Any descriptive label intended to encompass the talents of brother duo Spencer Battiest and Doc Native falls short. Although they produced and performed at a concert called “First Beats: Indigenous Hip-Hop,” part of the 2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, their dynamic abilities as performers and impact as storytellers and culture bearers roam beyond the title.

“I think we both are like… all-around entertainers,” Battiest affirmed. “We dip our feet into everything.”

Before their Smithsonian concert, the brothers called me from their recording studio in their lifelong home on the Seminole Hollywood Reservation in South Florida. I had listened to their music—collaborative songs often consisting of melodic pop refrains from Battiest mixed with alternating rap verses from Native. Despite this mix of pop and rap genres in their music, the brothers’ musical journeys began with playing gospel music in their family band.

“Doc was our family drummer, and I was a singer with my mother and father,” Battiest explained.

“I played drums because we didn’t have a drummer,” Native added. “I wasn‘t comfortable as a frontman.”

Battiest was the first to venture into the recording music industry, and, years later, in 2013, he became the first American Indian to sign with Hard Rock Records, a label created in 2012 as an extension of the famous cafe and hotel chain. In 2015, he released his first EP, Stupid in Love.

Recording pop and R&B songs, Battiest would bring his brother into the studio with him. As a fly on the wall during those recording sessions, Native explored the ins and outs of producing. “I got to ask questions, asking them, like, ‘Can I push the button? Why did you do this? Why did you make that sound? Why did you write that?’”

It was Native’s uncle who plucked him from behind the scenes and brought him into Miami’s hip-hop world within corner-store recording studios. “I got firsthand knowledge from Miami streets on how to put together sixteen bars,” he shared. “I didn’t know that it was going to mold me into the artist that I am today.”

Over thirteen years ago, one project sparked the merging of the brothers’ musical production, performative, and video skills, shaping their career, impacting their community, and solidifying their musical partnership: a song called “The Storm.”

“One day, our people asked if we would write a song about our history,” Native explained. “That pushed me to the forefront of stepping behind the microphone and collaborating with [Battiest] performance-wise.”

Battiest chimed in to say, “Well, we’ve always collaborated.”

But this was different. The weight of the responsibility to tell the story of the Seminole tribe pushed the brothers in challenging directions. “If you get it wrong, you’re not going to have one person mad at you. You’re going to have the entire tribe mad at you,” Native continued. “So, we kind of shied away from it, and we built our skills, and one night, it just came together organically.”

Though “The Storm” was well-received by the handful of people on the Hollywood Reservation who heard it, it was not until the release of the music video that the project diffused throughout their Seminole community and beyond.

Directed by Steven Paul Judd, a Kiowa and Choctaw creator, the video captures the brothers’ dynamic relationship on camera and presents the story of the Seminole tribe with archival images. Native delivers hard-hitting lines explaining the violence of colonization on the Seminole tribe followed by Battiest expressively singing the chorus and bridge—a reminder to honor the history of the Seminole people and their resilience, despite a history of violence and oppression.

“The visuals that came with the lyrics, the rap, and the melodies really put it into perspective for not just our tribe, but for a lot of tribes,” Battiest shared. “I mean, our history updates daily, but we were able to put together, at that point in time, what we thought would be the best way to bring this history to a modern audience, to a newer generation of kids.”

Telling the history of the Seminole tribe just as it had been passed down by their grandmothers, chiefs, and elders, was the priority of the project. “It’s not sugar-coated,” Native added. “It’s in-your-face, and it’s unapologetically our history and the way it actually went down, which is something that gets swept under the rug or dumbed down so it’s palatable for other people to digest.”

During the Folklife Festival, Battiest and Native gathered creatives from all over the United States for a collaborative production, including a local Native rapper Kai, champion powwow dancers from Indigenous Enterprise, emcee Miss Chief Rocka, and local beatboxer Christylez Bacon. Before the show, Battiest explained, “We want to make sure not just to highlight who we are, but to highlight the people who we have met along the way and share their gifts on stage and bring a cool visual experience as well.”

From the jump, Native and Battiest welcomed Indigenous Enterprise dancers Kenneth Shirley and Dom Pablo to the front of the stage to perform. “They help us bring that visual aspect, to combine all our different talents and cultures together to bring something cool to the stage,” Battiest explained.

Later in the performance, Native invited nineteen-year-old Indigenous rapper and D.C. resident Kai to the stage for the live debut of their song “Hate Me.” “I did it on purpose to celebrate the Smithsonian!” Native said. The two met when Kai was just sixteen years old and new to the business, and now they are peers and collaborators on a song. “[I’ve] been able to give back the way that I have been given knowledge about music and about performance and song structure and recording and the creativity aspect of music,” he explained.

Each brother offers musical talents distinct from one another during solo parts of their performance, but their collaboration on stage creates a distinct synergy. “We’ve gotten responses, ‘What is that? I don’t understand what it is. When I see you guys together it’s moving, or it’s something special,’ Battiest expressed. “It just comes back to family. And as Native people, that’s how we always are. We’re so close—too close! We’re in each other’s business!”

Native added, “We’re kind of like yin and yang—he complements me where I kind of fall short, or I’ll punch in where it needs a little bit of edge. I always look forward to getting to perform with my ‘baby brother’, even though he acts like he’s older than me.” The brothers burst into laughter. 

As the sun faded in and out during golden hour and the breeze relieved the crowd of the blistering June heat, Battiest and Native united on stage to bring the performers and crowd together as one, performing “Stand Up/ Stand N Rock”—a song originally produced by Taboo in collaboration with other Indigenous creators, including the brother duo, in 2016.

Before the show, the brothers described the production process behind the song, working with six-time GRAMMY Award-winner Taboo, co-founder of the Black Eyed Peas.

Battiest explained that he had pulled Native onstage to perform “The Storm” together when he was singing a solo show in New York. Taboo, who was in the audience, approached them after the show expressing his interest in collaborating with the brothers.

“We left that night like, ‘What? He’s never gonna call us.’ We’ve heard that all before,” Battiest recalled. But sure enough, a few weeks later, he reached out to the duo to ask them to create a collaborative song to support the Standing Rock movement during the peak of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016.

“Tab” helped by building the track and sending it out to six other Indigenous artists across North America. Each artist took liberties to share their voice and write their music, lines, verses, and stanzas based on personal experiences and perspectives as Natives.

“They learned about our tribes, we learned about their tribes and, and then, when you’re in the room and the studio building, we could say, ‘Ohh, you should add some shakers that represent who we are,’ or, ‘You can add the drum and that maybe represents an artist who’s a different tribe that has grown up under that heartbeat,’” Battiest explained.

The brothers knew the song would help to turn the world’s eyes toward the movement during an intentional media blackout—one which hid the injustices committed by installing a 1,175-mile-long pipeline, an imminent threat to the health of essential waterways, through Standing Rock land. Creating their part in the song came with the challenge of how to communicate their own experiences as Seminole and Choctaw Natives and creators, though they were not protesting on the front lines.

“A lot of times, it becomes almost a fine line between ‘Let me put my voice to this’ or ‘Let my voice be the one that’s heard and amplified,’” Native explained.

During the writing process, Battiest expressed, “We just wrote what was on our hearts, even referring to our own homeland, the Everglades, and what we’re facing down here and with our environmental issues that we’re having here in South Florida.”

It was not until the song and music video were released to the public that the brothers and other collaborators heard it for the first time. Even when recording the music video, the artists remained in their respective homes across the continent. Today, the song and video remain available only in an unmonetized YouTube video, which won an MTV Music Award in 2017.

Though Native and Battiest create music that amplifies Indigenous culture, stories, and voices, they do not box themselves in as “Indigenous artists.”

“Our music is not always based on who we are as Indigenous people,” Battiest explained. “But it just so happened that we started that way.”

“I’ve gotten No. 1 on XM Radio talking about something that has nothing to do with Native American rights,” Native added.

Yet, they are grateful that some of the biggest collaborations with other artists have been about Indigenous issues and Native rights. Above all, the brothers hope that their efforts as “all-around entertainers” will inspire the younger generation of tribal youth. The brothers emphasized that Native youth have one of the highest suicide rates in the United States, so their determination to uplift the youth around their home is persistent.

“Sometimes we feel like we are trapped in our communities and on our reservations,” Native said. “That’s why Spencer and I have made it a point to stay on our reservation to record our music—so we can be that example and say, ‘Look, you can make it,’ or, ‘You can fulfill your dreams from where you’re at.”

“I hope that the next generation finds what it is that speaks to them,” Battiest added, “and that they continue to tell our stories and keep our stories alive.”

Anna Beth Lee is a former writing and video intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a recent Drew University graduate dedicated to work at the intersection of nonprofits, environmental justice, and the arts.