June 2, 2021

Winning Beats From the First Indigenous Hip-Hop Awards

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“Thousands of artists and fans got a chance to connect and share Indigenous hip-hop culture,” Chris Sharpe, an organizer of the first International Indigenous Hip-Hop Awards, told Indian Country Today’s Vincent Schilling after pulling off the global ceremony virtually. “We’re already planning the second” awards show.

The inaugural awards, after a pandemic year that’s disproportionately upended Native communities, touched all aspects of hip-hop as a human rights movement: creative, cultural, political, personal. Canadian First Nations duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids won best album; producer David Strickland scored three awards; duo Mike Bone hosted the ceremony; and performances were given by Emcee One, Yellowsky, Zia Benjamin, and many others. Catch the full winners list and dive deeper into the growing diaspora of Indigenous hip-hop in Schilling’s recap.

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At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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