New Seattle Radio Station Elevates Indigenous Music From Around The World – KIRO 7 News Seattle

SEATTLE — A new Seattle-based internet radio station is “indigenousizing the airwaves,” elevating indigenous music from the Pacific Northwest and around the world.

Daybreak Star Radio Network was launched last summer as a project of India’s Daybreak Star cultural center in Discovery Park.

“Having an entire radio station dedicated to Native Americans, Indigenous peoples, is monumental,” said David Hillaire, a longtime Lummi Nation DJ known as DJ Big Rez.

“I want Daybreak Star Radio Network to be recognized, respected, understood as the premier Native American radio station internationally,” said program director Harris Francis.

The station invites Indigenous artists to submit their music.

Station manager Sherry Steele, a member of the Peoria Indians of Oklahoma, hears people from all over.

“We just got into instrumental death metal from Ecuador, we had members of the Sami nation contacting us from Norway,” Steele said.

Daybreak Star Radio plays everything from hip-hop to storytelling.

“The mission is to bring the voice of Indigenous artists and musicians to the world, to show the world that we are not extinct, that there is Indigenous music happening all the time,” Steele said.

“I think it’s really inspiring, for someone in the back of a car on the way to school saying, ‘Hey, they’re indigenizing the airwaves here at Daybreak Star,'” Dominick Joseph of the Tulalip tribes, which helps organize the resort’s social networks.

“Careers can be launched, just like you see something on The Voice, it just takes the right person to hear you,” Hillaire said.

DJ Big Rez is committed to creating opportunities for Indigenous artists, on a brand new radio station that is finding a growing following and already making waves.

“I didn’t expect the explosion to happen here, I just came to help, to do my part.”

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