Indigenous

Indigenous - Things We Do - 1998 - Pachyderm

Indigenous is an American blues-rock group that began ro gain a reputation as great blues rockers in the late 1990s. The band originally consisted of two brothers, Mato Nanji (vocals and guitar, b. 1974), Pte (bass guitar), with their sister, Wanbdi on drums and vocals, and cousin, Horse, on percussion. If you like SRV or Jimi Hendrix , then you will appreciate the guitar playing of Mato Nanji. The great B.B. King became a fan, and invited Indigenous to join him on his Blues Festival Tour. The band have also opened for Bob Dylan.This is a great straightforward rhythm & blues album with terrific vocals. "Things we do" and "How far" are two excellent commercial songs, but if you like more grit in your music, then listen to the other ten songs on this album. Great music, reminiscent of late sixties English blues rock which can't be bad. Buy their great "Circle " album and give this great band more recognition.

TRACKS

Things We Do
Got To Tell You
Now That You're Gone
Blues This Morning
Bring Back That Day
Nothing I Can Do
Begin To Wonder
How Far
What's Goin' On
Don't Take Your Time
Holdin' Out
Another Yesterday

BAND

Mato Nanji - vocals, guitar
Horse - congas, percussion
Pte - vocals, bass

REVIEW

In the late 1990s, a whole slew of young guitarists emerged, all making a grab for the Stevie Ray Vaughan mantle. In this group, one must include Mato Nanji, guitarist for the family venture Indigenous. Unlike many of his predecessors, Mato Nanji may actually be deserving of the honor. That's a bold statement, but a listen to "Begin to Wonder," the instrumental "Holdin' Out," or especially "Nothing I Can Do" off of Things We Do are sufficient to justify it. The album opens with the low-key, midtempo title track, but it's on "Got to Tell You" that Things We Do really hits its stride. On the whole, this CD is a very strong effort, especially for musicians still in their early 20s. © Genevieve Williams , © 1996-2008, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates

BIO [ © Gloria Cooksey, © 2008 Net Industries - All Rights Reserved ]

Members include siblings Mato Nanji, guitar; Pte(born Ptehcaka Wicasa), bass; Wanbdi(born Wanbdi Waste Win), drums; and cousin Horse (a.k.a. Tasunka), percussion; all are members of the Native American Nakota Nation. Great blues music and a strong family tradition combine to inspire the members of Indigenous, hailed as one of the greatest electric blues bands of the early 2000s. The group, all members of the same Native American family, began their career in basement jam sessions in the early 1990s using old instruments. Within a few years, they had matured and moved into large concert venues--which included a performance at one of President Bill Clinton's inaugural balls--to become a sought-after musical act by the end of the decade. As the quartet gained exposure from constant touring in the late 1990s, critics quickly hailed the newcomers for their musical brilliance and exceptional stage presence. Mary Bowannie reported in News From Indian Countrythat the group "leaves some rock critics grasping for words ... [but] it is simple. Indigenous has the power to stir and unleash emotions that are deep inside everyone." The members of Indigenous, three siblings and a cousin, were raised in South Dakota. A member of the Nakota Nation, the family lived on the Yankton Indian Reservation. Although the band members have described their years growing up on the reservation as an experience not unlike life in any suburban American town, the political climate for Native Americans was far from ideal. Indeed, the children were exposed even in early childhood to the American Indian Movement (AIM), as their father and uncle, the late Greg Zephier, was active in that cause. Later, when they came of school age, their experiences with bigotry at the local schools drove them back to their family for home schooling in a less hostile atmosphere. As a result, it was the home of Greg and Beverly Zephier, the parents of the sibling band members, which spawned the fledgling quartet in the early 1990s. As part of their education, the siblings studied music with Greg Zephier--himself a former musician--as their teacher. The children were still pre-teenagers when he introduced his pupils to some old musical instruments in the basement of his home. The equipment was leftover from a 1960s band called the Vanishing Americans with which Zephier had once performed. In addition to the instruments, the Zephier household contained a cache of vintage blues recordings, including many of the electronic genres that came to prominence during the 1960s and 1970s. The future Indigenous members listened to the records and emulated the music. As a group they held their earliest jam sessions at the family home. Zephier, as their mentor, insisted that the band practice for at least two years prior to attempting a public performance. During those earliest years, as Indigenous bassist Pte professed to Scott Hickey of the Fort Wayne News Sentinel,the young musicians practiced and jammed through 12-hour days, beginning at noon and continuing through dawn. Eventually the musicians ventured forth with their music into their hometown of Marty, South Dakota, where they performed their first jam outside of their home in 1995 in a local casino before an audience of friends and family. For the next three years, their concerts were held in virtual privacy as they continued to hone their performance skills. Still under Zephier's guidance, they performed locally in casinos and other small venues, most often where their relatives or close friends comprised the audience. The limited concert schedule lasted three years before the band performed in a public concert. For the first two years of their public career, they appeared in a series of extended and exhausting tour engagements. Their earliest venues consisted frequently of off-road nightclubs where audiences were oftentimes very small and were largely unpredictable. Their earliest recordings were self-produced and marketed for local distribution. Indigenous released their first compact disc, called Awake,in 1994. Indigenous prides itself on a strong sense of family tradition and loyalty. Born in the 1970s, Mato Nanji, known as Mato in the group and whose name means Standing Bear in his ancestral Nakota language, is lead singer, guitarist, and primary composer and lyricist for the group. From the earliest Indigenous performances, his fiery guitar playing was widely recognized among the greatest of his generation. Critics compare Mato's extreme guitar styles--including playing with his teeth--to the sounds and antics of Jimi Hendrix. Though a member of the Nakota Nation, Mato's interest in music runs deeper than tribal ties. "We want our music to be color blind," he stated to Cheri Soliday-Paul in News from Indian Country, awarethat the band is perhaps too often recognized for the Native American ethnicity of its members instead of its engaging music. To many Native Americans, however, the band's success is a beacon of pride. Kevin Peniska commented in Lakota Times,"We, as Indian People, need to feel proud of this band and its accomplishments. The honor of one is the honor of all." Wanbdi, the group's drummer, is the only female member of Indigenous. Her full name, Wanbdi Waste Win, means Good Eagle Woman in Nakota. Her intuitive drumming skill has been described as a subliminal glue that cements Indigenous into a unified music machine. Wanbdi also receives credit as a lyricist for many of the band's popular songs. One year younger than Mato, Wanbdi, as with all of the band, received careful instruction from her parents in both the language and tradition of her people. Likewise, she and the band members followed the lead of her parents in rejecting drinking, smoking, and drugs, even in a modern music culture that sometimes exploits such practices. Ironically, it was a drunken driver who was blamed for an automobile accident early in 1999 that injured Wanbdi's neck and kept her away from the stage for several months. With other family members sitting in for her, Indigenous successfully maintained their grueling performance schedule in her absence. Egos, according to Wanbdi, are not an issue in their musical organization. They play for enjoyment, and not to impress. Ptehcaka Wicasa, known as Pte, plays a resounding electronic bass in the group. His name translates in English as Little Buffalo Man. Ptehcaka provided his production skills to the band's Live Blues from the Sky album in the late 1990s. The album sold several thousand copies. Additionally, he writes lyrics for Indigenous songs with his sister Wanbdi and brother Mato. Tasunka, the group's percussionist, is best known by his English name of Horse. He is cousin to Mato, Wanbdi, and Pte. Tasunka adds flavor to Indigenous' music through conga, timbales, bongos, and tambourine. He has been described as a great talent as well as a showman, with hands that fly in a blur and add powerful embellishments to the music. Despite untimely setbacks, including as a house fire that destroyed several of their instruments and the subsequent loss of their equipment in a burglary, Indigenous persevered. Their reputation spread, and their music came to the attention of some of the foremost musicians of the blues tradition. Indigenous signed with Pachyderm Records in September of 1998. They released their first single, "Now That You're Gone," that same year. The record, according to K. L. Testerman in Lakota Times, was the fifteenth most played rock and roll song in the United States. On the Radio & Records chart listing, the popular Indigenous song bested rock and roll superstars such as John Mellencamp. Indeed, by early 1999, Indigenous' music reverberated from radio stations across the lower 48 states. This was true not only in the Midwest, but also in the Plains, the Western desert states, and the major urban music meccas of Los Angeles and New York. A second single, "Things We Do," was released on video and received the prize for best video at the American Indian Film Festival that year. It also served as the title track for the first Indigenous album on Pachyderm Records. In the summer of 1999, Indigenous successfully overcame a disappointing experience at the Woodstock reprise festival. At Woodstock, although the band was thrilled to perform on the emerging artist handbill, the enthusiasm turned dank because of the antics of spectators who failed abysmally to connect with the musicians at the ill-fated gathering; the festival ultimately erupted into violence. Regardless, by the end of the calendar year, Indigenous was a popular opening band for prominent blues performers such as B. B. King and Bob Dylan. In late summer, they opened for King at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada, just weeks before rejoining King in his King of the Blues tour on September 1, 1999. Indigenous' television performances included an appearance on the nationally televised Austin City Limitson the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and the foursome has been featured on popular talk shows. Indigenous' live performances, often at colleges and universities, were heard throughout the United States, frequently in the states of Nebraska, Minnesota, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. Reviewer Steve Stancell noted in New York Beacon that the group's "expertise in the blues rock genre is firm...." The band is well-versed in Hendrix, according to Soliday-Paul, who commented on the band's "killer rendition of 'Red House'" and other electric blues classics. Critical comparisons between Mato and legendary Carlos Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughn were commonplace by 2000. Additionally, a distinct honor fell to Indigenous to perform as the opening act for Dylan in his Black Hills debut concert in 2000. With the release of their eleven-track Circlealbum on Pachyderm in May of that year, Indigenous embarked on an extended tour that brought them to sold-out audiences in more than 30 cities. Indigenous tours extended to charitable events, among them a free concert to benefit the Campaign Against Child Abuse and Neglect hosted at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by a consortium of sponsors, including the Ogala Nation Education Coalition. In the early 2000s, Indigenous was regularly performing as many as 200 concerts annually.