I see a lot today kids wearing eagle feathers more than some of the men and they didn t earn the right to get that, you know, some of them just for the look of it, I think. It s just not right, you know. Most all of competition dancers or professional dancers have to be up to date on the music and the change from one drum group to another because they all vary their styles. Now that there aren t that many war songs or wars being fought, there are a lot of songs that basically are around social attitude, social change, a lot of the feelings that are expressed within the family themselves, maybe an affection for someone. Some of the young people in particular take some of the melodies from even some of our rap songs, some of our contemporary songs and apply it to music.
Every human being that there is their heartbeat is right there.
My dad started us off. My whole family s actually rodeo family and my dad set us off on this way, so. That s what my dad told me. He said this drum is gonna take you a long way. You re going to be singing in front of a big crowd, he said, take it, keep going, don t quit and give respect to your drum.