Photography: Mila Petrillo
Thank you for visiting the project and supporting the movement.
Play Video
The Future is Ancestral is more than an album, is a movement dedicated to amplifying the voices of Indigenous peoples to the world.
The Tracks And The Indigenous Groups
*The proceeds of this album return to the indigenous musicians.
Sina
Vaishu
Yawanawa Saiti Kaya and Alok
In THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL, the connection with the forest begins with the ritual music of the Yawanawa people, which finds its deepest expression in singing.
The first transformative experience in Alok’s life from the connection with indigenous peoples happened through the spiritual healing force and musical expressiveness of the Yawanawa, which is why SINA VAISHU is the opening song and inspiration for the album.
In the union of the flute with the voices in their different acoustic variations, which complement each other and refer to healing prayers, such as shuãnka chanting, the song tells the saga of a shaman who announces his predictions on a pilgrimage. At the same time that it draws on the strength of Yawanawa spirituality in preparing their voices to conduct the ceremonies, it also symbolizes the marking of a territory where their stories, memories and knowledge are rooted, and their ways of life are reproduced.
Sina Vaishu means changing one's thought. There are two directions: a good one and a bad one. Either way, change will happen. Tana Vaishu reveals that we must follow the path of the ancestors. Rae rae rae aneki represents the achievements that changes bring to people when they convince themselves to follow where the energy is flowing. In Yawanawa cosmology, the enchantment of the jiboia (boa constrictor) is within all the transitions that are happening.
Through traditional singing, which reverberates from generation to generation orally, the original culture survives. Occupying a central place with a shamanic dimension in Amazonian rituals, if in the past Yawanawa sacred songs were only sung, it was with Rasu, a young leader and initiate of shamanic learning, that external elements (instruments such as the drum and guitar and melodic arrangements) were introduced to the traditional standard, rekindling the involvement of younger people with music and the language itself. Rasu called Alok to collaborate with the renewal of his people's musical tradition.
Part of the Pano linguistic family (as well as the Huni Kuin people), the Yawanawa (in which yawa means “peccary” and nawa is a marker of otherness, meaning “people” or “another people”), are thus the “people of the peccary”) inhabit the borders between Peru, Bolivia and Brazil and, here, total around a thousand people who live in villages in the Rio Gregório Indigenous Land, created in 1948. Located in the municipality of Tarauacá, where it occupies the headwaters of this affluent of the Juruá River, it was the first Indigenous Land demarcated in the state of Acre . The community's trip to Tarauacá takes three to four days by canoe on the river and another four days of walking along BR-364. There, Alok Institute has supported the acquisition of agricultural equipment (with other partners), art and culture workshops for young people in the villages and infrastructure improvements to accommodate those who participate in healing journeys.
Rasu, with other singers and musicians, crossed from Aldeia Mutum, located in the Brazilian Amazon Forest, to the mountains of Minas Gerais, for an experience of musical collaboration with new arrangements and sounds in which the specificity of traditional Yawanaw musicality is not lost, on the contrary, in SINA VAISHU each musical note has many of the rites and spiritual songs that were resumed after so much repression and prejudice.
Now, SINA VAISHU will be introduced to new worlds, amplifying the voices of ancestral wisdom, which have been echoing for some time without being properly heard, highlighting a powerful creative process of celebrating the strengthening of festivities and original identities, of valuing the indigenous cultures of the forest in their meanings revitalized in the present, and in alliances with other universes and non-indigenous alterities, in which the Yawanawa people are protagonists.
Pedju
Kunumigwe
Guarani Nhandewa and Alok
Ñandeva means “we”. The Guarani Nhandewa number, in Brazilian territory, more than thirteen thousand indigenous people who live in territory located in the states of…Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraná. The song PEDJU KUNUMIGWE is a call to children to listen to the sacred birdsong. Together with the Guarani Nhandewa people we sing: Come, let’s see together! He is singing and we are walking along the bird path.
In this partnership between Alok and the Guarani Nhandewa , the sensitive rapprochement between electronic sound and the universe of original music strengthens the possibilities of intercultural dialogue based on issues addressed by the indigenous peoples themselves: hope, freedom, and the unification of people in celebration of a new era that is approaching. The violin melody incorporated by the Guarani word of optimism mobilizes society and, above all, the youngest, to pay attention to the voice of nature. The message is one of respect for the physical and spiritual existences of indigenous peoples, as well as their future projects, in deep connection with the land they inhabit.
“ Our group Guarani Nhandewa always sang and practiced our culture but had never entered a studio the size of Sonastério, where DJ Alok brought us together for this new work of his, so for us it was all new. We arrived to record and were a little shy on the first day, but the team, together with Alok, made us feel comfortable so we could feel at home and be able to sing. There were four days of recording with our Guarani people! Afterwards, seeing the result of the recording of our song, which until then had not left the village and our region, was a great feeling! From that moment on, it would be the opportunity to take our Guarani Nhandewa songs to the world
What motivated us to record with DJ Alok was knowing his story, that for ten years he has been searching for spirituality and understanding indigenous cultures, the respect that this great artist has for the history of our indigenous people, spirituality, and peace he found.
At the time, in June 2021, we were experiencing several threats such as PL 490 and Marco Temporal (Milestone Thesis). So, we rose up here in the South between Guaranis, Kaingangs and Terenas and we went in a group of 70 people to Brasília to fight against these bills that were being processed in the National Congress and were causing a lot of harm, mainly to our land demarcations, which guarantees the quality of life for future generations. We spent practically thirty days in Brasília fighting against these PLs and from there one of our leaders, Kretã Kaingang, posted a video on the Congress ramp that Alok shared on his networks, which was very important for us. It was then that Kretã contacted the Alok Institute team to thank them and say that we would really like to be in the studio with him. From that moment on, I think spirituality met, both ours and DJ Alok's, and this last-minute opportunity arose to record and complete this work he was developing with our indigenous peoples with a flourish. The biggest dream of this project, carried out in partnership with DJ Alok, is to bring to the greatest number of people the knowledge of our struggle and our resistance that we have been doing for 524 years. Fight for recognition of rights, land demarcations - which is our biggest demand today. We are very grateful to DJ Alok for opening the doors to indigenous peoples and amplifying our voices”, Everton Guarani Nhandewa.
Canto
do Vento
Wyanã Kariri Xocó Cantos Nativos and Alok
The strength of the toré footsteps of the indigenous peoples of the Brazilian Northeast reaches the album THE FURUTE IS ANCESTRAL with Wyanã Kariri-Xocó…(1970 – 2022), an indigenous leader who brought his story of struggle for life with the intensity of CANTO DO VENTO. Received by Wyanã like a breath sent by his ancestors, the song marked a deeply challenging moment in his journey.
At twenty-six years of age, after being shot in an invasion of his territory and faced with the possibility of dying, but feeling the call of life, CANTO DO VENTO gave him the strength to survive and continue his mission to retake his lands.
The beat of CANTO DO VENTO guards the sacred ground where the roots of ancestral knowledge lie and makes the dust rise on the track. In a circle and to the sound of the maraca, the Kariri-Xocó dance and sing together, moving the world: Ahea heyahôa heya heyahá!
Being Kariri-Xocó means being resistance. Because they were expelled from their lands, they represent the fusion between the Kariri who lived in the Alagoas municipality Porto Real de Colégio, and the Xocó from the Sergipe river island of São Pedro. The Kariri-Xokó Indigenous Land, demarcated only in 1991, is located in the Brazilian caatinga biome, in the lower São Francisco region in the state of Alagoas, where around two and a half thousand people live. The village's sons currently dedicate themselves to rural activities and the daughters to pottery, in addition to the activities and secrets related to the complex sacred ritual of Ouricuri, which involve everyday life and give meaning to the social and cultural organization of the community.
While their villages were violently invaded during the centuries of colonization, in the songs and dances of the toré the Kariri-Xocó people kept their traditions and honoured their ancestors in communion and reverence with their deities, strengthening themselves collectively for the struggle for survival. In the rhythm of the toré, the sound is sacred, sung with the heart and with the feet firmly on the ground. The toré remains a central expression of the ethnic identity of many of the native peoples of the Northeast. The firm step on the ground triggers belonging while calling for courage. The sound of the maraca calls for healing from the spirits and reveals the cyclical movement of nature. Chanting transmits tradition, allows us to understand history and preserves the Kariri-Xocó culture.
At this pace, CANTO DO VENTO is sustained by the ritualistic dimension of resistance that continues to assert itself in its ancestral unity. Shortly after recording THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL, Wyanã became a Kariri-Xocó ancestor who will always be remembered as a warrior of his people.
“For me, being on the recording was very important. It was fulfilling a dream of my father, Wyanã, together with his children, to present the traditional songs of my Kariri-Xocó people to the world and bring this visibility and appreciation to indigenous culture, especially those native to the Northeast. It was a great feeling to be with this partnership presenting the traditional Kariri-Xocó songs and the Wyanã creativity songs. In the indigenous community, at the time Cantos Nativos was invited, we were in a difficult situation, because that was when the pandemic started. But it was also when Alok opened up this opportunity for us, natives, to present our culture, our songs, our dance, our art and the songs of Wyanã. The dream came true: recording with his five children and his family! That's what Wyanã wanted. He was a pioneer in the community and, with guidance from his elders, brought knowledge of the world. Through Alok you will receive even more recognition because he will leave his story for his children to continue. The dream come true was the construction of the Cantos Nativos space, made possible by the Alok Institute, where we can now show our work within our own land, in accordance with tradition and all its ritualistic elements. Where non-indigenous people will get to know what the culture is like and will be able to get closer to the natives to experience our way of living within the indigenous community. Through recorded music, specifically CANTO DO VENTO, which has a connection with ancestors and life, the story of Wyanã is today being told by his children and by Alok”, Buzuran, son of Wyanã Kariri-Xocó.
Yube
Mana Ibubu
Mapu Huni Kuin and Alok
Among the Huni Kuin, life begins with the boa constrictor. In oral traditions, the animal is the element of the indigenous worldview…
that served as transport to bring men to the land and continues to be a spiritual messenger. The graphics that appear on their clothes, body paints and objects, called kene and learned by women with the boa constrictor, are associated with the continuity between the worlds of humans and non-humans, allowing a connection between them. In the Huni Kuin oral narrative, the songs refer to the myth of the boa constrictor and are learned from ancestors. In this movement, several worlds get to know each other and relate to each other, as well as the worlds of Mapu and Alok, brought together through the call of the boa constrictor.
Mapu Huni Kuin's vibrant music presents the circular direction that the album THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL continues to travel, as an invitation to close our eyes and open our hearts in deep connection with the song of the forest and its healing force. At its pace, our horizons expand, and our bodies harmonize. We sing, dance and dream in coexistence with nature and ancestral memories, aware that the journey is collective, together with all beings of light, as he himself sings, a journey of unity along the path that connects heaven and earth that dwells within me. When we sing repeating nai nanane nai nanae nai nai nanane in its various intensities we are expressing the sound of moving tree leaves, providing an opening of the door of our being to receive healing from nature and access our ancestral memories.
The Huni Kuin people, who belong to the Nawa group due to their cultural proximity and Pano language, are also called Kaxinawá. They live in the rainforest, on the border between the state of Acre, in Brazilian territory, and eastern Peru, with a population of around fifteen thousand people. Mapu Huni Kuin is a native of the Kaxinawá /Ashaninka Indigenous Land of the Breu River, which, despite having been ratified since 2001, continues to face threats to its environment and the indigenous peoples who inhabit it. For his people, music is an instrument of spiritual medicine that gives life force to all beings on earth, in the waters and in the skies.
As a shaman and Huni Kuin leader, Mapu is a mediator between the enchanted and the physical world. In the album THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL, his artistic participation refers to initiation rituals. Translating the sounds of nature and connecting them to studio technologies, the original presence expands to the dance floor circuit around the world and reaches several dimensions.
“It was wonderful, I felt accomplished. It is a joy to hear sacred prayers with such quality and know that they will be perpetuated. An opportunity for us indigenous people, who fight so hard for visibility, to make our sacred prayer available to the world and for people to have access to an ancient culture. And it was also fulfilling a dream of my grandfather, who had certainly already organized everything on a spiritual level and is very happy to make this dream come true through me. This work will be a memory of the indigenous people that many people will be able to access and that will be recorded forever for all generations.
I have just arrived from Lebanon to Brazil, where I was carrying out spiritual work and also publicizing the expansion of the Huwã Karu Yuxibu Center Project with the aim of setting up a therapy and research center for medicinal and food plants for my people, preserving the fauna and flora, construction of the essential oil extraction laboratory and also raise funds to continue promoting the activities of the Huwa Karu Yuxibu Center's social project, which works to strengthen the cultural and spiritual identity of the Huni Kuin people and the implementation of the sky university open. The Center was producing, harvesting after years of reforestation. We were distributing the Huni Kuin basket, which is a kind of food support that we deliver to indigenous families who live in the urban area in a vulnerable situation and on the margins of society, in the city of Rio Branco, Acre. This basket is made up only of organic food produced at the Huwã Karu Yuxibu Center. We were making deliveries, strengthening spirituality, dances, dialects, graphism, cuisine, and music. That was when I received the invitation to do this incredible project, which in addition to the music also represented the construction of the Campo da Fartura restaurant – made possible by Instituto Alok and other partners.
Now, the dream is for us to be heard around the world. May our music, which is the voice of the forest, bring transformation to people. May people be touched by this energy we are releasing. May our dialect be spread through our prayers, songs, and music. I also dream that the resources acquired will be a bridge to strengthen the social and economic sustainability of indigenous peoples and bring increasing visibility and recognition. May Alok continue to be that bridge and, together, using this strength, let us continue to plant this seed so that people can continue to access our culture. May we not stop with this project! And may our friendship and brotherhood always be sacred, beyond the project THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL. Haux Haux!”, Mapu Huni Kuin.
Manifesto Futuro Ancestral
Célia Xakriabá and Alok
Invited to be one of the scriptwriters of the documentary narrative, in her daily immersion in the studio environment, Célia Xakriabá expressed the poetic power of her speech…enchanting everyone. While the recordings were taking place, the school where Célia always studied and taught was burned down, an arson attack that left her deeply sad. It was at this moment that he created ANCESTRAL FUTURE MANIFESTO, demarcating the album with her words of indignation:
Let’s keep fighting, microphone, maraca and Nhandesys, the power of the word Xakriabá and Guarani
We are a people who resist by the strength of singing
Before the Brazil of the Crown there is the Brazil of the Headdress!
A year after her experience in the studio, in 2022, Célia Xakriabá became a Federal Congresswoman elected for the state of Minas Gerais and, probably, the youngest indigenous parliamentarian in the world. Teacher, anthropologist, and congresswoman, she often says that culture lent her to politics. From the collective experiences in the fields, Xakriabá goes far, making her journey an action conscious of her power to fight against the coloniality that continues to structure relationships in Brazilian society. Without ever forgetting the ground from which she comes from and carrying the strength of her ancestry, she continues to “indigenize” the decision-making and representation spaces he covers, where indigenous peoples were previously made invisible.
As a schoolteacher in the Xakriabá territory, she uses chalk to teach about indigenous culture. Academic anthropologist, the first indigenous person in a doctorate course at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), carries in her body-territory the graphisms of body painting and the traditional sciences of her people into the university environment. In the indigenous movement, marching side by side with other women originating from the different territorialities of the various Brazilian biomes, they have proven to be the seeds of the sprouting of a new thought, a new time, an ancestral future, where nature and spirituality are respected and built good living in commitment to healing the Earth.
In the past, the Xakriabá people, belonging to the Macro-Jê linguistic group, lived in various regions of the São Francisco Valley. Violently repressed and after countless conflicts over time, they were settled and forced to adopt the Portuguese language and other aspects of the colonizer's culture. Today they live in the cerrado of northern Minas Gerais, in the small Xakriabá Indigenous Land, approved at the end of the decade and located in the border area between the municipalities of Itacarambi and São João das Missões. Around 8,000 people live there and even today, without access to the São Francisco river, a fundamental element of Xakriabá spirituality and culture, they are fighting to expand their territory in order to gain access to the water.
In her unique way of speaking, Célia demonstrates that singing cannot be done alone. Its powerful orality, originating from the melody of the Xakriabá language and learned through coexistence with older leaders, expands our worldviews like an arrow aimed at the awakening of our humanity.
In THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL, the manifesto signed by Célia, the notion of future is brought to the present in reconciliation with the past, since we need to build today what we dream of, an action that requires intense involvement in the dialogue established with different cosmologies and appreciation of indigenous wisdom in favor of social transformation projects and emancipatory and democratic practices.
As Célia says in the documentary: The singing of indigenous peoples is a song from the past in the present, but it is mainly a song that we want to keep in the future. [...] In this call, we have to not only reforest the sound; we have to reforest the thought, our sense of being in the world. Do you know the best way to save music? It's by planting it inside people.
THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL MANIFESTO
In the diversity of the country where culture is expressed, many people wonder where Brazil begins
Is it really in Brasilia, where power and social inequality prevail, or is it in the territory of the traditional people?
The answer is clear, but the struggle of these warrior people is made invisible. Maybe we don't contribute to making Brazil a first world country, but in Brazil we are the first
We won't contribute in this way, where culture is swallowed up and killed, where value is in money, if you don't have it then you are worth nothing
Today I still remember the parables of a leader, because words like that I keep as a legacy
One day he was asked what the fence was like, what the territory was like in the old days, because these lands were ours and we shared them with many people.
He soon replied, the territory is full of science, the limit of a land is in our conscience
Our traditional knowledge has not been taken into account, we are being suffocated by the National Congress.
Urucum and Jenipapo, strength is standing, what sustains us is the strength of the Pajé
What guides us is spirituality, it's here now Warriors of Ancestry
Let's keep fighting, microphone, maraca and Nhandesys, the power of the word Xakriabá and Guarani
We are a people who resist through the power of song
Before the Brazil of the Crown there is the Brazil of the Headdress!
We provoke them to leave the 4 time and enter another time of more sensitive listening, with more sensitivity
We can even play in the 4 times, but let it be the time of nature
The time of the waters, the drought, the cold... it's different, it's the time of the wind
Our struggle is to regain time and not really struggle against it.
To find the rhythm of song and music is to have a hunter's eye, to get the tone right.
How to touch people without deforesting? It's decolonizing, it's reforesting the sound
The construction of this work was built by the script of the heart with lots of hands
The womb of the Earth guided us
Our wish is that, through music, people will smile again to the point where they can leave the concert with their souls still dancing.
That humanity understands how important it is to fly and to take care of the place where we're standing.
So that we can regain the meaning of life and our hearts will continue to beat
We are the possibility of healing the planet to end all evil
We are the root of the past that connects with today and the Future is Ancestral
The Future is Ancestral
Rap
Nativo
OWERÁ and Alok
Aware of social injustices and historical violence against indigenous peoples in Brazil, Owerá connects to the rhythm of rap to claim what is rightfully his and show his culture:How a real indigenous person lives in their village. His own given name means lightning and so he launches his Guarani word into the world to encourage young indigenous people to fight, as he himself was encouraged by the poetry originating from the Brô MC’s group to defend their territory through art. Driven by the dream of having his voice amplified, his message of protest is free from any conformity. It vibrates from your chest and shakes the prejudiced images that still affect indigenous peoples today. Therefore, he calls the warriors to defend the village and the forest, so the children can play. Through support from the Alok Institute, Owerá created the Ravê Estúdio Korsmofônico, a set of equipment that allows mobility for research and audiovisual productions.
In RAP NATIVO, no word is wasted. Célia Xakriabá's special participation calls for the recognition that indigenous peoples are the first Brazilians. Owerá is from the Guarani Mbyá people, who, despite living in distant communities between Uruguay, the northeast of Argentina, the eastern region of Paraguay and Brazil, are dispersed in villages located on the coast and interior of the southern states, close to the Atlantic Forest in Southeast and also in the North region of the country (where many families arrived after the Paraguayan War), they identify themselves as equals because they speak the same language (a fundamental element for their identity) and constitute a religious unit. Mbyá can be understood as “people”, thus, they are “a lot of people in one place”.
Owerá lives in the Krukutu village, in the Tenondé Porã Indigenous Land (TI), which has a population of around a thousand indigenous people. Their community is a small, regularized area between the municipalities of São Bernado do Campo and São Paulo, the large capital of São Paulo. They live in a precarious situation and are discriminated against when they are in contact with the surrounding society. At the same time, they fight to keep their beliefs and customs alive in the daily life of the village, presenting other possibilities for inhabiting the city.
"Taking part in the entire recording of the Guarani songs and the RAP NATIVO song was the most incredible experience of my entire career so far. And being there together with my relatives made me feel a very strong energy and the extreme importance of this mission of, together with my relatives, taking the strength that comes from nature to the world. Listening to the music itself made me and my Guarani Mbyá people very happy! What motivated me to go to the studio was having this opportunity to record Guarani songs, our prayers and sacred chants. We were excited to be able to record these songs and with the awareness of taking the message to the world. We were very happy to hear our own songs recorded and we're looking forward to the release and to taking the songs of our tradition further and further, so that people who don't yet know our culture can hear and feel this energy. In the village, we were already expecting and feeling that something very important was going to happen this year, what we were feeling was like a mission. We didn't know what was coming, but we were already feeling this energy and, soon afterwards, we received this very important invitation for our people and other ethnic groups. Many of our relatives also came along to share their messages, but the struggle is one and everything is connected! Our dream is that the indigenous artists who are inspired by us, who are making this art, who are inspired by our music and our work, become stronger and also have opportunities to record with other artists, to take and spread their messages. All of this will strengthen the young people who are inspired by us, so that they have the strength to be in the movement together with us," Owerá said.
Jaraha
Brô MC’s and Alok
Precursors of native rap in the original language, the verses of the group Brô MC’s talk about what the Guarani-Kaiowá people have been facing inside and outside…their territories and the violence they have suffered over time. The song JARAHA exposes the sad reality of the indigenous peoples of Mato Grosso do Sul in the past and present and calls for the battle song for the resumption of tekoha (native category of reference to the physical and sacred place of origin and belonging where they can live the Guarani way of being) be heard.
In Brazil, the linguistic, ritual, religious, territorial, social, political, and historical differences of the Guarani form three subdivisions, which is why the Guarani Nhandewa, Guarani Kaiowá and Guarani Mbyá peoples have different interpretations of the reality they experience. In this context of cultural complexity, between the south of Mato Grosso and Paraguay are the current Kaiowá and Nhandewa territories, historically shaken by divisions arising from the Paraguayan War (1864-1870) and constantly threatened. In resistance, they seek to organize themselves to identify their tekohá in processes of self-demarcation in defense of their original rights.
In the cosmological tradition, Kaiowá songs are ritualized words passed down from generation to generation , which tell stories of celebrating one's own existence. Over time, new musical interpretations arrived in the communities of each Guarani group, as is the case of hip hop for the Kaiowá. Formed in 2009, based on rhyme workshops held at the village school, the first indigenous rap group in Brazil is made up of four artists from the Guarani-Kaiowá ethnic group, who are also construction professionals: Bruno VN and Clemerson Batista (grandsons of Chief Marcos Veron, killed in an attack on the Kaiowá Takwara village, Juti-MS, in 2003) are from Aldeia Jaguapiru. Kelvin Mbaretê and CH, from Aldeia Bororó. Both Aldeia Jaguapiru and Bororó are located in the Dourados Indigenous Reserve, where around twenty thousand indigenous people live, confined to small portions of land, forming a type of organization that profoundly impacts their lives.
Brô MCs face erasure by singing their stories and dreams in their own Guarani-Kaiowá language, reinforcing ethnic identity in other forms of artistic expression. In THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL they present the teachings they learned from the elders, their greatest legacies, in conjunction with the musicalities of political poetry to expand the voice of their communities. Starring in their own story, they appropriate the specificities of rap to encourage engagement in the fight for the rights of indigenous peoples and social transformation.
The group's poetics is on the border between words and prayer, Portuguese and the Guarani language, ancestral tradition and the aesthetics of rap. Their messages of struggle circulate especially among young indigenous people, calling on them to self-affirm their ethnic identities and commit to the projects of indigenous peoples. To non-indigenous people, the message is clear – and recited in Portuguese: We scream, but no one hears us, I learned your non-indigenous language, this is for you. The shout Jaha! Jaha! Jaha! Jaha! makes JAHARÁ a song that changes moods and calls for combat. His words insist that it takes courage to remove the pain caused by those who have done them harm. Its ascending melody is a way of saying that giving up is not an option. With support from Instituto Alok, the group will soon open Ayvú Records, its own studio in the village.
“For me, it is a great happiness to be able to work with a great DJ that is Alok! Working alongside him, recording in a studio of that size and then listening to it was great! I'm very happy with this work! I hope our relatives like it and that non-indigenous people accept - as they are already accepting - our ancestral songs. What motivated me to record with Alok was a call from our ancestry. I believe a lot in spirituality, and I think this was already written somewhere. My ancestors already said that one day people would still hear us and that this would happen through music, through our songs. For them, it's like Alok doesn't even say it, it's to heal people's souls. When we went to the studio in the village, there was a pandemic, so it was a very difficult, very bad situation. And there were also several conflicts between indigenous people and large landowners. When we arrived at the studio, our thoughts continued with our relatives. That's why Clemerson, our member, got emotional telling us about the reality we were going through. The dream now is to get the indigenous people more recognized for their work! For us, at Brô, it’s just gratitude! We are very happy with the work and the results it gave! We are there to join forces and work together. Good luck! The dream is to make history!”, Bruno Veron.
Sangue
Indígena
Kaingang and Alok
The indigenous resistance movement was organized in Brasília, in June 2020, in the Levante Pela Terra act, with more than six thousand indigenous people camped…
in a permanent state of mobilization on the Esplanade of the Ministries to monitor the trial of the Marco Temporal thesis. Meanwhile, Alok and other artists from different ethnicities were following the entire debate through social media and completing the recordings for the album O FUTURO É ANCESTRAL. That was when the Kretã Kaingang leadership decided to go to the studio, in Minas Gerais, to personally express their gratitude for the support of Alok, who added his strength in the digital environment to echo the demands.
With the voices of the group “Levante Pela Terra”, the album ends with the call for an end to the shedding of indigenous blood. The last song ends the recording journey incorporating the fervent Kaingang war cry: We are Indians, we are from the forest, we like to fight! There are more than fifty thousand Kaingang indigenous people who live in the southern states of Brazil, where they are committed to preserving and reclaiming their spaces so that they can organize themselves in their own way and dream of their future.
Closing the album OFUTURO É ANCESTRAL with INDÍGENA BLOOD is understanding that in the veins of all Brazilians pulses the original ancestry that needs the land to continue to exist, dream, dance and sing.
Sina
Vaishu Remix
Yawanawa Saiti Kaya – Alok e MAZ Remix
Alok invites MAZ, a Brazilian DJ and producer with global prominence, for a collaboration. Together, they remix this legendary track to energize people on dancefloors around the world.
Cooperation:
The project The Future is Ancestral is a contribution from the Alok Institute to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages
Cooperation:
Listen to the album here:
The album THE FUTURE IS ANCESTRAL is a production of the Alok Institute, part of the “Brasil do Cocar” project, which encompasses a wide range of cultural, social, and environmental initiatives.
The launch of this album aims to promote and celebrate the musical culture of indigenous peoples, serving as a bridge to the voices of nature and its guardians, and playing a crucial role in the preservation of indigenous languages.
The Alok Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to social transformation. Founded and led by DJ and music producer Alok, the Institute supports initiatives in Brazil, Africa, and India.
Learn more:
