WHIPPOORWILL ARTS FELLOWS
Pura Fé
Pura Fé (Tuscarora/Taino) is an Indigenous activist, singer-songwriter, and storyteller known for her distinct, soulful vocals and for breathing life into several musical genres. As the founding member of the internationally renowned Native Women’s a cappella trio Ulali, Pura Fé helped to create a movement throughout Indian Country, which not only empowered Native Women’s hand drum and harmony, but also built a bridge for Native music into the mainstream music scene.
More recently, deep cultural roots have brought her to the world of Native Blues, where she is known for her lap-steel slide guitar recordings. Her body of work is extensive, including six solo albums, one of which won her a Grand Prix du Disque from L'Académie Charls Cros (French Grammy) for Best World Album in 2006 for Tuscarora Nation Blues, and a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist for Follow Your Heart’s Desire.
Pura Fé’s music has been featured on many movie soundtracks, documentaries, and television commercials. She tours world festivals, has earned platinum album sales in Italy. She supports many social injustice gatherings as a presenter and musician; she leads musical workshops and college courses, performs for benefits, and was featured in the award-winning 2017 documentary, RUMBLE: The Indians that Rocked the World.
“This beautiful songbird transcends time and brings the message of our Ancestors who have sewn this beautiful seed, that makes powerful music.”
“Fabulous ... astonishing ... playing searing, slicing, lap-style bottleneck guitar, Tuscarora tribe descendant Pura Fé blends world beat rhythms with Southern blues and her own powerful vocals.”
PROJECT: Record an album and film of traditional Canoe songs.
This album is a body of Canoe songs in the Taino language and a reviving of the songs for the peoples and a reclaiming and awakening of connection to our Ancestral waterways. This is only the beginning of Pura’s journey to bring back song and dance from old Canoe traditions. She is recording these songs from shore to shore as if on a Canoe journey with the feeling of a hundred and more pullers on the water. You will hear the water…the paddles and pullers shouting and head caller in synchronized teamwork rowing and calls. The songs are sung in harmonies to the timing of the calls. You will hear protocols of entering the water and landing on the shores to another land. You will hear a night Canoe song to the stars, a war Canoe song in a storm, and even another Canoe passing by in the opposite direction singing from a different Tribal Nation.
There are 9 songs and in between each song is a segue of soundscape on the water and poetic words from different peoples. These songs are a gift to the Taino Areito - Areito means Sing or Song, and it is a Taino gathering, or song and dance and storytelling. They can be sung and danced in celebration during the Solstice and Equinox times. My work is to contribute to the Arieto, make music from the waterways, and reclaim the ancestral names of rivers and oceans to learn about all our connections and travels and trade all over the world. Our people had Canoes that carried 80 to 150 passengers and we had sails. We traveled far. This body of music can lead Pura into joining with other ancestral waterways of song and traditions, to record with others from around the world. Water connects us all. It is our life, blood, veins of our earth Mother and our Indigenous family tree of Humanity. Pura’s dream is to record singers and pullers from everywhere and their stories.
