Dorrance Comes Last Photo by Milt Lee
Native Siouxperman
with Milt Lee
Arlie Neskahi :
The population of a reservation often reflects the chaotic conditions of the late nineteenth century. Following the great Sioux war of the 1860’s, bands of Nakotah Sioux were given refuge by the Assiniboine. As a result, people of Nakotah ancestry live side by side with the Assinboine on the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana. In today’s Contemporary Rhythms, Milt Lee takes us to meet one such person, a Nakotah rap artist, Native Sioux-per man.
Milt Lee:
Check it out. Check it out. It’s the Native Sioux-per man.
Music
Dorrance Comes Last Photo by Milt Lee
Lee:
I’ve been driving around Popler, Montana trying to find the Native Sioux-per man. That’s s–i–o–u–x as in the tribe, Sioux per man. I know he’s around here some where. I’m looking for a pick-up truck with “rez life” on the license plate. I find him in a small ranch style home, sleeping. His grandma greets me, and I make a date to meet Dorrance Comes Last at the college in 30 minutes.
We meet in the gym slash community room and start talking about rap.
Dorrance Comes Last:
Say I just got into poems at first, you know like, my freshman year. That was 4 years ago, anyway. I didn’t really start getting into it until like my junior year, and that’s when I started to put something together – you know like a little tape – cheap tape.
Music
Comes Last :
Then I start, you know, meeting like my friend Chaz, you know, I met him. What was it? Like my senior year high school. So then all these other guys, they didn’t really rap. I mean they tried a little bit. So then this past summer that’s when we all got together and did that. So not too long have I been doing that, but I found it to be kinda easy to do – like the complex style and rhyming – more than one word in each bar – you know. So that’s what I like, you know, just something hard – not simple.
And it’s it’s either Bo-doo you know just a nickname I have for real long time. But my rap name is native Sioux-per man. Yeah. S-i-o-u-x.
Lee:
S-i-o-u-x. I love that Sioux-per man. But I think it’s easier to just call him Bo-doo. Bo-doo is a teddy bear of a man – 6 feet tall, soft. He’s got a great smile – and regular black braids. You know, the real deal.
He wears a beaded medallion that’s got a big red “s” on it. Just like superman.
Dorrance Comes Last. Photo by Milt Lee.
Music
Lee:
Before working on this, I knew that the kids around the Rez liked rap, but I had no idea how big, and how easy this whole thing was. So I goggled on rap beats, and found rap beats. 472 thousands. I can deal with that. All right, let’s see what this is all about.
Yeah. Okay. I am amazed. You can get free beats, free recording software, and you can be a star. All it takes is a few rhymes.
Comes Last:
Oh, like the topic of the rhymes and stuff like that? It mostly comes to me, like you know maybe on some nights I could get at least two songs, or the whole thing finished, you know.
Lee:
I really like what Bo-doo is doing. I mean, talking about commodity cheese. You remember that? It was the government’s answer to poverty. We give all the poor people five pounds of cheese. Now these kids are taking the absurdity of that notion and turning it into rap.
MUSIC
Commods Song
Comes Last:
Oh yeah. (laughs) We were trying to work on a different song, you know. Then that beat, you know, that real old beat with an instrumental CD we had, and it just started playing like that, and we just started joking around, you know, about commodities and stuff like that.
Lee:
When you listen to the work of these young guys, you hear a different type of rap. They aren’t that interested in death and destruction. Mostly it’s about their lives, out here in the middle of Montana, dealing with being an Indian in the 21 st Century.
Comes Last:
And on the some of the like political stuff, you know, just how, what happened to the Indians, you know, way back then. I just, it’s past. There really ain’t nothing we could do to change that so, you know, I just try not to do too much about that, you know. I drop some stuff like what happens now, you know, that be good and stuff like that, how our nation is still surviving you know. That’s cool.
Milt:
It is cool.
Comes Last:
But for the solo project, I want to, you know, what I’m working on is um just going to be more stuff dealing with like real issues, like, you know, like the drugs on the Rez, everything like that you know, alcohol, everything ‘cause I don’t smoke or drink or anything like that.
Lee:
So fine. So cool. So proper. But this is even better. The Native Sioux-per Man raps in Dakota!
Comes Last:
There is this one called Stay Proud I was working on but I didn’t get the third verse done yet because I’m going to do it all in Dakota, the third verse. Yeah, a teacher at the school is helping me with the words and stuff like that.
(Sings) First Verse
Comes Last:
Second Verse would be…
(Sings) STAY PROUD IN DAKOTA
Lee:
Music, whether traditional or contemporary, always reflects life. Rap music gives a voice to how young folks feel about the current reality of being an Indian, of living on a reservation, of having something to say and a way to say it. It’s a new world out there, folks.
From Poplar, Montana, this is Wisdom of the Elders.
Neskahi:
Contemporary Rhythms is written and produced by Milt Lee of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe and his wife, Jamie Lee, who live and work in Rapid City, South Dakota. Check out their website, realrez dot com for more of their work.