Native American Music Awards - NAMA LIVE

Native American Music Awards - NAMA LIVE Honoring The Best In Native American & Indigenous Music


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Founded and incorporated in 1998, The Native American Music Association and The Native American Music Awards (NAMA) remain the world's largest and only professional membership-based organization dedicated to music and entertainment initiatives by Native North Americans and Indigenous peoples. The Native American Music Association was established in 1998 as a 501(c)(3) following the debut of the Native American Music Awards in order to promote greater cultural understanding of Native American music and culture
Native American Music Awards · Indigenous music of North America · Native American Indians · Tribal house · Pow wows The new series, Reservation Dogs, currently features many of our award winners

Georgina Lightning, a Canadian-born Indigenous actor, filmmaker, and advocate, died following a tragic accident at an In...
09/09/2026

Georgina Lightning, a Canadian-born Indigenous actor, filmmaker, and advocate, died following a tragic accident at an Indian Relay event at Enoch Cree Nation in Alberta. Lightning was photographing and filming for an upcoming documentary when a horse veered from the track and struck her. She was 63.

For more than three decades, Lightning made her mark in film and television, appearing in projects including Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Walker, Texas Ranger, Dreamkeeper, and Older Than America. Beyond acting, she was a passionate advocate for Indigenous representation in the entertainment industry and co-founded Tribal Alliance Productions.

Her daughter, actor and musician Crystle Lightning remembered her as her “matriarch, my role model, my confidant.” In a heartbreaking tribute on Facebook, she wrote, “I looked in your eyes and waved and said ‘have fun mama.’”

In a statement, Enoch Cree Nation said the community was in mourning following the loss of one of its members "Chief and Council extend our most sincere condolences to the family," stated the office of Chief Cody Thomas. "Our community is grieving, and we are holding them in our thoughts and prayers."

Lightning leaves behind a lasting legacy as a trailblazer for Indigenous voices in entertainment. Through her work in film and television, she helped bring greater visibility to Indigenous stories and perspectives while inspiring others through her strength, determination, and passion. For her family, friends, and community, she will be remembered as much for the woman she was as for the artist she became. There will be a celebration of life in her honor on September 15 & 16. Our condolences to Crystle Lightning and her family.
https://www.facebook.com/crystle.lightning.9
https://www.facebook.com/georgina.lightning

JIM PEPPER GAVE AMERICA ITS FIRST INDIGENOUS HITJim Pepper is credited with giving Billboard Magazine its first Top 100 ...
05/03/2026

JIM PEPPER GAVE AMERICA ITS FIRST INDIGENOUS HIT

Jim Pepper is credited with giving Billboard Magazine its first Top 100 hit song featuring an Indigenous artist and a traditional chant with "Witchi Tai To" in 1969. As part of the jazz-rock ensemble Everything Is Everything, Kaw/Muscogee artist Jim Pepper recorded "Witchi Tai To," a song based on a traditional pe**te chant taught to him by his grandfather. It reached No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.

Inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 2000 with a star-studded tribute performance held by his mother Floy Pepper and partner Caren Knight Pepper along with Mickey Hart, John Densmore, Bill Miller, Jim Boyd, Joanne Shenandoah, Rita Coolidge, Jennifer Warnes and others performed a special tribute of "Witchi Tai To" as part of his induction ceremony into the Hall of Fame.

Jim Pepper’s "Witchi Tai To" has become a jazz-rock standard over the years. It spawned dozens of covers by artists as wide-ranging as The Supremes, Bill Miller, Brewer & Shipley, Harpers Bizarre, and more. It's also a rare example of an Indigenous-themed song by an Indigenous artist making its way onto the pop charts. "Witchi Tai To" came from the mind of Jim Pepper, a major figure in the 1960s fusion jazz movement, and an undervalued innovator in American music.

Redbone came later in 1974. Founded by Native American brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas, Redbone is recognized as the first Native American band to reach the Top Billboard Hot 100 with their 1974 pop hit "Come and Get Your Love," which peaked at No. 5.

"Witchi Tai To" remains the only Billboard hit song in U.S. chart history to incorporate an actual chant from an Indigenous American tribe.

Throughout his career, "Witchi Tai To" remained his signature song. He recorded multiple interpretations of the tune over the years as he explored new combinations of Native tradition and jazz experimentation. Pepper died of lymphoma at age 50 in 1992, leaving behind a trailblazing legacy in the worlds of jazz, rock, and Indigenous music.

A NAMALIVE special for Native American Music Hall of Fame

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