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"Led by Dakota Yazzie, Earth Surface People is a genre-fluid collective with a Navajo core: Yazzie, and his synth-playing younger brother, Cochise Yazzie, are Diné. Skillfully weaving threads of jazz, fusion, R&B, soul, the group's sound achieves a seamless dialogue between Indigenous and Black American musics — driven home by the artistry of a key collaborator, in Diné vocalist Nanibaah. This aural tapestry is heard on their latest album, 2022's nihookááʼ diyin dineʼé (Earth Surface People). "Earth Surface People came from a need to tell Indigenous stories, places, history, attitude. It's something I saw a lack of growing up in rural Arizona," Dakota Yazzie told Shoutout Arizona. I grew up around my traditional people: farmers, storytellers, medicine people, jewelers, weavers, artists, revolutionaries, creatives. "I found a lot of solace in their stories of survival and their stories of triumph," he continued. "How some overcame extraordinary odds with minimal resources." "I think their work is important because they're pushing Native music into new sounds," Renata Yazzie says, "You don't hear a lot of Native bands that sound like Earth Surface People….. [They're] continuing to showcase that Native people can make whatever sounds they want, and they do." " - Morgan Enos, Grammy Awards 2023 from the article "5 Indigenous Artists You Need To Know"