Toha and I met back in March of 2022 at a Good Karma Records community event. We bonded instantly over our shared American Indian/Indigenous identities. Having stayed in touch for the past several months I wanted to highlight Toha’s story as he is a truly unique individual in the space with ideas that span far beyond the reaches of Web3 music. Not only do we dive deep here into his heritage and Web3 goals but we also touch on some very ~hot topics~ buzzing in Web3 music right now.
Recently, Toha sold his first music NFT through Catalog and has gotten a lot of positive community feedback for participating in a Web3 remix competition. Toha is definitely an artist to have on your radar for 2023 because he is taking it all to the next level! - Arella Trustman
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Oh, I'm so excited. It's so good to see you!
Yeah, it's so good to see you too. It's been a while. Hold on. You're inspiring me right now. ** Toha flicks on his colored lights**
We have got matching lights! That sunset light vibe!
Vibes!
Great. So, a little bit about what we are doing here…This is about you. This is about your story, your Web3 journey, and kind of anything you want to share with the people in a less ephemeral format. So, with that being said, I'm going to flip it on over to you. Tell me about yourself. Who are you as an artist, When did you first start making music? Give me the roots of your journey.
Sure thing. So, first things first. My name is Toha. I started making music in the Fall of 2014 and just fell in love with it. My artist statement or mission statement, I would say is “creating art that advocates for indigenous sovereignty and ecological justice, and building + developing a community.”
All right. That's super sick. How did you decide on your preferred genre or sound?
Honestly, it was just something that I had developed a skill and taste for. When I first started making music, it aired more on the hip-hop side of things cause I was inspired by collectives, like Soulection and artists like Esta and Mr. Carmack. Over time it just, I experimented more, and I realized that I liked building that bridge between hip-hop and electronic music.
That's awesome. So, who or what would you say inspires your music or creative process?
I mean, I think most artists can agree with this, but some of my best work is inspired by everyday experiences of life. The things that I find myself attracted to and the research that I do outside of art and music.
Tell me a little bit about the research that you do outside of art and music.
Yeah, so a lot of my research, as I said before, has to do with indigenous sovereignty and ecological justice. A bulk of it is also just studying history, particularly the history of colonization and imperialism and how that has led to generational trauma. How that [generational trauma] shapes our identity and the illusions of our colonized identities. I am trying to recover a lot of the Indigenous knowledge and medicine that has been lost at the hands of colonization.
Okay, so you're passionate about the Land Back movement, Indigenous Sovereignty, and the conversations around Ecological Justice coming out of our communities. Tell me how you like first got involved in this, what is this rooted in?
Honestly, a lot of it has just been a passion that I've had since I was an adolescent. I think around the age of like 14 or 15 I remember stepping outside of my school. My school was located in Southern Paiute territory in Las Vegas. It was kind of up on a ridge, so I got a view of the whole city and I just remember seeing all the smog and thinking, man, like why don't we do something about this? Why do I feel like ~this~?
Just ruminating on those questions led me down the path of, you know, advocating for ecological justice and just trying to figure out ways to contribute to those solutions that would, you know, solve this.
This led me to make small choices over time, bringing clean-up gear to hikes, reducing my carbon footprint, composting, and developing a relationship to land and reminding people we have the opportunity to steward it rather than exploit it.
Through this, I also saw the patterns in which Indigenous people are disenfranchised, and how Anglo-Saxon ideals actively erase Indigenous identities and communities by exploiting the land and plundering land/resources for profit. It made me reflect on how despite efforts to genocide our ancestors, we are still here. I believe in the Land Back movement because returning the land and allowing Indigenous leadership to help the youth learn how to steward land is a path to our collective liberation.
Cool. What's your tribal affiliation, if I might ask?
Sure. So my family is from the Nemehahaki band of the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas/Nebraska- which broke off from a bigger Sac & Fox Nation, based out of Stroud, Oklahoma. And yeah, so that, that comes from my father's side, from my paternal grandmother. From my mother's side, we are Waray-Waray or Waraynon from Eastern Samar, Philippines.
Big question, how do these movements fit into Web3 for you?
Yeah, so for me, I think the one thing that's kind of inspired me with Web3 is seeing the transparency that's involved in the whole process. I think oftentimes we see these movements happen and there's not a lot of transparency behind them. That's how we end up getting scammed and like, you know, seeing that the things that we thought were good were just being used in ways that we didn't want them to be used in the first place. So, I think Web3 is in a unique position to offer that transparency if the users, you know, do their due diligence. I see a future where Indigenous groups are using Web3 to connect with their global diaspora and supported with remittances, as well as given the opportunity to have their youth explore digital art on-chain to amplify their stories and the stories of their ancestors.
So, it's all about transparency and having an open conversation, and knowing where you're getting your resources. Um, do you have any ideas for integrating music NFTs with your indigenous interests and indigenous service work?
Yeah, absolutely! So, my vision with NFTs is to just utilize the technology to one, distribute thoughtful and intentional art that speaks to this vision, but also rallies a sense of community and inspires the form of direct action that we can take. You can purchase the NFT and then that will provide some sort of utility and resources towards direct actions. For example, launching and deploying it to go directly to tribes that are in need, or Indigenous people that need help through mutual aid, or even things on like a simpler scale like funding cleanups or water filtration systems, things of that nature. There are lots of ways Web3 can help shape storytelling and empower Indigenous groups globally.
So I have got to know, when did you get into Web3 and how did you end up in the music side of things?
Yeah, so like I said I've been doing music since 2014, and around 2019 I got a job doing social media for Studio DMI, an Electronic music-focused recording/mixing and mastering studio. It was during my time there, [it was] one of my coworkers, [named] Jacob, put me on to setting up my Coinbase account and just getting me involved with crypto [in general]. That happened around the Summer of 2019, and ever since then, I have been following the growth of the entire industry and technology.
Yeah! I would love to know more about your experience here in Web3 music. What do you like, what do you not like, and what do you think could be better?
What I like, honestly, what I love about Web3 is it places value on transparency and it re-frames the conversation of supporting artists in a way that leverages this technology to create and generate resources and encourages working together collectively to allocate our resources to support artists and whatever their visions are. Being able to see a lot of my friends' lives just change from the support that they've seen in the Web3 community is inspiring and I love that! What I don’t like is rug pulls. Like that sucks! Especially, you know, seeing people really get sold on an idea and then a team just not being able to deliver. That's just, that's just unfortunate, you know? I think a lot of people that participate in these things are extremely idealistic and they have a vision for a brighter future. When people kind of take advantage of that kind of mentality it makes me sad cause I feel like the intention is there, but you know, it also requires a certain level of commitment and responsibility.
I think that even carries over into Web3 music even. People are very idealistic with high expectations of performance and don't understand that it is a lot of work, a lot of grinding behind the scenes to bring forth a product or a token that is worth collecting. So, I feel you about that. What could be better about Web3 music?
I would say that the one thing that could be better about Web3 and Web3 music is we need more project managers. I think as artists we tend to kind of get lost in the process of creating our art and things of that nature. We need support just like, you know, everyone else. I think people that aren't artists but want to support artists, can do a great job and be of service by becoming project managers and assisting artists through, their Web3 journey.
Definitely! So, what has been your proudest moment as a Web3 artist to date?
So I was really proud the moment that I sold one of my NFTs. It was for a song called Ochikiwa. Which is Sauk for “where one comes/descends from” That song was birthed out of this grief that I have about being indigenous in an urban environment and in a colonized state. How a lot of times our heritage is taken away from us and we forget who we are and where we come from.
So, for me, that track was just like a stamp of where I come from and who I am and the sacrifices and the things that my ancestors experienced for me to be here today… to be able to explore art and the intersection of all these things. Being able to mint that, sell it, and have it supported and received by the community was amazing!
Awesome. I want to throw whatever link you have to that in this so that everyone can hear the conversation you have about acculturation and enculturation and having that juxtaposition of “we are here today, but this was not always the way that things were.” That's such an interesting one as you know, near and dear to my heart and soul topic for sure! Recently, I also saw you do a sequence on your Filipino heritage. What inspired that and where is that project going?
Yes. So the project is called Visayas. It's honestly just a way for me to honor my matriarchal lineage in the same way that I honor my American Indian roots as well. It came from accepting and integrating these two sides of me and seeing how colonialism not only affected American Indians, but also other places in the world, in particular the Philippines. Exploring my relationship with the people and the particular geographical area that my family is from. I just wanted to highlight all the things in our heritage and culture that are forgotten. It's developing an audio-visual story that tells that aspect of who I am and the community that I'm a part of, and my way of preserving and revitalizing our language and our culture.
That's awesome. I loved looking through that, I found it super nice to see so many visual components presented with it, like geography and spiritual heritage. I was like, wow, I get a sense of where this is going. Is there anything else you're going to be adding to that project or are you just going to be releasing music across time in light of the information?
Yes, definitely going to add more. I want to add more resources that are a part of the inspiration for the project and release more music as the time comes, but the biggest thing that I realized with this project is that there's a lot of pressure in the music industry to develop like a very concise rollout.
For me, with this project, I just wanted to step away from that and decolonize and document my journey along the way and, you know, basically build in public. So, the thread was the seed of that. I wanted to showcase that it takes time to grow a project and develop it into what it is.
And yeah, I'm just looking forward to sharing more music for the project and just writing more music because it's still not done yet, but I want people to see that you can still talk and share about things even though it's not done yet.
You can plant the seed now and, and water it and it'll grow later! In Web3 there's a huge narrative push around the immediacy of releasing and having a bunch of music come out in rapid succession and having that almost conversational dialogue go on with your fans and collectors. I like that you're kind of taking it from like a decolonization lens and saying, “I'm not going to do this the way that things are done, I'm going to do it my way and I'm going to document the journey that gets me to the end point so that other people can see.” I mean, that's why I interview artists! It's so we can get to know you guys and so that people can know that there are options out there!
Anyways, you do a lot of other stuff in Web3 though. You're very active. I got my eyes on you! You participated in the Reo Cragun Zoom remix contest at the end of last year? What inspired you to participate in that? How did it go? I know Crittie P wanted me to ask you this question cause she loved your remix!
Yeah, shout out to Crittie P. She's been so supportive in just the past few weeks that I've become mutuals with her online. As far as the contest goes, honestly, I've been a fan of Reo since he dropped the Quits EP with Flume and that was all the way back in 2019, which was actually around the time that I started getting into all this stuff, which is crazy!
I saw the opportunity and I just hopped on it cause I felt called to it and I just put my head down and gave it my best foot forward and it got a lot of love and received a lot of support. So, I'm really glad that I did my part and just shared it with the space.
******** Check out Toha’s Zoom remix HERE or watch his promo video HERE
I love that! So, what else can we expect from you in the coming months in Web3 and outside of Web3?
For sure. So, in the coming months, definitely more music and more mints and really. I am honing in on the story and the narrative that I'm trying to develop with my art and leveraging music, especially electronic music, to go back into having a revolutionary consciousness. I spoke on this on Twitter a little bit earlier before, but for me, music has always been political and some of my favorite music has a deeper meaning to it. It talks on subjects and topics that are deep and things that, you know, need to be addressed, quite frankly. I think Web3 music has the opportunity to bridge that gap to the next step of evolution and revolution in the way that we can support artists that have a revolutionary agenda.
My ultimate goal is to mint this project Visayas and eventually raise funds to go out and clean up our ancestral domain. It's been affected a lot by climate change and pollution. So being able to go out there and rally community support to like clean up and just give the environment the care that it needs. Along with that also donating a portion of the funds to a language immersion program called Baba Bisaya, which was a program that I went through to start reclaiming my ancestral language. I would like to see Web3 move in that direction, so I'm going to do that with my work and, you know, leave my imprint on the world through Web3.
So you want to be a change maker! With your music, but like, beyond that you seem passionate about being a global change maker and using any gain that you have to make social change.
Yes, exactly. For me, I love music and I love going to shows, but I always knew that like sometimes those things are fleeting and like they, especially as an artist, as it can almost come off as selfish, you know? Like it feels good to be up there out on stage and see everyone like, love and adore you, but, at the same time, I knew that there was more to this and it puts me in a unique position to share my voice and share the things that I care about rather than be like, “Hey guys, I got this new track, go listen to it, go stream it, go make me richer or something.”
You know, it just seems like we could be doing so much more. So, I try to implement that into my projects.
I love hearing that. It's refreshing because I think a lot of the narrative of like having a platform and having a voice that is heard by masses of people gets lost in the game. Stepping outside of ourselves and recognizing that there is an opportunity to say something to make a change and saying it. I think that also ties into Web3 as well, because Web3, especially from the collector's perspective, is about altruism and changing the lives of artists in general. So, it's cool to hear an artist say, while my life is changing, I want to give back and change someone else’s!
Yes, exactly. And beyond that, utilize my platform to amplify other people's stories, especially other indigenous people's stories because one thing that I've wrestled with growing up is I felt invisible. I think it is a direct correlation to imperialism and colonialism to suppress our ancestral identities in exchange for consumer goods and media. Web3 and music have allowed me to explore that and not feel invisible anymore.
The number of times that I've written about being the invisible minority and the processes that are larger than us and the governing boards larger than us, that continue to try to make us feel invisible and unrepresented in space and time! I love to hear that from you Toha. I mean, we're so aligned on that type of stuff. So, if you had one piece of advice for artists looking to follow in your footsteps, entering Web3, making music, etc., what would it be?
Give more than you take and show up and support people regardless of any sort of expectation of reciprocity. Like just show up and support people because you believe in them. I think when you go into it with that, you just find the genuine connections that can be made in the space.
Absolutely! Okay, so we're going to switch gears. We're going to go into some fun questions. So, these are like very light, very easy, and are more just about like your interests and yourself. So, the first is you're stranded on a deserted island with a record player. You have three records or albums with you. What are they?
So, I would say one of the first albums is Flume’s Skin EP. I think that was just something I could never get sick of. It was just one of those projects that in my head like just shifted what music could be. So that's number one. For number two there's an artist named Teo who released a project named Sol. That project is just absolutely beautiful. It blends bossa nova and hip hop, and a lot of these Meso-American and Latin influences. So that'd be number two. And let's see, for number three, I'm going to go back in time and do one of the first CDs that I own, which was The Beatles Greatest Hits. You kind of get a little bit of all their music, you know, not just one album.
That is completely appropriate! Fun fact, one of the Beatles albums is actually on my list of three if I was on a deserted island as well. So, I feel you on that one. It never gets old.
It'll always be good.
Yeah, if I was stuck on a deserted island in perpetuity like I could deal with the Beatles in perpetuity. Okay, if you could collaborate with one artist, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Can I do Living and dead?
Sure!
Okay. So, for living, I would want to collaborate with Toro y Moi! I'm just a big fan of his music. I'm inspired by his versatility as a producer and as an artist. So being able to work with him would be amazing. I guess for dead I would say, Mac Miller. I think he's also one of those artists that I was just really inspired by. To be able to see his versatility and his growth was cool and inspired me a lot during my adolescence. I was very sad when he passed and being able to collaborate with him would've been amazing.
Awesome Toha! You just perfectly answered both of my last questions there! Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me today while I peppered you with questions. I cannot wait to share this with everyone!
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*Check out Toha’s ongoing music project HERE and follow along as he reconnects and spreads his heritage/ancestral roots through music and social awareness. *
If you liked Toha’s story and want to support his causes today visit the links below to educate yourself and learn how to get involved: