KEYES: If you're just joining us, this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

So that's one important thing that we've learned, in that we try to communicate with Blackfire. If we lose our languages, if we lose who we are, our identity, then a part of those teachings is lost forever. There's a connection that we have with our culture. CLAYSON BENALLY: I think that - this is Clayson here - a lot of our culture has solutions to the complexities that we find ourselves in today, you know, from global warming, you know, if we look back to who we are, our cultural identity, we've lived in balance with this earth and environment as indigenous peoples for, you know, generations upon generations.

So that way we know where we're going in life. BENALLY: That beautiful sound that you hear is our father singing a traditional song in our language.Īnd it's talking about how it's important to be rooted in our culture, to understand who we are. Jeneda talk to me about what we're hearing in that song. I believe we hear a man - well, I don't want to call it whooping, because it's not whooping, but the average listener might think, what on earth is that. Take for granted what you don't understand. This one's from your 'One Nation Under' album, called 'What Do You See?'īLACKFIRE: (Singing) (Unintelligible) but how can you get anywhere (unintelligible) what you can. So in order to challenge, to confront, and expose these issues, we chose to put it out there. There was a message there that was being driven by emotional content we could connect to.Īnd growing up, faced with addressing forced relocation, faced with environmental degradation and hardly anybody outside of our own community was talking about these issues. The Ramones, Crass, we could connect not only to the energy and the rawness, but the fact that there was political content. But when we first heard punk music like the Subhumans, the Dead Kennedys. KLEE BENALLY: (Musician, Blackfire): When we first started playing music, we really didn't intend on, you know, a specific genre. KEYES: You know, it's actually very interesting that you said that, and I want to bring Klee in, because I don't want him to feel left out, but I'm curious as to whether your activism caused you to start the band, or if you had already started the band and then decided to use the music as part of your activism? We've witnessed people having black lung, and the forced relocation of over 14,000 of our people since the 1970's. And when the enemy was coming near a long time ago, you would put a blanket over a fire and that black plume of smoke sent up is called (foreign language spoken) which translates into black fire.īut also, where we come from on Black Mesa, there is a coalmine that sadly, we've grown up with. BENALLY: In our language we say (foreign language spoken), which is a warning. Then my mom, she's a folk singer/songwriter, quite the opposite of my dad growing up from the Greenwich Village music scene and bringing all those different elements together, you know, we always knew that we could express ourselves with music, with song, and we started writing our own material, and we just we just naturally became Blackfire.

So we, of course, you know, as children growing up in an area where we didn't have a lot of resources, we, you know, had a lot of musical influences from our father who was a traditional Navajo singer, Dineh in an area where we didn't have a lot of resources, we, you know, had a lot of musical influences from our father who was a traditional Navajo singer, Dineh (foreign language spoken) and, you know, we always used our voice, you know, to sing and express ourselves in that way. CLAYSON BENALLY (Musician, Blackfire): Oh, the long, sad story. How did you guys decide you were going to be a band? KEYES: Clayson, let me start with you, and let's start at the beginning. JENEDA BENALLY (Musician, Blackfire): Thank you.

I'm joined now by all three siblings, big, little, and middle, from member station KNAU in Flagstaff, Arizona. Their lyrics carry messages about government oppression, relocation of indigenous people, and human rights. This is a Dineh, or Navajo Native-American, rock band made up of three siblings, Jeneda, Clayson and Klee Benally. That's the track Overwhelming from the group's latest album, 'Silence As A Weapon.' Really like that song. I go through (unintelligible) all these questions rise. Meet Blackfire.īLACKFIRE (Music Group): (Singing) Harder, (unintelligible), why should I calm down, I know I've been to see you. And finally, we want to lay some music on you, but we won't be putting you to sleep with a list of holiday favorites.

Blackfire aesthetic