Indigenous Hip-Hop and Past with Brothers Spencer Battiest and Doc Native

Any descriptive label meant to embody the abilities of brother duo Spencer Battiest and Doc Native falls brief. Although they produced and carried out at a live performance referred to as “First Beats: Indigenous Hip-Hop,” a part of the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, their dynamic talents as performers and affect as storytellers and tradition bearers roam past the title.

“I think we both are like… all-around entertainers,” Battiest affirmed. “We dip our feet into everything.”

Before their Smithsonian live performance, the brothers referred to as me from their recording studio in their lifelong residence on the Seminole Hollywood Reservation in South Florida. I had listened to their music—collaborative songs typically consisting of melodic pop refrains from Battiest combined with alternating rap verses from Native. Despite this mixture of pop and rap genres of their music, the brothers’ musical journeys started with taking part in gospel music of their household band.

“Doc was our family drummer, and I was a singer with my mother and father,” Battiest defined.

“I played drums because we didn’t have a drummer,” Native added. “I wasn‘t comfortable as a frontman.”

Battiest was the primary to enterprise into the recording music trade, and, years later, in 2013, he turned the primary American Indian to signal with Hard Rock Records, a label created in 2012 as an extension of the well-known cafe and lodge chain. In 2015, he launched his first EP, Stupid in Love.

Recording pop and R&B songs, Battiest would carry his brother into the studio with him. As a fly on the wall throughout these recording classes, Native explored the ins and outs of manufacturing. “I got to ask questions, asking them, like, ‘Can I push the button? Why did you do this? Why did you make that sound? Why did you write that?’”

It was Native’s uncle who plucked him from behind the scenes and introduced him into Miami’s hip-hop world inside corner-store recording studios. “I got firsthand knowledge from Miami streets on how to put together sixteen bars,” he shared. “I didn’t know that it was going to mold me into the artist that I am today.”

Over 13 years in the past, one challenge sparked the merging of the brothers’ musical manufacturing, performative, and video abilities, shaping their profession, impacting their group, and solidifying their musical partnership: a track referred to as “The Storm.”

“One day, our people asked if we would write a song about our history,” Native defined. “That pushed me to the forefront of stepping behind the microphone and collaborating with [Battiest] performance-wise.”

Battiest chimed in to say, “Well, we’ve always collaborated.”

But this was completely different. The weight of the accountability to inform the story of the Seminole tribe pushed the brothers in difficult instructions. “If you get it wrong, you’re not going to have one person mad at you. You’re going to have the entire tribe mad at you,” Native continued. “So, we kind of shied away from it, and we built our skills, and one night, it just came together organically.”

Though “The Storm” was well-received by the handful of individuals on the Hollywood Reservation who heard it, it was not till the discharge of the music video that the challenge subtle all through their Seminole group and past.

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Directed by Steven Paul Judd, a Kiowa and Choctaw creator, the video captures the brothers’ dynamic relationship on digital camera and presents the story of the Seminole tribe with archival photographs. Native delivers hard-hitting traces explaining the violence of colonization on the Seminole tribe adopted by Battiest expressively singing the refrain and bridge—a reminder to honor the historical past of the Seminole folks and their resilience, regardless of a historical past of violence and oppression.

“The visuals that came with the lyrics, the rap, and the melodies really put it into perspective for not just our tribe, but for a lot of tribes,” Battiest shared. “I mean, our history updates daily, but we were able to put together, at that point in time, what we thought would be the best way to bring this history to a modern audience, to a newer generation of kids.”

Telling the historical past of the Seminole tribe simply because it had been handed down by their grandmothers, chiefs, and elders, was the precedence of the challenge. “It’s not sugar-coated,” Native added. “It’s in-your-face, and it’s unapologetically our history and the way it actually went down, which is something that gets swept under the rug or dumbed down so it’s palatable for other people to digest.”

During the Folklife Festival, Battiest and Native gathered creatives from all around the United States for a collaborative manufacturing, together with a neighborhood Native rapper Kai, champion powwow dancers from Indigenous Enterprise, emcee Miss Chief Rocka, and native beatboxer Christylez Bacon. Before the present, Battiest defined, “We want to make sure not just to highlight who we are, but to highlight the people who we have met along the way and share their gifts on stage and bring a cool visual experience as well.”

From the soar, Native and Battiest welcomed Indigenous Enterprise dancers Kenneth Shirley and Dom Pablo to the entrance of the stage to carry out. “They help us bring that visual aspect, to combine all our different talents and cultures together to bring something cool to the stage,” Battiest defined.

Later within the efficiency, Native invited nineteen-year-old Indigenous rapper and D.C. resident Kai to the stage for the reside debut of their track “Hate Me.” “I did it on purpose to celebrate the Smithsonian!” Native stated. The two met when Kai was simply sixteen years previous and new to the enterprise, and now they’re friends and collaborators on a track. “[I’ve] been able to give back the way that I have been given knowledge about music and about performance and song structure and recording and the creativity aspect of music,” he defined.

Each brother presents musical abilities distinct from each other throughout solo elements of their efficiency, however their collaboration on stage creates a definite synergy. “We’ve gotten responses, ‘What is that? I don’t understand what it is. When I see you guys together it’s moving, or it’s something special,’ Battiest expressed. “It just comes back to family. And as Native people, that’s how we always are. We’re so close—too close! We’re in each other’s business!”

Native added, “We’re kind of like yin and yang—he complements me where I kind of fall short, or I’ll punch in where it needs a little bit of edge. I always look forward to getting to perform with my ‘baby brother’, even though he acts like he’s older than me.” The brothers burst into laughter. 

As the solar light out and in throughout golden hour and the breeze relieved the group of the blistering June warmth, Battiest and Native united on stage to carry the performers and crowd collectively as one, performing “Stand Up/ Stand N Rock”—a track initially produced by Taboo in collaboration with different Indigenous creators, together with the brother duo, in 2016.

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Cameras: Ali Ali, Anna Beth Lee, Pruitt Allen, Ned Driscoll, Nicholas Aguirre Zafiro

Editing: Anna Beth Lee

Before the present, the brothers described the manufacturing course of behind the track, working with six-time GRAMMY Award-winner Taboo, co-founder of the Black Eyed Peas.

Battiest defined that he had pulled Native onstage to carry out “The Storm” collectively when he was singing a solo present in New York. Taboo, who was within the viewers, approached them after the present expressing his curiosity in collaborating with the brothers.

“We left that night like, ‘What? He’s never gonna call us.’ We’ve heard that all before,” Battiest recalled. But positive sufficient, just a few weeks later, he reached out to the duo to ask them to create a collaborative track to assist the Standing Rock motion throughout the peak of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016.

“Tab” helped by constructing the observe and sending it out to 6 different Indigenous artists throughout North America. Each artist took liberties to share their voice and write their music, traces, verses, and stanzas primarily based on private experiences and views as Natives.

“They learned about our tribes, we learned about their tribes and, and then, when you’re in the room and the studio building, we could say, ‘Ohh, you should add some shakers that represent who we are,’ or, ‘You can add the drum and that maybe represents an artist who’s a different tribe that has grown up under that heartbeat,’” Battiest defined.

The brothers knew the track would assist to show the world’s eyes towards the motion throughout an intentional media blackout—one which hid the injustices dedicated by putting in a 1,175-mile-long pipeline, an imminent menace to the well being of important waterways, via Standing Rock land. Creating their half within the track got here with the problem of talk their very own experiences as Seminole and Choctaw Natives and creators, although they weren’t protesting on the entrance traces.

“A lot of times, it becomes almost a fine line between ‘Let me put my voice to this’ or ‘Let my voice be the one that’s heard and amplified,’” Native defined.

During the writing course of, Battiest expressed, “We just wrote what was on our hearts, even referring to our own homeland, the Everglades, and what we’re facing down here and with our environmental issues that we’re having here in South Florida.”

It was not till the track and music video have been launched to the general public that the brothers and different collaborators heard it for the primary time. Even when recording the music video, the artists remained of their respective properties throughout the continent. Today, the track and video stay obtainable solely in an unmonetized YouTube video, which received an MTV Music Award in 2017.

Though Native and Battiest create music that amplifies Indigenous tradition, tales, and voices, they don’t field themselves in as “Indigenous artists.”

“Our music is not always based on who we are as Indigenous people,” Battiest defined. “But it just so happened that we started that way.”

“I’ve gotten No. 1 on XM Radio talking about something that has nothing to do with Native American rights,” Native added.

Yet, they’re grateful that a few of the largest collaborations with different artists have been about Indigenous points and Native rights. Above all, the brothers hope that their efforts as “all-around entertainers” will encourage the youthful technology of tribal youth. The brothers emphasised that Native youth have one of many highest suicide charges within the United States, so their willpower to uplift the youth round their house is persistent.

“Sometimes we feel like we are trapped in our communities and on our reservations,” Native stated. “That’s why Spencer and I have made it a point to stay on our reservation to record our music—so we can be that example and say, ‘Look, you can make it,’ or, ‘You can fulfill your dreams from where you’re at.”

“I hope that the next generation finds what it is that speaks to them,” Battiest added, “and that they continue to tell our stories and keep our stories alive.”

Anna Beth Lee is a former writing and video intern on the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a pupil at Drew University learning anthropology, environmental justice, and pictures.