Rebel Soul - Raye Zaragoza

What this video is

Released on Indigenous Peoples Day 2020, 'Rebel Soul' is an intentional act of reclamation by an artist whose father is Indigenous (Mexican O'odham heritage) and whose mother is a first-generation Japanese-American immigrant. The video and song appeared at the intersection of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter uprising, and a long-overdue national conversation about Indigenous erasure, arriving as the…

Why it matters

Raye Zaragoza occupies a politically charged lane within contemporary Americana and folk, placing 'Rebel Soul' within a tradition of protest folk (Woody Guthrie, Buffy Sainte-Marie) while extending it into the 2020s intersectional activist canon. NPR Music described her as 'one of the most fresh…