Hip-hop turns 50 in 2023. ICT looks at some of the Indigenous artists across the nation who have been impacted by the music.

JoVonne Wagner
ICT

Miracle Spotted Bear, Oglala Lakota, is a student and athlete at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, where she plays on the women’s basketball team. From managing classes and handling the challenges that comes with being a student-athlete, Spotted Bear also released her debut R&B album, “Stuck In Between.”

From the Pine Ridge reservation, Spotted Bear grew up close to her culture, singing traditional prayer songs and singing at powwows. Until a few years ago, she thought she would never put songs out for the public, then Covid-19 hit.

“It was around Covid and, you know, things were really hard and a lot of people told me that my music really helps them and they really enjoyed it,” Spotted Bear said. “I got a lot of really positive feedback.”

She recorded her prayer and round dance songs and uploaded them on YouTube. Upon request from her family she would share her songs and the more she shared her music online, the more connections she made.

That’s how she crossed paths with AntoineX, an Indigenous rapper who founded the label where Spotted Bear released her album through, ALLSZN.

(Related: ‘He who walks through the battle smoke’)

She said AntoineX encouraged her to try out different styles of music such as R&B and offered to put her, along with other various Native artists, on a song called “Patience,” whose music video went on to win an award and currently has over 1.3 million views online.

From then on Spotted Bear began writing different styles of songs which helped her create her setlist for her first album. She shared with ICT that she uses her music and songwriting to work through her emotions and life obstacles.

“In my music, it really helps me take myself back to certain experiences, maybe I didn’t get to fully go through those emotions and feelings and I’m able to when I write and stuff, I’m able to take myself there and put it in a song. It’s a way of really expressing myself,” she said.

(Related: ‘I was raised through music’)

She described her songs in her album as complex, diving into her sacrifices in life and having to choose between different things like pursuing sports while in college, a music career, wanting to continue to be involved with powwows and traditional aspects of her life.

“The album, just the context of the album, it’s just about feeling like going through that process of emotions where you just feel like everything, you forgive, you let go, you’re mad. It’s just about, like, having raw emotions more than it is about someone or about a certain individual or you know, me,” she said. “That’s what my intention was. I’m gonna be very real and raw about the emotion that I experience and through that I hope my music can connect with people.”

Her album, “Stuck In Between,” released in August is now available to buy on ALLSZN’s website.

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