The Arts
Rise Up
Voices of Today's Indigenous Music
by Craig Harris
The heartbeat of powwow/round dance drums and the melodies of wooden end-blown flutes have woven into a magnificent tapestry that includes Indigenous rock, blues, pop. jazz, country music, punk, classical, opera, hip-hop, rap, and electronica music. Picking up where my book, Heartbeat, Warble, and the Electronic Powwow (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014) left off, Rise Up brings together the autobiographical reflections of Native American Music Awards (NAMMY), Juno, Grammy, and Polaris Prize winners between 2015 and 2020. The genre’s top artists not only discuss their music but also their memories, heritage, day-to-day lives, and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The very first volume about Native artists working commercially today, Rise Up presents artists speaking for themselves without being filtered through a stereotypical lens. Indigenous communities have been calling for self‐determination in self‐representation in their craft. Rise Up answers that call.
