The latest episode of the Folklife Today podcast features award-winning singer-songwriter Thea Hopkins, a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha’s Vineyard. Thea took the Archive Challenge, adapting songs from the American Folklife Center archive. On the first occasion she arranged and sang a Creek lullaby which, according to Creek elders, was created during the Trail of Tears. For her second challenge, Hopkins wrote new lyrics for the song “Red Wing,” which originally contained damaging stereotypes of Native Americans. The new lyrics pay homage to pioneering Native film actress Lilian St. Cyr, who was known as “Red Wing.” In the episode, Thea discusses her process and the meanings of the songs with AFC staff members Stephen Winick, Jennifer Cutting, and Meg Nicholas; Meg, a fellow Folklife Today blogger, is one of the American Folklife Center’s specialists in Native song, and affiliated with the Munsee-Delaware Nation in southwest Ontario. The episode features the field recordings of both songs, as well as Thea’s new versions, and a fiddle tune by Chippewa fiddler Mary Trotchie. The blog post features the link to the podcast, full audio of most of the source songs, as well as relevant links to Native American resources and Archive Challenge tools.
On June 5, 2024, the American Folklife Center welcomed Istiwanāt Live!--an Arabic musical ensemble, or takht, formed by four ethnomusicologists with expertise in Middle Eastern music--to perform as part of the Homegrown Concert Series. Many of the group's songs were reinterpreted from archival collections at the American Folklife Center. In this post, find a video of group's performance and oral history interview, along with notes on their performance from ethnomusicologist (and current AFC intern) Hanna Salmon.
We're continuing the Homegrown Plus series with one that slipped through the cracks: a thrilling 2020 video concert by Sihasin, the sibling duo of Jeneda and Clayson Benally. The Benallys are award winning musicians from the Diné Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona. The name Sihasin is a Diné word that means hope and assurance, and the music reflects hope for equality, for healthy and respectful communities, and for social and environmental justice. Sihasin combines harmony vocals with bass and drums, in a style rooted in Native, rock, punk and world music. As usual for this series, you'll find a concert video, an interview video, and a set of links to explore. But there's also a bonus this time: Sihasin participated in our 2023 Archive Challenge at Folk Alliance International in Kansas City, so we have embedded that exciting video as well. And if that weren't enough, the concert features a real, live horse!
