Tall Paul
The University of North Carolina Asheville will host Activating Indigenous Beats: Hip Hop Nativo, a multi-day festival and residency taking place Tuesday, April 11, through Friday, April 14. The event will feature musical performances, live art, master classes, demonstrations and workshops presented by Indigenous hip hop artists, mural artists and a DJ. “Hip hop is so effective in disrupting the stereotypes about Indigenous natives that romanticize Indigenous identity and ‘the untouched past,’” says Dr. Juan Sánchez Martínez, associate professor of Spanish and American Indian and Indigenous Studies and the festival’s co-founder. “When you think about the beat, there is nothing more Indigenous than that: the beat of the drum or the maraca. It’s something that has been part of Indigenous practices forever. It’s not rare to hear Indigenous rappers talk about it and that connection, bringing that ancestrology to samples and digital products, allowing those beats of the past to speak in the present and beyond.”
UNC Asheville is working in partnership with the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and Asheville hip-hop artists and community leaders to present Activating Indigenous Beats, which will be free to attend. “It’s open to everybody because that’s the idea: to create that connection and cross-cultural dialogue,” says Sánchez Martínez.
The event will culminate in a festival on Friday with performances by Indigenous hip-hop artists Luanko Minuto Soler, a member of the Mapuche of south-central Chile; Mare Advertencia Lirika, a member of the Zapotecs, the Indigenous people of Oaxaca, Mexico; and Tall Paul, an Anishinaabe and Oneida artist from Minnesota. “The artists that are visiting us, they are educators and activists and they are working with social movements within their own communities,” says Sánchez Martínez. “So it’s a hip hop that has a strong social critique and message.”
For more information about Activating Indigenous Beats: Hip Hop Nativo, visit Indigenous.unca.edu/nativo-festival.
