Hip-hop artist Shadow Devereaux receives national music award

Shadow Devereaux, a Salish and Blackfeet singer-songwriter and hip-hop artist who grew up on the Flathead Reservation, has won the 2022 Native American Music Award for Best Narrative Video. The National Awards were presented in November during a ceremony in Niagara Falls, New York

“It feels surreal,” he says. “Deep down any award was a goal for me but you get lost in the day-to-day work and you forget your goals and your accomplishments. So when things like this come up, it reminds you that you are going in the right direction.”

Devereaux earned top honors for his original song and video for “Protect Your People,” which was co-directed and shot by Colton Olmsted. The video, which shows Devereaux singing at locations across the Flathead Reservation, is spliced ​​with scenes of his cousin, Buck Morego, dancing in full regalia, speaking in Salish and playing a native flute, creating juxtapositions of contemporary and traditional tribal life.

An older General Salish was also nominated for Best Country Music Video for “Missing,” a song she co-wrote with Linda Mackenzie, who sang in the video and presented it for the awards.

Devereaux, also known as Foreshadow, created the song “Protect Your People” during the pandemic after Tribal Education Chief Michelle Mitchell asked him to write a song promoting awareness of the coronavirus.

“I just took it and ran from there,” he says. While the song…