“Having this identity—radical indigenous queer feminist—keeps me going. My music and my identity come from the same foundation of being a Native woman.”
Katherine Paul (aka KP) is Black Belt Eagle Scout, and Mother of My Children is her debut album, out September 28th on Saddle Creek. In their own words, the songs are:
“are about grief and love for people, but also about being a native person in what is the United States today.”
“Indians Never Die,” a call out to colonizers and those who don’t respect the Earth, follows. As Standing Rock was happening, many people in Paul’s life were coming together to fight for the most basic necessity to sustain human life: water.
“Our treaty rights weren’t being honored. Imagine hearing on the news that the government doesn’t support you as a human being and never has. They don’t care about the water, they don’t care about how they are destroying what is around them. Indigenous people are the protectors of this land. Indians never die because this is our land that we will forever protect in the present and the afterlife.”
Paul grew up in a small Indian reservation, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, surrounded by family focused on native drumming, singing, and arts. From an early age, Paul was singing and dancing at powwows with one of her strongest memories at her family’s own powwow, called the All My Relations Powwow. Paul reminisces,
“When I was younger, my only form of music was through the songs my ancestors taught the generations of my family. Singing in our language is a spiritual process and it carries on through me in how I create music today.”
With the support of her family and a handful of bootleg Hole and Nirvana VHS tapes, Paul taught herself how to play guitar and drums as a teenag
er. In 2007, she moved to Portland, Oregon to attend college and get involved with the Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls eventually diving deep into the city’s music scene playing guitar and drums in bands while evolving her artistry into what would later become Black Belt Eagle Scout.
Mother of My Children is our 28 September on Saddle Creek Records. Check it out on Bandcamp
LOUD WOMEN 