Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Crow Singer Nominated For Native American Music Awards

Desja Eagle Tail
Crow singer Desja Eagle Tail at last year's Nammy Awards with family members. She took home the award for "Best Country Recording." This year she is nominated for "Best Country Recording" and "Best Female Artist."

A Crow singer might take home her second national music award this weekend. Desja Eagle Tail is nominated for best female artist and best country artist in this year’s Native American Music Awards.

"Ok let me put my seatbelt on," Eagle Tail said before rushing to the airport.

She’s got about an hour before her flight takes off and her seven-hour journey to Niagara Falls, New York begins. That’s where the sold-out awards ceremony will take place this Saturday.

The song Eagle Tail is nominated for in best country and best female artist is called, “What Do I Got To Do.”

She says she wrote it as a music student at MSU-B, when the hour-long commute between the Crow Reservation and campus left her feeling lonely.

"It was just me asking the Universe, what do I have to do to have someone to love," Eagle Tail said. 

Eagle Tail is one of about four nominees from Montana tribes this year, including Jared Stewart from the Crow Tribe and Joseph Firecrow from the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

The 19th annual Native American Music Awards, or Nammy’s, will present indigenous artists awards across more than thirty categories, including rock, pow wow drumming and traditional recording.

For a decade, the Grammy Awards presented a “Best Native American Music Album” award, but got rid of it almost ten years ago, along with other thirty other categories, including “Best Zydeco Album” and “Best Hawaiin Music.” Now Native music is judged in the streamlined category, “Best Roots Performance.”

Eagle Tail says she’s proud to participate in an awards show that’s by indigenous people, for indigenous people.

"I’m really happy to be acknowledged and validated by other Native Americans," Eagle Tail said. 

If she wins, this would be her second time taking home a Nammy.

Last year she won for best country musician. She was pregnant with her now ten-month-old son, and says she was shocked when her name came up on the screen.

For this year’s event, Eagle Tail says she plans to wear a dress by Crow designer, Della Bighair-Stump .

The Native American Music Awards will stream live this Saturday on Youtube at 5 p.m.

Olivia Reingold is Yellowstone Public Radio’s Report for America corps member.