this data were used to justify the invagement and settlement of these lands because they were supposedly empty, it's like, well, also,

there's no one to worry about because there are fewer natives, because folks, because because according to this uh measurement, there's just fewer people that count as members of the tribe. And so there's all these ways that like so it's like all backhanded, sneaky ship to get out of what they owe. There is like sneaky genocide. Damn a whole a new flavor genocide, the sneaky brand. Ohleness generess. Okay,

I'm so sorry. I descride the fact that I like grew up around Native cultures in you know, rural North Carolina. A watershed moment for me and my sense of solidarity with indigenous movements for land protection and tribal sovereignty. Uh and for many people UM was the Dapple protests back in Yeah, um and so uh. A number of hip

hop artists also were a part of that movement. UM. At the height of standoff between protesters and security police forces over the Dakota Access Pipeline, a collection of artists in public figures, most of whom are native UM released a song and video titled Stand Up, Standing Rock and Support of the Movement UM. It was organized by Black Eyed Peas or no. It was organized by Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas who has sho showny heritage, and the song was to promote awareness as well as stand

as an anthem for Indigenous people across the country. So. Some of the artists featured on the track are Flute, m c One, Djesus among others. And we're going to be checking out a song from Jesus later. So UM. From what I gathered from what I was seeing there. The most that I could find was like Chance the

Rapper and some other celebrities. I mean, there were some celebrities who were commenting about it, but as far as some hip hop ship goes, I think Chance the Rapper might have commented on it, but there wasn't too much noise being made from the non indigenous rap community. And that's a problem. I mean, yeah, we're like we are stolen people on stolen land. Like we're all subjects to colonialism and our cultural arrature and subjugation, and like we

got a band together and fight back. I mean, like the same people that are telling us to go back to Africa, it's like you should go back to you know, man, like like we all I don't know, I just feel like we all got to get free and so like getting Native folks their sovereignty back, like and also you know, getting Actually this is something we weren't even gonna get

into the show. But like there was this woman that ran for Congress in Georgia's sixth district by the name of Brenda Lopez, who, when asked on a endorsement questionnaire, I think for like our revolution or something. Um if she's reported reparation. She was like, yeah, as long as it includes Native people. They literally had never thought about

that before. Her Land back is like a movement one that I need to learn more about, frankly, but like the idea of like the the other forms of loss that these folks have incurred, and um, thinking about what that means in terms of giving, you know, repairing then reparating that. Uh, you know, it makes sense to me. It makes sense what that looks like and whether or not there is a strong movement for that, like in in the in in business communities, Um, what do you

think down to fight together? I'm going to have you back to get your representations too, Like let's do this, Like in the hypothetical situation, let's say that it was like the government was like, all right, we are going to spend the next like three or four years setting up the infrastructure to where we can repay some some form of restitute of reparations to the Native American community.

Like do you think that that would open up the floodgates for I don't mean floodgates in a bad way, but I just mean do you think that would start that would like start a new era of Um, I guess this reconciliation the right word for it. But do you think that like black reparations would be next there, American descendants of slave reparations would be next. And then like with the domino effect happened in the crackn Be released. Yeah, you know what I honestly think would happen if they

started talking about reparations for indigenous people. Black people would torpedo it. Damn. I kind of think you're ready, we would go. We would all finding into each other about who should get it first, should get it first, and the you know, all this quantifying of who we are racially based on the one drop and has been so effective and in the ways that in the media and in our discourse we talk about race has been so

so effective in dividing us. Like I can't even blame people who are wanting to fight each other, because like that should have been programmed from on high to the point that it's straight up weaved into the fabric of the culture. That's by design, Because if we didn't know, if we come together, they're fucked. If all of us, if the white working class and the gays and all of the immigrants and the indigenous folks and we banded

together and rose up. They would be fucked well, didn't want that, so they're like, well, you know, and with that, let's uh, let's talk some RAPPI rap rap ship. Let's get into the music. So the first rapper up is jjesus Uh. He is a Indigenous rapper who's a member with the First Nation's Tribe. He's an activist in Calgary, Alberta. He gained a good deal of notoriety with the release of his two thousand and fourteen album Indian war Path.

And this is his track war Path. Let's check it out and head slide alone and then me let's stab funk just through the strongest a death in Genesi. I think, like, for me, like the cool thing about it is, I like how he's going in about like his culture and his heritage and his pupil and ship. But stylistically, stylistically, he's doing it as if he was like rapping his set, you know what I'm saying. So it's like if you're listening to like a rapper who's like a like heavy

like crip rapper or something like that. Like the way that they would be going off for their crew is like how he's like going in for his tribe and ship in the song I really did that. Yeah, It's it's equal parts like commentary on the oppressive conditions that they have to deal with as well as like celebration of like the arrowheads and the buckskins and the in the faith painting and the head dresses and like does

it does? It does in so many way It's like perfectly fit the mold of like modern American hip hop, like win sense of like analysis and uplift of like yo, while people out here k eat but like we're looking at in the real Yeah, I would really admire that. Actually, well ship, I mean there's the next one kind of takes that concept that you just brought up and kind of takes it to the next level. This is um by the Snotty Nose rez Kids. This is a track

called Bougie Natives. Now. The Snotty Nose Red res Kids are another kid Nadian group there from the First Nation as well. They're hip hop duo composed of Hasler Rapper, Young d and Young Tribes. Yeah, they're currently banks in Vancouver. He's not the tych movie spelled the Spirit Live Me since I was, I mean I love it because like the visuals, like you've got all these different kinds of people in like in native dress. Some folks look more

like like typically North American fancy. There're thing going on, and they facially look different with regards to the variety of different ways to look native like condition to dress. I just think that it's really dope representationally because like it's not you know, the last video it was sort of like there riding horses, they're hanging out in front of a h t P. They're like, you know, sator of the fire. There's a lot of like there's a lot of like ancient uh Native like references and ship

like the arrowhead and word. But like, you know, it's okay, Like I feel like this video is giving license to like yo, it's I if you're indigenous and also being part of the modern world, you're you're gauge where your gauges, and you're you know, like making your tea in a little can X boiler thing. I don't know what those things are called, you know, I mean listeners, I know you know what I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about. That. I also, as a linguist, really enjoyed

what I would. I what I think was like native slang. Yeah, I think he was putting a lot of native slang and even just some like native words were dispersed through the verse and stuff like that. Like he was saying, he kept referencing Nietzsche and then he said Netzi please. Yeah that made me chuckle. Yeah, Yeah, that's a cool it's a cool mixture. I love it when it's gonna sound fucked up. But I'm not a linguist like you,

so I can't word it the same way. But I like it when hip hop is appropriated correctly into different cultures, you know what I'm saying, Because it's like I don't know, it's just like that's just like me that either there's certain sorts of like ways of appropriating it into different contexts and not even I know the term appropriation is neative,

different ways of like you know, remixing. I mean hip hop it's all about remixing things, and so there's certain ways to appropriate to to remix cultural conventions while like honoring and like while showing that you are like well versed in them. Yeah, exactly what I mean. Like there's there's appreparation where it's like you clearly don't know what you're talking about exactly. I never felt the preparation was like, oh no, you fucking no what what it's good? You

know me? Or it's like, oh, you remixing ship and you clearly love the craft like you know me and you know the type of hip hop that I just generally listened to for leisure, like the sort of stuff that I'm into personally. So that song was definitely a bit a bit lighter than the usual ship that I like to listen to. But I never felt like I was in the hands of posers while it was on.

You know what I'm saying, Like, the beat is jamming, the flow is solid, and it's just like when you when you use hip hop to like empower yourself and your own identity. I think that's when hip hop is like truly like at its peak, you know what I'm saying. And they just owned that ship. So I love that. That was the dope. Our last song is from JB the first lady who helped found the Indigenous hip Hop

Collective in East Vancouver. There was a key part of the growing force of Canadian Indigenous women who are using hip hop to standing their power JB. The First Lady has songs about suicide and murder of Indigenous women, which is a huge issue, know um, particularly in Canada, missing and murdered Indigenous women. Like it's just like incredibly disproportioned and not being taken seriously by the Canadian government. But listens her song still Here. It's truth baden coobiden and shading,

but you're here. That shows I I really think that that is an effective use of a song to bring like awareness to a particular issue. Like the refrain of the hook is crazy, ye know, the hook is crazy and like the whole like it again, like remixes the hip hop traditions of like of of critique, but like a sense of resilience at the same time, where she's

like we're still here, drinking water. They are here, we have missing mothers and others, but like we still here, Like that is the hip the hip hop is ship.

I never heard, Like there really is no difference in the sentiment that she's getting across, like we ain't go with nowhere, we go nowhere, same same ship, you know, I know, I know that, Like it's gonna sound like this is somewhat sexist or something, but I really mean this in a purely like a purely craft way, and not because they're both women, but her cadence really gave me a no name five in the best way, and that super unpredictable, like she doesn't have to adhere to

any sort of like prescribe sense of meter or yeah, like or like, I feel like Lila's flow is like that too, went in it just did her thing. Doesn't Lilas flow feel like it's like that too? Yeah? No, that was that was dope. Um, we have one more that wasn't the last one. We do have one more that I want to get to. This last joint is by lightning Cloud. There's a track walk Alone Now. Lightning Cloud is an l A based native hip hop duo

consisting of Christie Lightning and MC red Out. I've known about red Cloud for years, Like as a freestyler, he's he you know, he's put out some videos that definitely from cats who freestyle in battle and ship like that. You know, he's definitely has attention to those cats. But I didn't know that he was in this group and what type of music he made outside of that scene in that context. So here's walk Alone. My mom like yo, that that beat fucking knacks the vocal intonation like his

his vocal styling because they're just ill. It reminds us of a friend of ours, friend of the show zero. But yeah, they have a similar I don't even I think it's not even necessarily the cadence, but it's the voice, like they're they're coming from the same register. Whisper. Yeah, it's like that, that whiskey and cigarettes voice. I don't even think. So she smokes Tom Waits was from like you know Thompton. Yeah, that's a good one. Besides, she's

gonna love that ship. But no, that that song was dope. It seemed to be like sort of almost a p s A about homelessness. And from what I could tell from the video was was that Las Vegas look like Vegas to me. But yeah, it could have been l

a that could have been good around that is true. Well, before we wrap it up, I do just want to give like a little honorable mentions list of some other indigenous hip hop artist just because we don't have enough time to go through everybody to do a snippet of everybody, but shout out you guys should check out deaf One Helen Back, West Coast Grizz Superman um an illustrated mess uh phrase complexity. Lots of fresh Indigenous artists out there for you all to check out. But that's gonna wrap

it up for us this week. I think we are going to close this off a little bit more of a special way since you guys hear us enough. Instead of us giving you guys that wraps the close off the show, We're gonna bring back Lila June to do one of her acapella pieces for y'all. And so Nope, I'm super excited for y'all. Hear it, yo hit us? Yes? Okay, Um, hopefully my beatbox doesn't sound weird in this little microphone. Um.

We were all given sacred duties to this land. Take care of Mother Earth, and she will help you understand that everything we need is in the palm of her hand. No need to drill, mind, conquer or extract. With faith in the Creator, we will blaze a brand new path when we let go a through the greed turns into left unity of all people. That is what we're after. I'm cruising down the Red Road with sweet grass on my dashboard. Used to drug and drink but now I'm sober.

Now I'm faster, sharp as attack. He told me, can't hold me back now. Yeah, I just want to build a new world for my children with love, prayer and unity. This nation is rebuilding up from the ash of genocide and division. Red, black, yellow, white, as one. That's the vision. Every race participates in this new beginning. Sacred is the masculine, and sacred is the feminine, infinite, indigenous, continuous, deliberate. Nothing can stop the people once they got their intentions that.

Some people say that the land can be owned. Trip Some people say that the land can be owned. But deep in our hearts, we know that isn't so, because we don't even own this flesh, show this bone. No, we can't take it with us on the soul's journey home. No, the only thing we own is the lessons that we know when we wake from the slumber to remember we are one, one beautiful people, under one beautiful son. We must also release all claims to the earth, because she

don't belong to us, should we belong to her? That is Dope super Fresh, Thanks for tuning in on'm Lingua Franca, I'm dope knife, and we are waiting on reparations for our native brothers and sisters too, So hurry out and see y'all next week. M hmm. Waiting on Reparations as a production of I Heart Radio. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.