- [Narrator] This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

(inspiring music) (upbeat techno music) - Welcome to Music Matters.

I am your host, Apolonia Davalos.

Together, we explore how and why music matters to you.

We experience Lakota oneness, uplift our service men and women in uniform, allow music to transform us into wellness and expose us to nerd culture.

Levitt at the Falls invites musicians who endeavor to create a better world by building community through music.

Each mission is as unique as the artist themselves.

Dallas Chief Eagle, a member of the Rosebud Lakota Nation, coaches character driven life lessons, as he teaches the richness of the Lakota cultural tradition.

Celebrating the beauty of life, Music Matters begins with Dallas Chief Eagle.

(upbeat techno music) ♪ Clear as the sky ♪ ♪ I saw an eagle fly by ♪ - [Dallas] We were only born with a brain, a heart, a body and a spirit, and our people were very good at developing songs and a language and a way of life that was very close to nature in the past.

But all that was interrupted.

So what we are doing ourselves is we are, we are reemerging that part of our culture in our schools and in our homes.

We have a lot of broken hopes among our people, and the only way we can see out of it is, is to practice how to navigate oneself.

And that's why we use use Grandpa Rock is, in so many of, in our culture, in so many ways, we use the, the stones in our teaching because the eagle has a spirit, the horse has a spirit, you have a spirit.

How does this rock teach us?

Well, it's not moving, so we're not gonna move, and we're not gonna make noise.

And if we're born with a brain, a body, a heart and a spirit, well, we want our spirit to lead, so Grandpa Rock's going to teach us.

So we sit around the buffalo robe, and we sit with the Grandpa Rock, and then I teach the students how to turn off all the channels in their brain.

But we're gonna turn it off, and what we're gonna do is go into spirit.

All the students are sitting around, keeping their eyes on Grandpa Rock.

We're gonna give our brain a rest.

You have to stop thinking, stop feeling, stop your body, and just stare at Grandpa Rock for one whole minute.

And then after the minute, I ask the student, "Well, did your brain start to think?"

They say yeah.

Did you make it stop?

Yeah.

Well eventually, throughout the few four lessons, they can turn off their brain completely, and then their spirit takes over.

See, the spirit gets most of the attention, and the spirit will help us deal with the trauma or the hurt, the pain, the grief.

It will help us through those very difficult, challenging times.

Also, if we want to have bigger, positive challenges too, we want our spirit involved in that too.

The more we're involved with teaching our spirit to be part of the process, our daily processes with one another is very important.

We start seeing other people in nature as spirits, and we treat them that way.

We do not distance ourself from being close to the people around us.

And we have to get rid of our busy-ness sometimes.

Some of us are overwhelmed with busy-ness here or sadness here, or pain or suffering, but we need to know how to manage that, so that we can give the best of who we are, which is the spirit, to one another and our families, communities, and relatives out there.

So that's what Grandpa Rock teaches us.

They've been around for thousands of years, being silent, not moving, not moving this, not moving this, not moving their bodies, and allowing the spirit to be one of the chief navigators in our lives.

And it reduces our fears.

This is really good for hoop dancing 'cause all the children want to hoop dance then.

Then I say, "How do you get rid of your fears?

Well, we're gonna practice doing this minute exercise now, and then we're gonna hoop dance.

And give the best, put the spirit in our hoop dance."

That's how you build character, as you teach people how to use their gifts that they were born with.

When I do my artists and residencies, and some of my touring arts, I found a way to use the hoop where all children can hoop dance.

You ask children to go maybe break dance, or do other dances, and maybe they're too bashful.

But with the hoop, it's like, well...

I said, "Don't worry about how you dance.

Just show your hoop.

Just concentrate on the hoop."

And I've never met a child, whether they had a disability or some kind of a problem, that when they hoop dancing, they get rid of the shyness and they just come out there.

And I say, "Just keep that hoop moving, and then your dance steps will just come."

And usually, well, I say, "It's hoop dancing.

It's not hoop standing around."

So they get out there and they dance.

And the more hoops they use, the more I teach them to use more hoops.

Maybe they're going up to seven hoops in front of the public, the whole school, or the whole big audience like we had today.

You're gonna be shining and people are gonna be looking.

But one thing for sure, just keep moving, because if you stop moving, and you freeze, and everybody else is moving, and you're not moving, where do you think the audience eye's going to go?

Me.

Well, you don't want to stand out like a sore thumb.

So even if you make a mistake in life, you got to keep going, keep moving.

(upbeat techno music) - We are grateful to Dallas Chief Eagle for welding us into one single heartbeat.

Next, we connect with country music artist Lucas Hoge.

Earning a number one spot on the Billboard Country Music charts, Lucas has won our hearts with his service to our troops overseas and commitment to composing audio novels to stand the test of time.

We are humble to introduce the one and only Lucas Hoge.

(upbeat techno music) (soft country rock music) - What's up everybody?

Come on, now.

- [Lucas] I believe music matters in so many different ways.

To me, it's the universal language.

It breaks down barriers for communication in other ways that, normally you might not be able to communicate with that person or that group of people.

And as soon as you start playing some music, it's just a different language.

It just speaks to everyone.

I guess if I had to pinpoint an epiphany moment in my music career, it'd be at a very, very young age, when I realized that music was going to be able to take me everywhere in this world.

And I realized very, very early on that, when I started learning these instruments, and I picked up this guitar, and it just started coming to me naturally, that my guitar was gonna be my passport out of my little small town of Hubble, and it was gonna take me all over the world.

But I had no idea exactly how far it was gonna take me.

♪ The rhythm in my chest ♪ ♪ You you took away my breath ♪ ♪ Baby just say yes ♪ - [Lucas] Definitely have been some incidences where people have hit me on social media and said that this song or that song has helped them get out of a, a down point in their life or they've used it in their wedding, and it really pinpointed a timestamp their life, and that moment in time.

But there was this moment where I was doing a cowboy church out in Pueblo, Colorado, and I had just finished it, and they were live streaming this song over the radio station that I had just written for this lady who was in hospice care.

And it was called "How Was I To Know?"

And I just finished doing this service, and this lady comes pulling up to the church and she said, "I just heard your song on the radio.

And I was contemplating whether or not I was gonna take my life."

And she said, "I heard that song," and it stopped her in her tracks.

And she's still doing great, better than she ever was.

She credits it to that song, "How Was I To Know," which I get goosebumps every time I hear that story because if I...

If that's the only thing my music has ever done is saved that one life, to me, that's pretty amazing.

(soft guitar strumming) Well, performing overseas for our troops is something that's near and dear to my heart to begin with.

A lot of my family was in the military.

My dad was in the Air Force.

My uncle was an MP in Vietnam in the Marines, and so on and so on down to my cousins who are still in the military today.

So I knew that, at a young age, I thought I wanted to go into the military, but then I realized very quickly that I was no way, shape or form wired to be in the military.

I am just not that good of a person, I guess, because they are the best of us.

And I knew I wanted to give back in some way, shape or form.

And I think that this was the only way that I was gonna be able to do that.

And I give two weeks of my life, that's nothing, right, to go overseas and look our service men and women in the face and tell them thank you for everything they do, because if not for them over there, protecting our freedoms here, we can't do what we want to do with our lives on American soil.

So I love our service men and women dearly, and going overseas every single year has just increased that love and respect because the loyalty, the dedication, the sacrifice that all these men and women do for us is beyond compare.

And getting to see exactly what they go through day in and day out, intensifies that respect for what they do for us.

So I'm gonna keep doing it as long as I possibly can, 'cause I'm very honored that they continue to ask me to come back and perform for them.

I grew up in a super small town of 44 people in rural Nebraska called Hubble, Nebraska.

And my mom and dad were very, very active in music.

And my mom's a short story writer.

She writes poetry and songs on her own as well.

So I came by that part very, very naturally.

And we grew up in this really small church where maybe at the peak of the congregation, there was 15 people in this little one room church.

And when they would go do worship music and stuff like that, and go practice with the preacher at the parsonage, they'd take me.

I was just a little kid, and they sent me in the corner to my own devices.

And one day I remember the preacher bringing a electronic little drum set, right?

Like a little pad.

And she'd sit me in the corner, so I could play with it.

And all of a sudden I was keeping perfect time with what they were singing.

She looks over at me.

She's like, "He's keeping like perfect time with what we're singing and playing."

And after that, she took me into the high school and introduced me to the band teacher and said, "You might want to help this kid along.

He's got something natural about his music ability."

And after that, I knew that I knew that music was part of me and I wanted to keep that alive and really cultivate that.

So definitely family and friends and all the things that, that helped me cultivate that music career is right there in that little small town of Hubble, Nebraska.

♪ Yeah I want to get lost ♪ (upbeat techno music) - Music is the true universal language of harmony that unites people from all ages and backgrounds.

Support Lucas Hoge and his music mission by visiting lucashoge.com.

Senegalese musician, Diali Cissokho and Kaira Ba play the ultimate dance fusion of West African culture and pulse of the American south.

Now, let's receive the medicinal power of music.

(upbeat techno music) (lively music) (singing in foreign language) - [Diali] Music matters because it's a medicine for everybody and music can help you so many way.

Music to me has changed me a lot, about my faith, and it's very important to deepen special people also.

Because some people say, "I don't like music."

Some people like music.

So to me, I call...

Example, you go to... You know you have to take a medicine.

Why are you taking medicine?

Because you have sickness.

You need to treat that.

So music is like that, and that's how music does with me.

People, just not me, just everybody.

So when I hear people, some people say, "I don't like music," (sighs) I say, "Okay, you don't understand.

You don't get it."

Because look at the natural medicine right here, right in front of you.

You don't have to buy it.

You don't have to spend money.

It's naturally right there.

Take it.

And you say you don't want it.

And music, I'm telling you the one story about little bit about back home.

One of our friends, it's not really friends, but we never... We grew up together, but we don't hang out.

People call him, he is mean, but I never call him, he is mean because we always have peace, me and him.

We always, "Hi," "Hi."

We have peace.

Sometime we play soccer.

One day, he was so angry with one of my friends.

He about to kill him.

Yeah, he grabbed knife and then follow him.

In daytime.

Everybody was inside the house.

Nobody know what's going on on the street.

So he's looked like somebody...

It looked like something telling me, go outside with your kora.

And then I say, it's hot.

Let me go outside, play kora.

So I carry my kora.

I was sitting outside.

And then I saw, he grab knife, and then go try to kill one of my friends.

I start singing, I start to play.

I'm singing him, I'm singing him.

He drop.

He dropped the knife and then turn back, come to me and say, "Diali, thank you for helping me because I'm about to do something really bad, but you helping me bring me back."

And he's changed now.

He have a big family, he have a wife.

He is so nice (claps) and make me happy.

(gentle music) A kora, to be honest, I like that because I wasn't find kora, but kora was not ready for me.

So me, I thought I'm ready.

So I was five years old, and then I'm so happy to play kora.

And then when I'm turning 10, I give up.

I don't want to play kora.

I want to play soccer.

But that not work because my dad gave me a hard time about playing soccer.

He don't support me for that.

He wanted me to play kora.

And then 10 years later, kora come to me.

And I tell my dad, "Can you teach me how to play?"

He said, "Never ever.

I'm not gonna teach you."

And then he wanted me to play kora, but he not gonna teach me.

He taught all my brothers, be he never taught me.

Kora come to me, just like that.

I taught myself.

(soft music) Griot is like a storyteller.

It's a storyteller, and then it's like a journalist.

And back home, long time ago, my grandparent's generation, when the king in Africa, when king going to fight or going to do something, he always called the griot, and say, "Can you go in front of me and tell all the town or the village I'm coming?

Because this thing about to happen."

Griot always hold his instrument, and then telling people what's happening right now, what's going on in the village.

Back home, a long time ago, before we have a cell phone, before we have a TV, so we communicate with our instrument.

Whatever happened in the neighborhood, whatever happened to the town, we carry a drum, or we carry our instrument and playing, singing so we can tell, everybody can know what's going on.

Griot holding is like a, you holding something like, like when your grandparent give you something, say like, example, they give you the necklace.

So you say, "Oh, this has come from my grandparent."

And then you don't want to loose it.

You're always careful about it.

That's how I hold what I got from my parent.

So I'm holding it to my next generation to teach my kids about that, to give them.

So griot is like a journalist.

♪ No matter where you're from ♪ (upbeat techno music) - Music is medicine.

Continue to learn and heal at kairabamusic.com.

Feeling glorious?

Hailing from Minneapolis, from pop culture punchlines to the power of positivity, Nur-D is a hip hop artist, giving nerd culture a voice.

Today, we join the Nur-D club.

Let's go.

(upbeat techno music) (soft hip hop music) ♪ And that's a lot more than them other guys ♪ - [Nur-D] Music can be positive and happy.

Being better the next day after hearing something is positive.

It's like going to the gym or going to the doctor.

Sometimes it's not fun.

It's not like you're like, "Oh, yay!

Colonoscopy, let's get it."

(laughs) But it is something that you might need and it's positive.

And so when you have music that's honest, it allows you to deal with whatever the artist is wanting you to deal with, whatever emotion they're trying to portray.

And anytime you're honest and vulnerable, that's a positive step.

The genre of clean hip hop is a little different than what I would even have said even three years ago.

I think that the idea of...

When people think about clean hip hop, they think of it as one that doesn't have cursing in it.

The language is such that everyone can really listen to it, but it's not devoid of a message.

It's not devoid of the power or the umph, or even some of the harshness of hip hop.

Hip hop was born out of struggle.

Every single hip hop community was born out of some sort of struggle.

It originated in the Bronx through black and brown peoples' struggle.

Sometimes it can get a little gritty.

It can get a little raw.

It can get a little punchy, and that's not bad.

It's not negative.

And if anything, it's a real representation of how people are feeling.

And clean hip hop is that.

And sometimes it's just used in a way that, if you have a little bit more of a sensibility to some of that stuff, some of the language that's used, it allows you to engage with that as well, and can ease you into the wider world of hip hop that encompasses all sorts of language.

And I think that's important to say.

Well, an Easter egg is a term used for a little nugget of fun, interesting, or connected lore, or I don't know.

I don't even have the word for it.

It is an Easter egg.

It is designed for that, when you find it, you find something special, and it really is only there for the people who are looking for it.

So when you're looking for an Easter egg, you're like, oh my gosh, I remember this from this.

And in my music, I love to add little bits of Easter eggs.

If you love Harry Potter, if you love Danny Phantom, if you're a big fan of the Big Bad Beetleborgs, you might hear something in my song.

You'll be like, (gasps) "That's from that!"

And that connection is what makes you light up, which makes me light up.

And it creates a whole better experience than if you were just hearing a really nice song.

It's a little extra thing that lets me know, and lets you know that we're on the same page.

Today at the Super Con event, we talked a little bit about something that I'm very passionate about, which is inclusivity in nerd culture.

And the inclusion of other people, other cultures, other ideas only make these stories better, not worse.

It doesn't take away from what you love.

It adds extra dimensions to it.

Gatekeeping is a problem.

And I think it's a problem based out of love, but it turns toxic really quickly.

For example, someone like, oh, I like superheroes.

Oh, really?

Name every superhero.

Like that.

The response to try to have people prove whether or not they are worthy of being interested in something is not something... That's not how we get more people into the thing we love.

Like "Blade" really kicked off where we are now.

"Blade" did incredibly well.

And then they're like, "Oh, hey, maybe we can do superheroes again."

And the story is people who are different and a little strange coming together or finding within themselves the strength to do something incredible.

And it's up to us as people who've been fans for a very long time to take people in, as opposed to try and keep people out.

Let's teach them about the things that we love about it and hear why they might love some things about it.

We might find a new aspect to a hobby or a music or a genre that we'd never known before.

And I think that that's really cool.

I think that's why we do this, 'cause we like to find the little Easter egg that we might've not caught before.

I love this stuff, but sometimes I don't always feel like it was designed for me in mind.

But the reality is, when you talk about fiction and heroes and fantastical stories of magic, there is so much room for everybody in these stories.

And as we continue to tell them, really start changing our culture, we can find space for everybody, every color, creed, every age, every level of able body.

It is amazing how much the fantasy, the nerd world has for everybody.

And so I just love talking about that.

I love being able to share my heart on why it's important to focus in on that because I don't want anyone to be left out on this marvelous, wonderful thing.

If you have something that is amazing, if you have something that's unique, if you have something that's you, the Nur-D club is here for you, and I want you to be a part of it 'cause it's too sweet.

(Nur-D laughs) ♪ Brighter than the hate ♪ ♪ That tries to get in my way ♪ (upbeat techno music) - Thank you Nur-D, for sending us on an Easter egg hunt through your music.

Nerd culture is for everyone.

Dress up and seek out his performances at nurdrocks.com.

Thank you for watching Music Matters.

More to come.

I am your host Apolonia Davalos.

I love you!

(lips smack) (upbeat techno music)