- Welcome to "Music Matters".

I am your host, Apolonia Davalos.

We build community through music as we explore how and why music matters to you and our musical guests.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Funky and poetic.

Composing with trumpet, drums, bass, and hiphop vocals, D'DAT is offering out of the box musicianship.

Inspired by Navajo cultural music, D'DAT fuses contemporary indigenous sound with hip hop, jazz, and funk, planting seeds through educational outreach wherever they travel, this band inspires you to follow your dreams.

On behalf of SDPD, it is our dream through "Music Matters" to introduce and welcome D'DAT.

♪ What can I prove in my lifetime ♪ ♪ under bright lights in the night time?

♪ ♪ That's why I move, this is my fight, my dance ♪ ♪ This is my life every step ♪ ♪ That I'll take nothing left in my tank ♪ - The whole meaning of Diné music, first of all, Diné Music was created and made around the everyday activity of the Diné people.

They have songs for cooking, playing, celebration, ceremony, even war.

And the thing I love about Diné music is it's very close to experience and to the people, and we like to create from the Diné cultural music, a thing called Diné spinning songs.

And the spinning songs were actually songs that would teach the cultural, I guess manners, would always be you always greet people, you always shake your hand, you stand up when someone greets themselves.

Very basic things.

And when I started to get a little deeper and was looking into fusion of these Diné songs with our modern funk, jazz and hip hop, I went to the elders and asked if it was okay to use some of these songs in today's society, bring them back so to speak.

And the elders were very open to it.

And it was very surprising because they told me that just in general, a spinning song is kind of like a tornado and it picks up everything around you and it throws it out.

Whatever comes out comes out.

So in the sense, meeting Nicholas Lucero, our drums, Mike McCluhan on bass, and James Pakootas on vocals, these are the guys I'm hanging around all the time.

So we're all mixed up in this spinning cycle, creating projects, creating new music.

And that, in a sense, made us all ambassadors for Native America in general.

♪ As you think about confidence ♪ ♪ You gotta step into every room ♪ ♪ Like your ancestors are witching ♪ - From a lyrical standpoint, I have a very particular structure in the way that I teach.

And it's kind of interesting.

In 2015, I got in a drunk driving accident where I lost the use of my right arm from the elbow down.

And three months after the accident, I wanted to commit suicide.

And my mom was there, thank God that she was there.

My mom was there that day and kind of instilled, planted that seed of resilience that I was worth more, that I was worth something.

And I started going to counseling for PTSD.

I didn't know how to live a life without my right arm and right hand dominant.

And it also was really difficult.

And I remember going through these exercises of PTSD and this booklet and it was like these exercises to kind of get through the PTSD moments.

And for me, it was a way to identify my emotions and start to catalog those emotions and situations that are attached to those emotions so that I could figure out like, what's a priority?

What is really affecting me in the moment?

And then maybe I'm just tripping in all of this stress and maybe I don't need to prioritize it.

I've used that exercise now as a way to connect with our youth.

I'll throw on whatever beat or whatever instrumental that we're gonna write to, or do a whole number of them and and let our youth choose like what do you want to write to?

What type of feelings or emotions do you want to capture today?

Writer's block is a figment of the imagination.

It's just retraining your mind, retraining your thoughts to express themselves.

You've got stories that are hidden and laying dormant in your own minds and it just takes maybe a new way to create or a new form of getting it out for you to get over that hump.

Our youth especially haven't been taught how to express themselves very often.

As natives, as a native men, were taught to suffer in silence.

And that is a way to go about life.

So the retraining of this new age warrior mindset of expressing ourselves, talking about what's going on, and getting that stuff out.

Maybe we don't have people in our circles that we can trust.

So for our youth that don't have anybody that they can turn to, this is a perfect way for you to still cope with what's going on, write all of that down and burn it, throw it in the garbage, or keep it, do whatever you want to do.

But at least you're still getting past these racing thoughts that never have a finish.

That's how I approach music being medicine in my own life.

(upbeat music) - I like to approach music from sort of the history sense.

And one very strong component that comes from jazz music in general is improvisation.

And I like to really spend a lot of time expressing how improvisation is so important in today's world.

Not everything goes the way you want it to.

And that's the whole study.

That's the whole work of being a human being is being able to cope with anything that's been thrown at you.

No one loves a flat tire, but it's a skill that you have to pick up.

And improvisation is a skill.

It's a skill of learning new things, being creative and expressing that in a way that will allow you to keep moving.

And I think the nature of our band, it's very personalized.

(driving drum solo) Nicholas Lucero, his main love for music is in the funk and Latin area.

So that came through him.

Mike McCluhan, he's a dead head, the Grateful Dead.

He loves to jam, he just wants to jam.

And I came from a very jazz background.

However, when I dug deeper, I found these Diné spinning songs and thought it would be really neat to pair improvisation, jazz improvisation with these songs.

So everyone is bringing what they love to the table.

James, a great motivational speaker, has a lot of experiences.

He has a very great story.

So when you put all that together, that's how kind of hip hop meets jazz, funk, and jam.

- That's right.

Thank y'all for coming out.

Thank y'all so much.

- Delbert, James, thank you so much for joining us today.

We learned so much about the foundation of culture and how it bridges tradition and living in modern times.

Learn more about them, be inspired.

Visit their website, ddatlive.com, and give them a follow under social media.

Thank you to our sponsors, the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation.

Thank you for watching "Music Matters".

I am your host, Apolonia Davalos, and I love you.

(upbeat music) - To me, music is very important in my life because if you're listening to music, you're smiling and feeling good.

I was a past drummer and I just love music.

I'm always singing.

So to me, music is very important.

- Yeah, I love music as well too.

It just gives you a good feeling in your body that you don't think you don't wanna move around a lot.

So I think it's just something that gets you motivated and wants you to do some things around the world.

So I think that's what I do.

- [Both] We love to love it.

(upbeat music continues)