Post by Tekpatzin on Jan 15, 2004 16:30:13 GMT -5
Indian youths adopt hip-hop
Robert Morast
Argus Leader
published: 9/28/2003
Night Shield, Cinatra and Overflow look calm as they sign their names on CDs and clothing for a few young fans and smitten teenage girls at the All-Stop convenience store in Rosebud.
Truth be told, the trio of rappers is dragging.
It's about 3:30 p.m. on a Friday, and while they politely scribble their names during a modest and scheduled autograph session, the effects of the night before are evident.
They didn't get to sleep until 4 a.m. after performing and hanging at a party outside of Rosebud. Gabe Night Shield of South Dakota, Cinatra of Seattle and Overflow of Charlotte, N.C., spilled their rhymes in front of a hundred or so people under the morning's starlight.
Hip-hop's hold on the reservation is evident. The autograph session is the first day of the annual Rosebud Fair, and the fairgr ounds are swollen with kids dressed in baggy FuBu wear, sports jerseys, folded bandannas and tilted baseball caps.
Next to them are people in traditional powwow gear - headdresses and dance outfits decorated with feathers and animal skins and jangly bits of metal.
As the Lakota try to preserve their traditions, some elders worry about reservation youths embracing a culture that historically has reflected the lives of African-Americans. They see it as the beginning of another cultural displacement.
Others dismiss it as the youths simply latching on to the latest trends as more and more Lakota people pick up microphones and set their lives to beats.
"I can't get down to the other music," says Kris Leroy, a 16-year-old from Rosebud who chooses to break dance instead of the traditional grass dancing. "With this, I can tear it up."
Since its '70s genesis in the ghettos of inner-city America, hip-hop has told the story, condition and plight of a minority class' struggle to survive. The tales of poverty and racial oppression might as well have been written about reservation life with its rampant addictions and unemployment.
"I think there is a definite connection to urban poverty," says Tara Browner, a Native American ethnomusicologist at UCLA. "There's a connection with 'we're here and we're poor,' and there is this music coming from people ... who are poor."
"This feels like the city" but worse, says Cleveland Kills in Sight, a 21-year-old Rosebud man.
Many young rappers are using their music to spread a positive message. For some, it's showing kids how music can lift them out of a life of crime. For others, it's about representing Native culture.
Sometimes, the two are combined. Nationally acclaimed artist Litefoot, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, raps over traditional intertribal rhythm tracks.
Like most corners of America, hip-hop has resonated with the reservations since the genre 's gangsta rap went mainstream in the early '90s.
Now, some young artists have set up crude but effective recording studios in their reservation homes to create their own hip-hop.
Though he now operates out of Sioux Falls, Night Shield's presence on the Rosebud Indian Reservation is everywhere. His three CDs are ubiquitous, everybody knows who he is, and he regularly returns to perform and talk to kids about how getting an education allowed him to become a hip-hop performer and producer.
Robert Morast
Argus Leader
published: 9/28/2003
Night Shield, Cinatra and Overflow look calm as they sign their names on CDs and clothing for a few young fans and smitten teenage girls at the All-Stop convenience store in Rosebud.
Truth be told, the trio of rappers is dragging.
It's about 3:30 p.m. on a Friday, and while they politely scribble their names during a modest and scheduled autograph session, the effects of the night before are evident.
They didn't get to sleep until 4 a.m. after performing and hanging at a party outside of Rosebud. Gabe Night Shield of South Dakota, Cinatra of Seattle and Overflow of Charlotte, N.C., spilled their rhymes in front of a hundred or so people under the morning's starlight.
Hip-hop's hold on the reservation is evident. The autograph session is the first day of the annual Rosebud Fair, and the fairgr ounds are swollen with kids dressed in baggy FuBu wear, sports jerseys, folded bandannas and tilted baseball caps.
Next to them are people in traditional powwow gear - headdresses and dance outfits decorated with feathers and animal skins and jangly bits of metal.
As the Lakota try to preserve their traditions, some elders worry about reservation youths embracing a culture that historically has reflected the lives of African-Americans. They see it as the beginning of another cultural displacement.
Others dismiss it as the youths simply latching on to the latest trends as more and more Lakota people pick up microphones and set their lives to beats.
"I can't get down to the other music," says Kris Leroy, a 16-year-old from Rosebud who chooses to break dance instead of the traditional grass dancing. "With this, I can tear it up."
Since its '70s genesis in the ghettos of inner-city America, hip-hop has told the story, condition and plight of a minority class' struggle to survive. The tales of poverty and racial oppression might as well have been written about reservation life with its rampant addictions and unemployment.
"I think there is a definite connection to urban poverty," says Tara Browner, a Native American ethnomusicologist at UCLA. "There's a connection with 'we're here and we're poor,' and there is this music coming from people ... who are poor."
"This feels like the city" but worse, says Cleveland Kills in Sight, a 21-year-old Rosebud man.
Many young rappers are using their music to spread a positive message. For some, it's showing kids how music can lift them out of a life of crime. For others, it's about representing Native culture.
Sometimes, the two are combined. Nationally acclaimed artist Litefoot, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, raps over traditional intertribal rhythm tracks.
Like most corners of America, hip-hop has resonated with the reservations since the genre 's gangsta rap went mainstream in the early '90s.
Now, some young artists have set up crude but effective recording studios in their reservation homes to create their own hip-hop.
Though he now operates out of Sioux Falls, Night Shield's presence on the Rosebud Indian Reservation is everywhere. His three CDs are ubiquitous, everybody knows who he is, and he regularly returns to perform and talk to kids about how getting an education allowed him to become a hip-hop performer and producer.