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Our Living Lands is a collaboration of the Mountain West News Bureau, Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and Native Public Media.

How Indigenous heavy metal music is responding to climate change

A man with long, shaggy hair tips a microphone and mouth wide open sings passionately into a microphone. He's tipping the mic stand forward with his tattooed arm.
Stefan Brending
/
Wikimedia Commons
Testament lead singer Chuck Billy is one of several Indigenous metal artists singing about environmental destruction.

Around the world, Indigenous people are facing environmental degradation, genocide, persecution, and a host of other challenges. For generations, Indigenous musicians have translated their anger at this ongoing situation into heavy metal music.

Our Living Lands Producer Daniel Spaulding sat down with Taylar Stagnar to talk about her reporting on the connection between Indigenous metal music and climate change. Stagnar reports on Indigenous affairs for the online, climate-focused publication Grist.

“Indigenous people are angry for many good reasons,” Stagner said. “And we don't have too many places to show that or to feel those feelings.”

I joined Boise State Public Radio as the Indigenous Affairs Reporter and Producer for Our Living Lands, a weekly radio show that focuses on climate change and its impact on Indigenous communities. It is a collaboration between the Mountain West News Bureau, Native Public Media and Koahnic Broadcast Corporation.

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