You may not know the name Frank
Waln. I could tell you that he's a 26-year old Sicangu Lakota
rapper from the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. I could tell you that
he's an award-winning artist, a globe-trotting emcee and producer.
I could tell you that he's a Native-American
leader and activist who's been integral in the struggle to stop
the Keystone XL Pipeline from risking the health of his people.
But let's reframe how we think about this young man. Because he
is something new.
In "Radiant
Child," an essay about the New York art world in the 1980s,
which considered the rise of the young painters Jean-Michel Basquiat
and Keith Haring, art critic Rene Ricard wrote: When you first see
a new picture you are very careful because you may be staring at
van Gogh's ear. We often overlook newness because we don't know
how to see it. We must overcome our cultural biases and blindspots.
Similar to how Basquiat moved from bombing street art into the white
world of galleries, Waln is a Native-American man who's moved into
the ostensibly black world of hip-hop. Naturally, there are parallells.
Later on in his essay, Ricard wrote:
To Whites every Black holds a potential knife behind
the back, and to every Black the White is concealing a whip.
We were born into this dialogue and to deny it is fatuous.
Our responsibility is to overcome the sins and fears of our
ancestors and drop the whip, drop the knife. |
We are born into stories. All of us. We must learn to address
the sins of the past so that we can break and transcend those cycles
of trauma and abuse. These are the sorts of messages we find in
art worth talking about. And, just like with a new painting, when
you first hear a new musician you don't want to miss something important;
you might be listening to Bob Marley's echo.
Naturally, I'm hesitant to compare Frank Waln to the legendary
reggae singer. Marley was undeniably unique. As the poets warn us,
lazy comparisons are odious. But in this one case, the analogy is
necessary. Much like Marley, here is a musician who uses his artistic
gifts to heal. Frank Waln is one of those rare artists who puts
his heart into his art, which gives it real power and an intimacy.
When you listen to his rhymes, Waln raps in cadences that boast
a percussive power. His voice hits you square in the chest. His
lyrics entertain your mind with stories from his life and of his
people. He crafts his bars to be honest. His beats are thick. The
result is catchy in a way that his music stays with you long after
the song ends. Waln makes damn good Native American hip-hop. Which
he hopes will help heal the world. Why? Because this is his world.
This is the place where everyone he loves lives.
Waln sat down for an interview with Playboy, and he spoke with
us about his music, about being a Lakota emcee, why love is the
most powerful force in the universe, why he's involved in the fight
against the Keystone XL pipeline and about how he balances the dangers
of creating "poverty porn" with the need for Indigenous people to
tell their own stories to a nation that often relegates them to
the past.
I've read that your love of hip-hop
began when you were a kid; one day you took a walk and you discovered
a discarded Eminem CD lying on the side of the road. Is Eminem why
you decided to devote your life to music?
That was my first spark in hip-hop. But when I was seven or
eight, I fell in love with playing piano. I started teaching myself
how to play keys. So, I would say, my dedication to music started
at the piano when I was seven or eight. Eminem was my introduction
to hip-hop. But then, when I heard the Nas song "One Mic" that's
when I decided I wanted to be a rapper. That's really when I devoted
myself to hip-hop.
You attended Creighton University
as a pre-med student. You've said that you wanted to do what you
could to help your people. Do you feel music is a more direct form
of healing?
My grandfather helped bring health care to our reservation.
He helped organize a mobile clinic that traveled from community
to community. We lived in very rural areas. Seeing that - how he
helped heal people - I always wanted to do that. When I got my scholarship,
it was like this golden ticket. Where I'm from, not many people
get the opportunity to go to college. So, I was like, "Alright ,I
have this scholarship. I'm going to go to college. I want to help
people, I want to heal people. I'll try being a doctor. I'll try
sports medicine because I also love playing sports." I was in pre-med
for two years. And I just kinda got burned out. I realized it wasn't
for me. It wasn't in my heart. That's when I decided to follow what
was really in my heart, which was music. The summer after my sophomore
year at Creighton was finished, I was talking to an elder back home.
He was asking me what I was doing. I told him I'd left Creighton
and that I didn't want to do that anymore - I want to follow music.
He kind of looked at me. He shook his head. And then he said, "Sometimes,
music is the best medicine." That quote stuck with me to this day.
Music works for me, it's how I heal.
Hip-hop was born from oppression.
It's often a music of protest. Hip-hop is also largely viewed as
a young black artform. As a Native-American rapper, were you at
all intimidated to step into the game? Did it ever feel like Eminem
gave you license to think you could make hip-hop even though you
weren't a young black man growing up in a city?
That never even crossed my mind. Hip-hop resonates with a lot
of people of my generation, whether they be in a city or on a reservation.
I was thinking about this a lot lately. When I was growing up, the
representations of Natives that we saw on TV were nothing like what
we were living. Nothing like our reality. It was always, like, these
savage Indians of the past. Very stereotypical. The media we saw,
the artwork that we saw, the images in mainstream media that we
related to the most, were hip-hop. Those artists were telling stories
that definitely related to things we were going through, and are
going through on the reservation.
When I started to listen to hip-hop, for the first time in my
life I felt like someone was telling my story. Even though on a
reservation it was a slightly different flavor, the circumstances
that hip-hop was born into were the circumstances we were living
in. So, a lot of Native kids from my reservation, we started making
hip-hop. We wanted to be rappers. We wanted to express ourselves.
This black culture gave us an inlet for us to rediscover who we
are, to look at ourselves, and our own Indigenous identity. It was
a catalyst for me to reconnect to my own culture. Now, what I'm
doing with my music is taking hip-hop and blending it with my own
experiences of my culture to make this new, unique, third thing.
It all goes back to how I felt that first time when I heard hip-hop.
You first started out by yourself.
You made your own music in your basement studio. Did that sort of
DIY isolation give you the time and place to find your voice? Did
you have the time to get frustrated and work it out? Get through
those moments of, "Damn, that's not quite the beat I hear
but it's almost there!"
No one has asked me that before. I lived on a reservation. Very
rural. It was before the Internet really took off. Since I lived
out in the country, I would help my family out on the ranch. But
then when I fell in love with music, it was kind of this escape.
I was a very introverted, shy kid. Music was a way for me to escape
and find someplace safe. That's not to say that my home wasn't safe,
or that I didn't have a great family, but everyone on the reservation
is going through it. Music gave me that needed escape from all that.
On the flipside, it was hard for me to find my own voice, because
being raised in the Midwest, in South Dakota, in the middle of the
country, we had influences from all over. I was raised on old-school
country music, and Fleetwood Mac, and CCR. My older cousins were
listening to Mac Dre, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, all that stuff from the
West Coast, and from the South, and they listened to Bone Thugs.
They also listened to stuff from New York. So, we were at this musical
crossroads. It definitely took me about three or four years to take
all those influences and properly package them into the music I'm
creating. Now, all my influences make for some pretty unique music.
This one's for the hip-hop heads.
Who would you say is the Greatest of All Time?
Oh my god, the greatest of all-time? Okay, man, I'm gonna have
to go with a group. For their uniqueness. And I love that they had
their own production team. They're one of my biggest influences:
I would have to say Outkast. I really love Outkast. The first time
I ever heard Outkast, I'd never been to Atlanta in my life, but
their music it made me feel like I was in Atlanta. Like, I knew
what it felt like. I knew what it tasted like. I knew what it smelled
like. It just puts you in that place. I really appreciated that
and I feel like that's what I'm striving to do with my music.
As someone who grew up in Atlanta,
you are 100 percent correct about Outkast. Okay, so, if they're
the GOAT, what new music are you listening to these days?
For the last year I've been into this group out of LA called
Chicano Batman. A lot of their songs are in Spanish, and I don't
speak Spanish. I don't really know what they're saying. But I feel
what they're saying. It's very beautiful music. When it comes to
the hip-hop, I love TDE(Top Dawg Entertainment), all their artists
(Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Ab Soul), like, their output
is crazy. I've been listening to Future's Dirty Sprite 2, a lot
lately. I jam some Young Thug. As far as Indigenous artists, I always
listen to Tall Paul. He's an emcee out of Minnesota. He's probably
my favorite Indigenous emcee in the US, right now.
Dreaming out loud: Who would
you love to do a collaboration with?
This is like the golden question. I'm always torn. But I would
probably have to say Frank Ocean. I love him as a songwriter. I
love him as a storyteller in music. I just love how he approaches
creating music and creating art. I feel like we would vibe. And
we also have the same first name. (laughs)
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(photo
by: Kernit Grimshaw)
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You work as both an artist and
an activist. You're very involved as a leader in the struggle to
increase Indigenous awareness, as well as the fight for the cause
of greater social justice. What pushes you to work so tirelessly
for your people and for all oppressed people of the world?
I'm gonna reframe it this way and say: What I'm doing - the
ideology and worldview that I'm using to approach what I do - is
older than the word and concept of an "activist." I'm just Lakota.
That's why I care about my people. That's why I care about the earth.
That's why I care about the water. That's why I care about my community.
That's why I care about people around me. That's why I devote my
gift of music and why I use my platform to protect those things.
Because I am Lakota. That's how I was raised by mother, and my aunties,
and my community. That's what I'm taught in my culture and in my
ceremonies. A lot of time Native people get pinned as activists,
but really we're just being Native. I'm just living my life, and
trying to live my life in a way that my ancestors and elders and
my parents and my culture raised me.
It was announced that TransCanada
wants to suspend its permit to build the highly controversial Keystone
XL pipeline. The continent-spanning oil pipeline was planned to
cross the Ogallala aquifer that's integral to the water systems
of the heartland of America. Your song "Oil for Blood" is about
the Keystone pipeline, and about how the tar sands that are being
carved out of Indigenous lands. You've been very involved in the
fight against the pipeline. How does it feel to enjoy what looks
to be a major victory against Big Oil, or at least, a battle won?
I tell people, when I perform: Where I'm from we don't have
the privilege to ignore this pipeline. We don't have the privilege
to ignore things like natural energy extraction. It's our home.
It's outside of our front door. If this pipeline gets built, the
water, the land, the health of me and everyone I love is at risk.
Like, every day I wake up I think about that fucking pipeline. Not
because I choose to but because I don't have the privilege not to.
We've been resisting this pipeline for many years now. It's
great that it's getting national attention now. One thing I've learned
is that when it comes to the people making the decisions such as
- Is this pipeline going to be built? - they don't care about humanity.
They don't care about the earth. They don't care about the soil
or water. What they care about is money.
Whenever you can get small little victories like suspending
this permit, or pushing back a construction date, it's kind of like
chipping away at the beast. You're hurting their pocketbook. Every
small victory is a great step forward for us, but we also know that
it's not over. From all the way up in Canada to way down into Texas,
that pipeline is planned to pass over Indigenous land. The battle
for us isn't over, not until our relatives from the north and the
south are guaranteed to be safe and healthy. It's a great small
victory because it gives me hope that what we're doing is working,
and it's having an impact.
You've said that museums tend
to perpetuate the view that Native Americans are a people of the
past. But, as you are also quick to point out: Natives are very
much of this moment. You "are a people with a past, not of the past."
Why do you think this cultural blindspot persists? Why do Americans
tend to think/talk about Natives in terms of the past and not the
present or the future?
I think because it's so ingrained in the American psyche to
erase Natives out of our conscious and put them in the past. That's
what they teach you in the history books. But now, after hundreds
of years of erasure, thanks to social media and the Internet, we're
able to get more and more of our voices out there. Indigenous people
are telling our own story. People are able to see a counter to the
narrative. I think it's so easy for people to dismiss us as part
of history because this settler state, this country of America,
it's built on the destruction and erasure of the Indigenous people.
Every day we wake up, we live and operate in a system built on that.
Native Americans often will speak
of the Mohawk's "Seventh Generation prophecy." Do you find it interesting
that social media is connecting young people of oppressed culture
all around the world as the prophecy predicted?
I think it's incredible. I've been thinking about this concept
a lot lately. I can only speak for Indigenous people. When they
put us on reservations, they confined us to a space. A lot of our
tribes were very nomadic. We migrated with the seasons. We traveled
in a way that we traded with each other and shared knowledge and
stories. There were many lines of communication between all the
tribes of United States and Canada, and all of South and Central
America.
When they colonized us, they put us on reservations in order
to cut off those lines of communication. They confined us. Now,
poverty and this system keeps us in those spaces. But when the Internet
and social media came around, it gave us this tool to reconnect
and to reestablish all those old lines of communication.
I think for Indigenous folks, the Indians all across Turtle
Island, really gravitate to social media because it gives us a powerful
tool to reconnect inter-tribally. We can share knowledge and stories
and information. And we're also using it as a tool to organize.
We're using it as a tool of resistance. I think all of that plays
into the prophecy of the Seventh Generation. There are many things
I'm seeing in my lifetime that are showing how that prophecy is
coming true. At least, I believe.
You've had a painful past with
your father. You grew up in a single-parent household. Yet, you've
turned your anger into something positive so that it doesn't destroy
you, and you don't repeat your father's mistakes. Do you feel like
you're trying to reach out a musical hand to help and inspire other
young Native men so they can also escape those cycles of violence
and self-destruction?
Music was the outlet that I needed. I think art is a great outlet
to express our anger, our frustration, our pain. We're dealing with
500 years of genocide and the colonization of Native people. We're
born with historical trauma in our DNA. Our ancestors survived genocide.
We're not even supposed to be here. This country tried to wipe us
out. We're born into all of that. The things that we go through
in communities that are built on that destruction results in a lot
of anger, pain and frustration. I think hip-hop, for me anyway,
it gave me a good outlet to get all of that out, because you can't
keep that all in as a human being. It'll eat you alive.
Also, I don't agree with people when - white people, basically
- say, "Don't be angry. Don't be frustrated." I used to catch that
early on when I started expressing my anger in my music. People
would say, "Why are you so angry?" Even Native people would say
that it made them uncomfortable. I would say, "Well, I'm a human
being. And if I want to feel these feelings that result from 500
years of colonization and genocide, I can. I'm sorry if my humanity
makes you uncomfortable."
We have the right to feel our anger, our pain and frustration.
I've found in my own life - I'm not perfect, at all - I've messed
up many times where it comes out in ways that we hurt people, the
ones that love us. Music and writing music, and performing music,
it gave me a way to get that anger out of me. In a healthy way.
I encourage people - especially, Native men - to find that outlet.
Find that healthy way to express yourself. It helped save my life.
Being raised by the women of
your family - how do Native women inspire you? What lessons did
they impart to you that shaped who you've become?
I'll try to keep this one short because I could just go on for
days about them. Everything that I do as an artist, as a person,
every quality that I have that has led to my success, is due to
how I was raised. Because of my grandma, and my aunties, and my
mom. The type of people they are. They taught me that love is the
most powerful force in the universe.
I've seen some crazy-ass things, man. And I've seen love get
my family through those crazy-ass things. I've seen love get people
through things you wouldn't think anyone could get through and be
happy through it, or smile through it, or laugh through it, or create
through it. And you know, here I am a young Indigenous person from
Rosebud Rez who gets to travel the world and do what he loves, and
also I get to share my stories from home with the world. I feel
really blessed and really privileged. It's all because of how they
raised me. How they taught me to love. How they taught me to take
care of the people and things that I love.
The First Nation communities
are still often blighted with poverty due to centuries of economic
violence and the theft of their land. You've said that you have
to avoid the trap of telling stories that are essentially "poverty
porn." Is it difficult to talk honestly about the troubles of your
community since you have to worry about how others outside the community
perceive and use what you say?
I wouldn't say it makes it difficult. It just makes me conscious
of how I tell my stories. Where I'm from, poverty is definitely
a huge problem. But I think those are our stories to tell. When
I see stories about poverty on the reservation, it's usually non-Native
people telling those stories. I think that's where it goes wrong.
They don't see all the factors, not the way that your question did.
And they also miss the hopeful side of things.
I don't shy away from telling those stories or expressing those
things about my community. It's the truth, and to pretend otherwise
would be a disservice to myself and my community. We need to work
on those things. And I just make sure I balance it with hope, with
some light and positivity. I'm careful to supply hope when I talk
about those negative things like poverty.
What's next for Frank Waln? Both
as an activist and as an artist? And I mean, as a Lakota.
I have a ton of upcoming shows; I'm booked through the spring.
I just came back from Paris. And I'm gonna go back to Paris in December.
I'm also going to Germany and Liverpool in 2016. But what I'm really
excited about is that I'm working on an album right now. It's called
Tokiya, which is a Lakota word for firstborn, or the first of its
kind, you know. It's me telling my story of being a young Lakota
person from a reservation in South Dakota. And it's actually the
story of healing.
We've touched on that throughout this interview. When the settlers
came and colonized my people, they needed to cut us off from our
connection to our culture, to the land and the earth, to our ceremonies,
to our ancestors, to all the things that gave us power and told
us who we are. My generation is living in the time of the aftermath
of that.
This album is my story of how I heal those disconnections, and
how I reestablish those connections. For me, personally, at least.
Working through all that historical trauma and pain and frustration
that I've experienced, and I'm still going through it, man. So,
you know, I'm telling that story.
I'm getting to collaborate with a lot of really dope artists
that I've been able to meet now that I'm able to travel all over
the world. But I'm very critical. It's really rare that I impress
myself with anything that I've made. I look at the stuff I have
out now and I feel like, "Oh god, I could do better." This album
it's the first time I've ever been this proud of something I've
created. It's definitely on another level. I'm excited to give this
one to the world.
Word. When can we expect this new album?
I like to say that I'm Native, so I don't like to announce hard
dates. (laughs) I like to go by seasons. So, I'm looking to put
it out in the winter.
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