American Indian Culture and Research Journal

This paper explores how hip-hop artists mobilize sound and style to manage loss, build new futures, and create resilient communities. Embracing an "untraditional" medium, young people contest settler violence and hegemonies of shame by expressing unique, politicized possibilities of being Indigenous, or what I am calling (ab)originality: a style of being first, fresh, and foremost. Heritage is an act of reverent rebellion: an individual honors continuity, but defies the trappings of tradition, which shackle Indigeneity to the geography and the customs of the past. Through love and creativity, artists claim visibility, voice, and everywhere.