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Talon Ducheneaux: Live Music During A Pandemic

Lori Walsh: For a look now at how artists are using this time to create a new normal and adjust to coronavirus and how it affects their creative work and their businesses, we welcome Talon Ducheneaux. Thank you so much for being here with us. We appreciate your time.

Talon Ducheneaux: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Lori Walsh: We are going to play some music here pretty shortly of yours, but let's get to know you a little bit. You're from Pierre, and tell us how this coronavirus and COVID-19 outbreak has really been affecting your life.

Talon Ducheneaux: Yeah. I live in Pierre. I'm originally from the Crow Creek and Cheyenne River tribes, Dakota and Lakota. I'm by and large a hip hop artist, but I have to admit, primarily I'm not as affected as an individual artist as others are, though I'm extremely sympathetic, because I have so many friends who are artists who make their living off of performing gigs and going to different schools or some of the traveling that they do.

But, another part of my artistry is within running a studio on the Crow Creek Reservation. Once a week, I have a three-hour open studio session that people can come to in the community and use for free. The real unfortunate thing that I'm really trying to figure a way to mitigate is I can't go over there and record these artists anymore. For many of them, it's their only way to record, and for many of them it serves as a therapy for them, because it's the only space that they have and access that they have to creating music. Some of them even, to be around that sort of energy.

So, I'm just trying to deal with it the best I can. And, lately I've been live streaming on my Facebook more and more and more just to kind of try to send a positive energy out there and show myself making in hopes that maybe other artists who are feeling that probably anxiety and depression right now maybe share some positive light or inspiration or for those learning, to kind of teach them how I do it. And then also, since I'm not really affected financially by this, from my live streams, I'm using it as a way to promote my friends who are artists, their donation links, who have suffered major losses. So, that's kind of how I'm handling it.

Lori Walsh: Let's give that to people now for a minute. Tell us about this. We've got three songs, hopefully we can get to all three of them, but tell us about this first song that we're going to hear.

Talon Ducheneaux: So this first song is called Alternate Dimension. It features Cody Blackbird of the Cody Blackbird Band and Jesse James from DCM Collective. Both are Emmy award-winning artists, and I'm so lucky to got to work with them. In particular with just James under a residency last November. The song is an introduction to a three-part album series that we recorded during the residency, which is called Traveling the Multiverse with the Iktomi. And it's about this multiverse being. We're all facing this world with our own universe. We all have our own beliefs, we all have our own perspectives on things. Even if we're from the same tribe or the same community or the same family. We're all different in our own way, and I wanted to appreciate that. and the other artists.

And the Iktomi me part comes in as, kind of, letting the... Not exploiting the negative, not trying to put a false hope on the negative, but letting it be what it is. So that way people who are going through that or who live certain lifestyles right now that, so that way they have something, because I think everybody deserves some sort of thing. And as musicians, me as an artist, and as a human, I'm in and out of different walks of life, and I'm friends with so many different people that I want to show them all love, and I don't want to take a blind eye to the real struggle that's going on where we're from on the reservation. You know, it's not even considering this pandemic, but the other epidemics and pandemics we're going through on the reservation, whether it be drug use or suicide or even just depression and all that stuff going on. So putting a human light to it and a spiritual light for those who want it. So that's, that's the song. It kind of introduces the whole vibe of our project that we've created.

Lori Walsh: Beautifully said. Let's take a listen to Alternate Dimensions.

Lori Walsh: That was Alternate Dimensions featuring Cody Blackboard and Jess James, produced by DJ Spicy Ketchup and my guest is Talon Ducheneaux. We're reaching him on the phone from Pierre. Talon, I want to get to this. First of all, that is just amazing, and I think a lot of people needed that today. So major compliments. Let's get to make, I want to make sure we hear the full next song. So Watch over Me. Tell me a little bit about this. Set it up so we can hit play.

Talon Ducheneaux: Yeah, so I mentioned before I run Wonahun Was'te' Studio. It is the name gifted by GA General Thunderhawk, who really helped us start spiritually with how we were going to approach this studio and what it was going to be intended for. And this was the song that came before we even had our studio set up. So it is featuring Royce Howe Jr., one of my younger cousins and another younger brother of mine, Bobby J. Both from the Crow Creek Sioux tribe, both around 19 or 20 in age.

And it's about Jayvon Shield, a young man who passed away a couple years back and someone they both considered a brother in their own ways, and this was how they dealt with it. And it's kind of what we're about at the studio. Not that everything has to be a message or a dedication, but people have these things that they need to get out, and our studio speaks for itself. Over half of our songs deal with death and people who've passed. And our compilation album, which is available at bazilledx.bandcamp.com features more artists just like this, who have so much talent but just need that access. So this is them.

Lori Walsh: That track was Watch Over Me, featuring Bobby J and Royce Howe Jr. It's produced by Talon Ducheneaux. Talon, we have to let you go for now, but I really do hope that you'll come back, because this has been great to get to know you, and we look forward to more of this in the future if you're willing.

Talon Ducheneaux: Oh, well thank you very much ,and thank you for having me on and just everybody listening. My heart and my prayers go out to you. I hope you're well in this time, and I hope that we as artists can provide you with some sort of reprieve during this stressful, anxiety-ridden time.

Lori Walsh: Well said. Thanks. See you next time.