About the Festival - Indigenous Cultures

Overview

During the weeklong residency, hip-hop Indigenous artists, graffiti artists and DJs will meet on the campus of UNC Asheville (Antokiasdiyi, Cherokee territory) to share and exchange their music and language with our community. This is a unique opportunity for the university and community to engage with contemporary Native American and Indigenous musicians. The three main rappers and artists will visit from Chile, Mexico and the US. In decolonizing academia, this week will provide an alternative space to learn about Indigenous land-based ways of being both in North America and Latin America. We are partnering with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and local hip hop artists and community leaders.

Importance and Impact

After years of involvement in a variety of trans-Indigenous projects (i,e anthologies, cultural exchanges, conferences) among artists and writers from various native nations of Abiayala (the Americas), we have realized the importance of Indigenous hip-hop in dismantling stereotypes about indigeneity. In bridging popular culture, political agendas, and spirituality, Indigenous youth have embraced rap, punk, and heavy metal since the early 1990’s. Rappers such as Mare (Zapatotec), Luanko (Mapuche), and Tzutu Baktun (Maya Tzutuhil), and poets such as David Aniñir (Mapuche), have explained through their poetry/lyrics how singing and improvising are part of their “being indigenous”. In their music, themes such as empowering women, environmental concerns, nation-states’ violence against protectors of water, braid all around powerful beats. All of these themes have been part of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Minor, and the 414 Critical Perspectives on Contemporaneity Series, in which Juan Sanchez has been involved for 5 years. The NEH and Global Studied Program are sponsoring this event, along with other campus departments. The new course LA 378-Race, Identity, Belonging and Cultures In the Americas has been supportive in adding contemporary Indigenous experiences to the curriculum. The artists will be guest-speakers in Humanities Program, the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Minor, and Language and Literatures classes.

Trans-Indigenous Beats in Antokiasdiyi

Rhythmic lyrics, drums, stomp-dances have been beating for millenia among First Nations from Abiayala (The Americas.) Together with the rich phonetics of glottal and tonal Indigenous languages, they have sparked contemporary Indigenous hip-hop. Furthermore, acknowledging non-alphabetic writings such as rock-paintings, petroglyphs, geoglyphs, ideograms and textiles, contemporary Indigenous muralists are occupying and reclaiming cities, materials and technologies. Today, in activating Indigenous beats, languages and codes via hip-hop aesthetics, our guest-artists are challenging stereotypes and expectations about indigeneity while empowering women, elders, children and keepers of the land.

While listening and reading these beats and lyrics, please keep in mind/heart/spirit that this trans-Indigenous gathering is special in the sense that distant Indigenous languages are converging (again…) in Cherokee territory. We are all remembering!

Race, Identity, Belonging and Cultures in the Americas

In Spring, Juan Sanchez’s classes — LA 378 Race, Identity, Belonging and Cultures in the Americas — will celebrate music and literature as powerful tools to spark consciousness about Indigenous/africamerican realities in Abiayala (the Americas). The Hip Hop Nativo Festival and Residency, originally scheduled as part of the 2019-2020 Cultural Events Series and canceled due to COVID, will bring the protagonists of the social movements that we will be studying (i.e Mapuche struggle for their land in Chile, Indigenous Feminist Theory in Mexico). In addition to master classes and workshops open to UNC Asheville and Asheville communities, we are partnering with the HUM program and will collaborate with AIIS, New Media and Music departments to create pedagogical video materials based on the artists’ recordings during their residency. This residency aligns with our mission to support UNC Asheville students, staff, and faculty as they develop awareness, skills, and opportunities for collaboration and education that will better our engagement with global partners, themes, and issues.This trans-Indigenous gathering will be historical in the sense that distant Indigenous languages will meet in Cherokee territory, and UNC Asheville will be the host of this groundbreaking festival.