Q. What are the relationships or connections that linked you into the DBIWP programming?

I’ve known of Crushing Colonialism and DBIWP for years through just being in the Two-Spirit community. I’ve also known it’s Director Jen Deerinwater for years through being a part of the Two-Spirit community. So I think that speaks to how important being in community sharing space with each other is.

Q. What made you want to participate in DBIWP programming?

music can have on our community members. It’s that shared drive that made me want to be a part of DBIWP programming.

Q. What is important to you about an event like DBIWP?

I think it affords people the opportunity to ask themselves, “What do I want out of the music I listen to?” Often times the mainstream record companies are telling us what we should want through the music and artists they choose to prioritize and their advertising campaigns. Indigenous artists and stories are usually not part of that narrative—which is putting it mildly. That’s a systemic choice. To silence or just flat out ignore the plight and narrative of Indigenous artists. DBIWP affords people the chance to decolonize their music consumption and make more informed choices about who and what they’re listening to and the narratives they’re choosing to lift up as music consumers.

Q. Your performance and music has always had a focus on love, unity, and healing. I’m wondering how those themes might be woven into your participation in DBIWP?

Those themes are really the cornerstones of my musicianship and what I hope to accomplish as a performer. I truly believe that where words fail music speaks. People may be moved by a piece of music and a story told to them in song as opposed to being “talked at” about the same issue and completely tuning out. Music is the language of the soul and has significant effects on the brain as well. It impacts people differently than just words alone. It’s how we can hear a beautiful song in another language and still be moved to tears by it’s power and emotion. Music is a miracle. It has a universal strength.

I want to empower others through music and always encourage love and the immutable fact that we’re sharing this planet together. Outside of the egocentric stories we tell ourselves to make us feel “separate” there’s actually no such thing. We go forward together or continue to see humanity suffer. Most of the time I’m pleading with others through my music to wake up, love themselves, each other, and our precious and beautiful world that gives us so much. I’ll continue to do that in my work with DBIWP.

Q. Has your perspective on DBIWP and events such as this shifted over time, or within the current political context?

Absolutely! The work DBIWP is more important now than ever. There’s that old saying the artists are the true healers, and we were already in desperate need of community and individual healing before the current (US) administration began targeting minorities, stripping away peoples’ rights, and fear mongering. People are exhausted and afraid.

Many feel quite hopeless and disempowered or beaten by the system. DBIWP is providing community members with medicine. Unity, empowerment, and a chance to grieve, to fight isolation, to be heard, to create, and to find a way forward through music and artistic expression. Many political regimes have come and gone throughout time and around the world, but art and its medicine have and always will endure. DBIWP is part of that endurance.

Q. I would love to hear your reflections on the significance of DBIWP’s events through the lens of your artistic work.

It’s interesting how the mainstream arts and entertainment industry still carries over that colonial sense of “othering” and “norming.” It can easily fool you into thinking that there’s no place for you and your stories, and that you have nothing of any “real value” to offer. Crushing Colonialism and DBIWP work tirelessly to remedy that dreadful and unhealthy imbalance. Giving Two-Spirit and Indigenous artists an opportunity and a place to be heard, seen, and validated.

Q. Could you speak on the ways that your position as a citizen of the Echota Cherokee Nation has impacted your music and creation of art?

I really believe that my Indigeneity has been the seat of my political music and art. As I was growing into adulthood and making sense of the world for myself, my Indigeneity removed the wool from my eyes and reversed the bamboozling that happens to all of us as we grow up in a world of money-hungry and power-hungry rich white men. There’s that saying, “the fish stinks from the head,” and every patriarchal social norm and custom is a trickle-down effect from those who need the world to be a certain way so that they can maintain their egocentric ideals of power and privilege. As long as I have breath in my bottom I will rail against those systems and people through my music.

Q. What types of supports have you experienced for your music from Indigenous community?

I’ve really been supported in every way an artist can be by the Indigenous community, but the love is what stays. It’s the most transcendent and most powerful force on earth. The love from my community, from my Elders . . . it’s food for my spirit. I am eternally grateful for the love.

Q. If you have one take home message for 2SLGBTQIA+ Indigenous folks (or allies) attending DBIWP, what would it be?

When I’m on stage, I just want to love on everyone in that room, whether it’s 15 minutes or 90 minutes. There really will be so much love at all of the upcoming DBIWP events. With all my heart, I really want to invite folks to attend every DBWIP event they can, and to come and share the love. I know that what I focus on grows, so I will always focus on love and empowerment because those are the things I want to see grow. When we focus together, when we come together and care together, anything is possible.

Q. Would you share any details of other upcoming projects that you are working on?

I’ve just released a new dance single called “Set the World on Fire,” and it’s really about being that sacred flame of love and burning it as far and wide as you can. The single is available now on all music platforms. I’ll also be appearing in a Jeff London film later this year entitled Snow Falling on Pumpkins. The movie stars Ben Stobber and Mel England, and a really wonderful and talented cast of others. The film is an LGBTQ+ romance movie and it follows Michael (Ben Stobber) as he tries to navigate life and his relationship with his partner James (Mel England) after receiving a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s. I’m also scoring the film and producing/writing/performing the film’s soundtrack and the theme song of the same title. So I hope folks will keep an eye out for it on all streaming services and support independent filmmaking.