Hip Hop Angels Watching Over Indigenous Kids (Borders Be Damned!) Adrian Jawort - Indian Country
go to original September 19, 2014

MC Redcloud and Crystle Lightning of LightningCloud. 'These kids didn’t cross no ocean: they’re indigenous to Turtle Island,' says Redcloud of the children showing up at the U.S. border. 'If you don’t have a heart to help them, you’re a damn racist.' (Facebook/TeamLightningCloud)

MC Redcloud of the Native hip hop duo LightningCloud has no time for those who want to block unaccompanied children from entering the United States. “Whites, they don’t care about these people; to them they’re from another world,” he says. “To the educated Natives, these people are our cousins. They’re the same victims of Columbus, Cortez, and colonialization.”

On August 27, Redcloud and his partner in crime (and life), Crystle Lightning, put on an event called Indigenous Angels, a benefit concert and auction for children fleeing the violence in Central America. (That's not all they did last week - the pair also picked up the Best Show/Live Performance at the Indigenous Legends and West Coast American Indian Music Awards in LA on August 30.)

The featured artists who readily donated original artwork to the cause included Bunky Echo-Hawk, Voltan and Steven Paul Judd. The event was emceed by Native comedian JR Redwater, and performers included PJ Vegas, Azlan Underground, Ras United, and Aztec Dancers, as well as LightningCloud themselves. Red Cloud was overwhelmed by the positive response to the issue to the benefit.

To Red Cloud - whose indigenous roots stem from the Huichol Indian Tribe of Jalisco, Mexico - the matter struck a personal note on why he needed to gather LA’s premiere artists to benefit unaccompanied youths caught at the southwest border whose numbers have skyrocketed to 63,000 this year alone according to PBS.org.

Read the rest at Indian Country

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