Native American dancer and innovative hip-hop artist Christian Takes Gun Parrish, known as Supaman, presented his message of hope, faith and empowerment to Corvallis Schools on Tuesday.
His presentation was a fusion of traditional and modern culture. He played a recording of soft, flowing music with narration about the harsh treatment, breaking of treaties and genocide of natives.
“Their crime was that they lived where we wanted to live,” the non-native narrator said.
Parish gave good words and a prayer in his native language then presented an interactive assembly with the audience completing the end of advertising jingles, famous movie lines and camp songs like “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” (clap-clap).
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He talked about his life, his clan, his regalia.
“This is the men’s fancy dance from Oklahoma, I’m from Montana so it is an adopted style for the powwow culture,” Parish said. “Native American culture is Montana culture. There are many tribes in our state.”
He is of the Apsaalooke Nation and asked all native students to stand. Six students stood and he praised them.
“It’s a blessing that they are here carrying out the blessing of our land,” Parish said.
He performed a fancy dance that was received by applause and cheering. He recorded beatboxing while layering and looping musical sounds as the audience clapped to the rhythm.
“Listen to all kinds of music, don’t just limit yourself to one type,” Parish said. “Open your mind and heart to everything the world has to offer, it shows intelligence.”
He encouraged students to thoughtfully consider their future.
“When opportunity comes you’ve got to come get it,” Parish said as he handed out a free CD. “You’ve got to make things happen. You all should have dreams and goals and something to shoot for. Have some structure in your life, that’s a good thing.”
He played some of his hip-hop and handed out more CDs.
He praised the efforts of students for being good sisters, brothers, sons and athletes. He said the words honor, respect, kindness and love and had the audience repeat the words. He talked about his journey through the music world and his rise to fame.
He is a Native American Music Award winner, has received the North American Indigenous Image Award, and seven Tunney Awards. He recently was awarded, the Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Award in Canada for best video and was voted MTV’s new Artist of the Week.
His latest videos titled “Prayer Loop Song” and “Why” have gone viral and have received over three million views on Youtube and Facebook, putting him in high demand for touring events throughout the US and around the world. He is the recipient of the 2017 MTV Video Music Award for Best Fight Against the System.
Parish invited seven students to help him make a layered recording of beatboxing, sounds and words. The words one senior chose to record were “respect one another.”
After the assembly, junior Jailyn McConnell, one of the seven who stepped up to the microphone for the recording, said she was impressed.
“I thought it was a really cool experience of him sharing his life story,” she said. “It was amazing. It was great to have him perform and share the backstory of his dances, the real version. It was fun to make music with him, even though it was scary I really liked it.”
Junior Ava Leopold said the presentation was powerful.
“It was really cool and a fun experience to have a Native American come to perform what their culture is and share about his life,” she said. “He is really fun to be around and gets us all hyped, it was a fun experience.”
After his presentation Parish said he presents assemblies to youth for their education.
“It’s about sharing the Native American culture and issues but it’s also spreading the message about sobriety, positivity and making good decisions,” he said. “It’s also about coming together as a community and loving one another, showing respect and honor – the basics.”
Parish also met with a smaller group of students to talk about his culture, hip-hop music and current trends.
One question was about his clothing.
“When I look at the beadwork, I see love,” he said. “My family helped make this and when I look at it, I’m reminded how much my wife, daughter and family love me. We show love by helping to create the outfit for our loved ones.”
He explained the history of the designs and materials in his outfit.
“We are contemporary and there is a lot of competition now,” he said.
The leggings that in years past would have been made from sheep wool are now made from unraveled rope because they move more and flash more while he is dancing.
“In the contemporary world you have judges watching your competition and judging you on how you move, your outfit, the bright colors come into play,” he said. “Back in the day we didn’t have the neon, even beads weren’t native, they came from overseas. When someone wants to dance it is a family effort to make the outfit, everybody contributes.”
He said the Native Powwow culture was greatly changed by the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, 1883-1917.
“It changed dance from traditional dancing to more freestyle and up-tempo for the people’s show,” Parish said. “The outfit has colors and geometrics are Crow design, they even call this color ‘Crow pink.’”
Chase Tucker asked, “What inspired you to pursue a path of music?”
“Growing up Crow and listening to different genres of music,” Parish answered. “First was rock and then hip-hop gave a different vibe that I really liked, and we were drawn to a different style of music. What the rappers were talking about when we listened to Public Enemy ‘we’ve got to fight the power’ they were talking about fighting oppression.”
He said as a youth he spent hours perfecting his craft of rapping and was praised by his peers.
Parish talked about the power of writing and encouraged students to put their thoughts on paper.
“If you write, it is a spiritual thing, it manifests something inside your spirit coming out and you write it down into the physical world, that is something powerful,” he said. “I learned that, and it was like therapy for me, giving me peace and calm. Next, I put it to music and started performing.”
Senior Skylar Tibbs had visited with Supaman as part of a class project when she was in seventh grade.
“That was a study of traditional Montana culture before other civilizations and cultures polluted it,” Tibbs said.
She said his message of honor, respect, kindness and love brought those attitudes to a talking point.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she said. “I thought his talk would only be about hip-hop and dance. It was a great surprise. It is really neat to see how positive and involved we need to be in our community and to show love and compassion to each other. It is something we often forget in day to life.”
CHS Principal Cammie Knapp said Supaman’s message was best described in the words of one of the students, "Respect one another."
“Supaman related to our youth, bringing a message of hope and resiliency through hard times,” Knapp said. “He also engaged them in actively participating with him in mixing their own music, made of their own beats, rhythms and words. It brought all students and staff together in a unique moment and providing a powerful message.”
She described the addition of teacher and staff dances done at the end of the assembly as “an added bonus, which definitely put most of us outside of our comfort zone.”