Nirvana

Native American hip hop refers to hip hop created by Indigenous peoples of the United States and Canada (including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis artists). It is not a single stylistic subgenre so much as a cultural and thematic current within hip hop, spanning boom‑bap, trap, alternative, and underground styles. Artists often braid traditional sounds—powwow drums, vocables, hand drums, cedar flutes, and round‑dance rhythms—into contemporary beats, while lyrics foreground sovereignty, language revitalization, land and water protection, life on and off the rez, historical trauma and survivance, and community pride. Because Native people have participated in all four elements of hip hop since its early years, the music’s sound palette and flows are as diverse as hip hop itself, even as the themes remain distinctly Indigenous. Historically, Native contributions were sometimes obscured under broad ethnic labels (e.g., being grouped as “Latino/Hispanic” in certain contexts), but the 1990s onward saw a visible wave of Native MCs and later a digitally native generation that uses hip hop as both art and activism.