American Indian rapper Niko Otis speaks about his moved pathway as an artist, resistance in music, and a way forward for Native representation.
By Katharina Moser
It is early evening in the North Bay, and the mild October sun bathes the small town of Petaluma in its auburn light, dipping the rolling Californian hills in a rosy glow and reflecting softly in the tranquil water of the Petaluma River. The streets are busy, but Niko Otis sits calmly at the wooden tables of a local bar, his long dark hair down his back. Indigenius, it says on his black hoodie, like a promise, or a premonition maybe. “I come from a very musical family”, the Californian, mixed Native rapper with his sharp rhymes and immaculate flow says. “My father is a drummer, and my grandfather was a famous blues artist.” But Otis made his voice his instrument, and paved his way into the underground hip hop scene. When he was only nine years old, he found his talent in rapping and the pride he took in it, and has pursued a pathway as a rap artist ever since. When he was eleven years old, he started writing his own raps – and began to record songs professionally at the age of 22. Now he is 28, and ready to take over the scene by storm.
While his music is characterized by the energetic flow of his beats and the lyricism of his verses, the Lakota wordsmith has never shied away from addressing the pressing issues of our time in his lyrics – to the contrary: Otis sees his responsibility as a rapper in speaking out about the injustices of this world, and in music as a remedy. “I want to bring the protest to the party. I want my music to be aggressive, but positive at the same time, which is a crazy balance. I’ve always, already as a kid, felt really passionately about speaking loudly and aggressively about things that matter, so that I can make positive change”, Otis says. While he is cautious sometimes not to alienate his listeners with explicitly political lyrics, often that is exactly what people need, he is convinced. “If you hear something that makes you uncomfortable, you have to ask yourself, why does this make you uncomfortable? And then you have to sit with that. The more artists talk about things like these, the more people will reflect about why it makes them uncomfortable. All legendary artists spoke about important topics, about what is going on in the world, about protest. That is what we need – be aggressive and positive at the same time.”
By refusing to catering to people’s comfortabilities and with his unwavering commitment to shed light on the conditions of this world, Otis places himself in a long tradition of hip hop – the music of the underdog and the witness, of resistance and liberation. “I think rap music, in its core, started with resistance and protest. Being an indigenous person, I definitely feel like I have a responsibility to keep that going and to uphold that”, Otis says. “This is a missing element in a lot of hip hop music today. I think a lot of young artists do it because they think it’s cool, and they don’t actually have a passion or love for the art form. For too many rappers, it is about getting some money, and there’s not much originality in what they’re talking about. That comes with the oversaturation of music in general. There’s so many people trying to be artists that sometimes they lose the why – why they want to be an artist”, he is convinced. For Otis, the why is perfectly clear – the love for the art form, and the calling to say something that is of meaning, for Native peoples, and for all.
“If you feel a fear towards something you might be interested in, that means it is calling you to go do it.”
Niko Otis
“I don’t cater to a Native audience only. I want to speak to speak to everybody, and I want to make my music for everyone. But I want to inject a Native message in there, as well as just my human message, so that people can relate to it, and then they can maybe learn a little bit, even if they’re not Native themselves”, Otis explains. “There are still people that act like Native people don’t exist anymore. And there are so many Native people that are trying to get representation. So for me, being a Native person, if I don’t touch on that, I feel like I’m not doing my job. But at the same time, Native artists don’t have to talk about being Native all the time. I can just talk about my day-to-day life, but with the respect for the traditions and the culture that I want to uphold.”
While the political is one part of his music, so is his personal life, his experiences, feelings, love and pain. “I feel like vulnerability is the key to success. If you feel a fear towards something you might be interested in, that means it is calling you to go do it.” To express his feelings in his songs is also a gateway into true self-realization, for Otis – a way to become his most real self. “My mom told me, you’re a whole different human being when you’re on stage. I disagree. The stage is a place where you have an excuse to be 100% yourself without any barriers. You don’t have to censor anything. In so many situations, you have to code-switch or mild yourself down, just because you don’t want to get in people’s way, but when I’m on stage and I’m performing, I have full control of the way it’s going down. I get to be 100% myself, and I don’t have to ask for permission to be myself.”
“I want to make sure that I’m considering the people while I do my music.”
Niko Otis
With that, Otis hopes to inspire people just the way he was inspired by the artists he looked up to. “I’m an underground artist right now, and I plan to make it my full-time career. But there’s already fans that have hit me up and told me that my songs have helped them. That my performance has brought them emotion. Those things mean a lot to me, and it makes me want to make sure that I’m considering the people while I do my music.”
To come that far, Otis has had a moved childhood and youth. “My mom’s Miniconjou Lakota. My dad is Black, Filipino and Greek. So there is a lot of mix in there. But my mom made sure that we were proud of our indigenous roots. We were taught that the blood quantum is not an important piece of our Native identity”, Otis explains. The blood quantum is a highly controversial measurement of the amount of “Indian blood” one has. Blood quantum was initially a system that the federal government placed onto tribes in an effort to limit their citizenship. Many Native nations, including the Navajo Nation and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, still use it as part of their citizenship requirements. “And to really come to terms with that is an interesting battle too, because sometimes you feel like you’re not enough for being Native. But the blood quantum was just a tool of colonization to erase Native culture, because they saw Native culture as a threat to what they wanted to do with this land. That’s something that’s really important to keep in mind, and every once in a while, even as a grown man, I’ll still have some struggles with that. But I know who I am. I know my identity. I’m proud of my roots, and I’m deepening my connections with my roots, and learning more about my traditions”, Otis makes clear.
The young artist grew up in Sebastopol, a small town in Sonoma County, California. “I was born in a house that was built out of a barn on an apple orchard. It was a beautiful place, and it was because my grandfather did well for himself with his music.” Otis is one seven siblings, and has two older brothers, three younger brothers and one younger sister. “My whole family lived on the same property. I grew up with a lot of freedom in the wilderness, just being a little Native kid, running around naked, just picking fruit and being free”, Otis recalls with a smile. “And then, my grandfather got sick, and a lot of the money that he made for himself went into his medical bills, because he was bedridden. One of my first memories is that I would sit with him and do art. My first art form was drawing. I used to draw a lot, and he would teach me how to draw. I would be laying with him in his bed, watching Animal Planet, and telling him what to draw, and he would draw it for me”, Otis remembers with a smile. “But because of his sickness, they had to sell that property. When I was around seven or eight years old, we had to leave this perfect place, my parents split up, and we moved to Bakersfield, into the hood. We were only there for about half a year, but it was a culture shock, not having any comfort anymore.”
“I want to make statements. I want to be a good voice.”
Niko Otis
In Bakersfield, everything was different. “We ended up going to this little school, with barbed wire fencing, in the middle of the hood. We got into a bunch of fights because I had long hair, and nobody had long hair back then, and everybody thought I was a little girl. I had a chip on my shoulder, and I got into a lot of trouble while I was there.” After a while, the family moved north to Lake County. “Being with my two older brothers all the time, I was doing a lot of stuff that was not really in my age group. I started smoking weed when I was nine years old, and we were running around in the creeks out there. We would go party in the creek and then run from cops to the next creek spot”, Otis recalls. “And I’m this little kid with super long hair, hanging out with all these older kids, because my two older brothers were my best friends.” For a while, Otis’s family was pretty poor. “There were times when the power was out because we couldn’t pay the power bill, or we had to move because we couldn’t pay rent, or we didn’t have any food, so we just had to eat peanut butter out of the jar and share it. But we had a lot of love in the house and a really good family. My younger siblings have a different father than my dad. Their father is Ethiopian. So I grew up with Ethiopian younger brothers and an Ethiopian step dad, and then my two older brothers’ father is Irish. We were a super mixed family. The amount of different cultures and perspectives as a kid was really eye-opening, and I’m thankful for it.”
The experiences he had as a kid also inspire what he talks about in his lyrics today. “I have witnessed some personal injustices growing up, people telling me to cut my hair, calling me a hippie, while really I’m a Native kid. And then there are people asking, oh, you’re Native, does that mean you live in the woods and smoke weed all day? That was just the basic ignorance that I think all Native people go through.” At the same time, he continues to witness the struggles of the oppressed worldwide. As a Native, he feels solidarity for the people of Palestine, who, he says, “suffer a genocide which is a stark reminder of the genocide that happened in the United States to Native people”. “A lot of my new music is very much politically charged. I want to make statements. I want to be a good voice. I don’t want to be an artist who says a bunch of ignorant shit and just goes about their business and doesn’t pay any attention to any of that”, Otis makes clear.
“If they just listened to Native people who have knowledge from generations of being here, so many things would be better.”
Niko Otis
In a world full of injustices, conflict and cruelty, he looks at the US election with all the more frustration. “I don’t like him, and I don’t like her. If I could choose what I want, I would overthrow the government, and I would instate indigenous leaders to try to get some good back in this country. If they just listened to Native people who have knowledge from generations of being here, so many things would be better. That’s why the ‘Land Back’ movement is so important. It doesn’t mean taking homes away from some retired person just living their retired years out in peace. It does not mean making people homeless, but it means stewarding the land, taking care of it properly. And I think a part of ‘Land Back’ means that the people in charge should also be elected more so by indigenous people and indigenous leaders, because there’s so much knowledge that has been brushed over that can help in so many ways”, Otis argues. He names the countless forest fires in California as an example, which have forced thousands of people to evacuate each year and cost many lives. “If people would listen to indigenous knowledge… We’ve been doing indigenous cultural burns for generations. There’s just so much disrespect towards indigenous knowledge and tribes in general. If people had listened years ago, it would have stopped so many people from going through so much suffering with all of these fires.”
Most importantly, Otis argues, people need to understand that there is not one “Native”, but that they differ in their stories, their views and opinions. That there are Native kids living on the reservation with a strong Native community surrounding them, or kids on a reservation that feel outcast. Kids in urban areas who see themselves differently and take part in their cultures in different ways and with different intensities. That there are Natives who are mixed and might struggle to have people accept them as a part of who they are. And many of them want change.
“Don’t be scared to not know, find comfort in being able to ask questions.”
Niko Otis
“There’s a lot of disconnect from a culture that the colonizer tried to erase. I am Lakota from my mom’s side, but her father, who was Lakota, died before I was born. That meant a disconnect from family lineage, of being able to continue to pass that knowledge down. My mom had to do her own reconnecting journey, and she did a lot of work to keep that alive in her kids, too. But the erasure of culture is very real and it can be effective on some people”, Otis explains. And the idea of the blood quantum has been especially harmful, he says. “It’s important to realize that if you allow people to let you stop being Native based off the settlers’ blood quantum rules, that they win. That means that they won, they got what they wanted. So I always keep that in mind, and I don’t let me being mixed affect that, because I am all of these things, and I am also a Native man at the same time.”
How can young Native people, then, be enabled to stay in connection with their cultures in an environment that doesn’t affirm that? “Don’t be scared to not know, find comfort in being able to ask questions. You should not be afraid that people are not considering you a real Native just because you ask questions. You don’t need this bullshit of people telling you that you’re not a real Native. You gotta ask those questions, and you gotta be okay with the humility of that. For many Natives trying to reconnect or learn more about their culture, there’s a fear that you won’t be accepted, or that people will look at you differently. But oftentimes, that is exactly what our elders are trying to do: to continue culture forward. They just want people to try.”
How would he describe being young and Lakota in this country today? “There’s a lot that makes you passionately angry, and then there’s also a sense of immense pride for still existing. We’re still here, and I’m still proud of this. And we have such a rich, amazing culture that’s inspired so many people, and we have so many ceremonies that help so many people. Lakota ceremonies have healed countless. There are so many different tribes, and we all have a kinship to each other. It’s just such a strong culture with so much to offer and so much to be proud of, that there is a really bright side to it”, Otis explains passionately.
He plans to put all his power into his music, write countless more songs, and, with a little bit of work, stand in front of thousands of people on the nation’s big stages in the future – his artistry as bold as he envisions himself: determined, passionate, and visionary. “People love to talk about the tragedy. Sometimes people go too deep into how sorry they are about everything”, Otis says. He recalls a time he was talking to a white man on the street who, upon hearing that Otis was Lakota, proceeded to emphasize how sorry he was about “what we did to you”. “What? I understand what you’re saying, but you didn’t do it. Be an understanding person and willing to learn and be open-minded, but why this guilt trip?”, Otis asks. “I’m not destroyed. I’m still here, and I’m living my life, and I’m having a great time. People are saying, we are so sorry for what we did to you. But I’m not on the ground dying or something.” Otis grins, with the same positivity he likes to pour in his songs. “It’s just important to say that we’re still here and that there’s so much beauty in in the cultures that we carry, and the struggle is beautiful, too.”
The Wrapper 