Tipi Quest

Singer-songwriter Joe Troop details how he learned of Leonard’s story while living abroad in Argentina with his Grammy nominated urban bluegrass band Che Apalache. Hear Joe’s new single “Free Leonard Peltier” that was released in support of the American Indian Movement’s Walk to Justice, which will culminate in Washington, D.C., with rallies and musical performances calling for clemency for America’s longest serving Indigenous political prisoner.  

Transcript

LEONARD: Political Prisoner
S2 E9:  TIPI QUEST

Joe Troop
Some of the people that were involved in the making of the video and the song, they said, you know, this was all prophesied that there will be a multi-ethnic push for Leonard's clemency and for, you know, a coming together for the sake of Mother Earth. 

VO
That’s Grammy nominated artist Joe Troop talking about his new song “Free Leonard Peltier,” which was released on October 7th, 2022, in support of the American Indian Movement’s Walk to Justice this fall. 

Joe Troop
It's nice to feel like you're connected to a spiritual continuum – that there's something much greater at play. [MUSIC UP] And I feel that – I feel that every step of the way with this project. There's a spiritual component that I take note of. That's why I wrote this song because I felt like, okay, I've gotta – I'm being asked to write this song.

Joe Troop
And I've never written a song that I felt wrote itself to this degree. I don't know – I don’t even know how to explain the songwriting experience. It just – when it finally wanted to come out it just sort of appeared. And then I said, “Whoa, did I just write that?” <laughs> It was really crazy. So hopefully it can just be another part of this movement that might lead to his clemency. 

VO
You’re listening to LEONARD—a podcast series about Leonard Peltier, one of the longest-serving political prisoners in American history. I’m Rory Owen Delaney. 

And I’m Andrew Fuller. We’ve spent the last four years working to share Leonard’s story with a new generation of people: who he is, how he ended up behind bars, and why we believe he deserves to go free.

This is Season 2, Episode 9, Tipi Quest. In this chapter we chat with musician Joe Troop who explains how a banjo picker from North Carolina was called to write his new song after meeting a Lakota elder in the Patagonia Mountains.

Joe Troop
My name is Joe Troop. I'm from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I'm a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. I grew up playing Appalachian folk music, but I've lived 14 years outside of the United States, 10 of those in Argentina. And I have studied a lot of different Latin American traditional music genres. One of my big explorations is playing the five string banjo outside of genres where there would traditionally be one. And then as a singer-songwriter I have spent a lot of my life writing songs about people who inspire me that I think songs should be written about: the unsung heroes, the people that are intentionally silenced whose stories should be out in the world. That's why I wrote a song about Leonard Peltier. So I guess I'm just a globe trotting Appalachian string band musician with a proclivity for Latin American music, notably, Columbo Venezuelan music at the moment.

Joe Troop
Anyhow, Che Apalache is a band that I started with three of my students in Argentina, an urban bluegrass experiment that caught on in the United States. Our second album was produced by banjo legend, Bela Fleck. We had a good run. I wrote a lot of songs about migration. I wrote a song for a DACA recipient named Moises Serrano. The song told his story, but I worked closely with him. That was the first time that I had written a song about another person on such a scale. 

Joe Troop
The song was nominated for a Grammy. Actually, the album was nominated for a Grammy, but the song was the feature single. And we walked the red carpet in 2020 with Moises himself trying to garner attention for the plight of children that are brought to the United States and don't have many legal protections for them. So in other words, that was my foray into artivism on a new scale. I had written a song called “The Wall” that got a lot of attention as well that was featured on all the major media platforms. 

Joe Troop
So those songs sort of propelled me into that direction. And the inherent symbolism of my band being that there were three Latin Americans and myself playing for bluegrass audiences and singing songs about tearing down the border wall and just themes you generally don't hear in rural music festivals in the South. So it was a nice way to kind of stir the curd, poke the bear, however you wanna call it. And I feel like that was my formative stage of songwriting about other people. And then in 2020 my band's operation got destroyed by the pandemic. I got stranded in North Carolina where I'm from. 

Joe Troop
Anyway, through the activism work, the artivism work, using art paired with activism, I ended up working with all these activists, meeting a whole bunch of people. 

VO
One of these people is Crystal Cavalier, a Saponi woman who is running for Congress in North Carolina’s 7th District. Back in April, Joe hosted a campaign event for Crystal and rewrote one of his songs to feature elements of her story. 

Joe Troop
It was a beautiful event in Durham. And that was kind of like my first experience working with one of those, quote unquote “erased people” from where I am. And then I came to realize that first contact people are all over the place. In North Carolina I met a lot of Lumbee, Tuscarora, Catawba, Anhilanappi, Cherokee, folks from all different kinds of lingual families and traditions. You know, as a white boy from the burbs, I had this kind of like go explore the world thing, which I did, you know, for 14 years. And then come to realize back in North Carolina that some of the most distant and fascinating cultures to my own are right here. And they're the ones that my ancestors treated so poorly. It’s just kind of like a big awakening process because the idea of erasure is that they're not there. But Crystal Cavalier is there; Jason Campos-Keck is there; Alexis Rhianna is there; Marsha Harris is there. These people are here, you know. And I found them very inspiring. And they came to one of my shows and everything, and I asked them, “Hey, I'm working on this song for Leonard Peltier. Do y'all know anything about it?” And they started laughing. They said, “Yeah, we're walking on the Walk to Justice this year. We're coordinating it.” 

Joe Troop
And I thought that the creator's hand was working, you know. And my song was I'd say 70% done, but meeting them and just knowing that I could write this song for them as like a, you know, as an anthem for their journey that they're on right now, it just made the rest of the song come. So writing the song for Leonard has been five years in the making, but when I met the indigenous folks from my neck of the woods, it really came together and it had new meaning.

VO
The Peltier Walk to Justice began in Minneapolis in September 2022 and ends in mid November in Washington, DC, with a big rally in support of clemency for Leonard. 

Rory
Can you tell us how you came to learn of Leonard's story? 

Joe Troop
So I lived in Argentina for a decade. In the summer of 2017 I was visiting friends in El Bolson, which is a hippy town in the Patagonia Mountains in Rio Negro. The godfather of one of my best friends' daughter invited us over to his house. And he is a Lakota man named Wombli Watakpe. So we got to his house. I noticed there was a tipi there, which is a sight for sore eyes in the Patagonia Mountains, you know, you never see a Plains Indian’s tipi there. I was really taken by that. And he invited us in. He had a fire. I'd never been in a tipi. And I sat with Wombli. And he was talking about how he had no intention to ever return to the United States since Obama didn't grant Peltier clemency. And I said, "Who's Peltier? Who are you talking about?" And then that was where I heard of Leonard Peltier. So it's kind of a crazy story. I heard about him in a Lakota man's tipi in the Patagonia Mountains around a ceremonial fire. And that sparked an interest in me. I read a bunch of books. I saw the slew of documentary films. I just educated myself. And then I realized how many parallels there were between all of the egregious acts the FBI did in the 1970s in Latin America, and what was done to Native Americans on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at the same exact time. 

Joe Troop
But I just saw these parallels. And I was really inspired by, you know, [SPANISH] the grandmothers looking for their stolen grand babies in Argentina when the Videla dictatorship through the involvement of the US government killed 30,000 people, you know, young people, activists, intellectuals, college students, basically. Children, if you will. I mean, 19, 20, 21 years old. They killed a whole generation of thinkers, you know, that were challenging the status quo. Anyway, the FBI was piloting that reign of terror in Latin America and propping up these Pinochet's and Videla's. And then I heard about Peltier and the picture started – it got bigger than I had imagined.

Joe Troop
And so, 2020, I finally got Leonard's Prison Writings. And I kind of felt like Leonard was accompanying me somehow ‘cuz I would learn more about him and I was meeting more native people and I realized how important Leonard was for every issue. It's like he, uh, is a symbol for everything that’s like – if you talk about the climate crisis, that's why we need to free Leonard Peltier. If you talk about American interventionism, that's why we need to free Leonard Peltier. There's so many ways to trace back every major issue that we're facing right now to Leonard's incarceration. So I kind of feel like he's a friend, and someone I really want to help. 

Joe Troop
Everyone that I met through the writing of this song, all of these incredible artists and friends: Nokosee Fields, Osage from Oklahoma, Alexis Rihanna, Lumbee from Robinson County, North Carolina, Crystal Cavalier that I already mentioned, Jason Campos-Keck, Choktaw, Monti, this really nice Catawba man, who when he came to sing on this recording for the video he gave me sage. No one's ever given me sage before I started getting all these little gifts, and I got treated really nice and I, I just, I just find it a very fascinating, beautiful culture. I want to help without getting in the way. And you know inevitably I will get in the way because that's how wasichus we do. That's what I keep realizing <laughs> but I'm trying my best.

Rory
So why don't you tell everyone about how the song is going to help Leonard? I know you had some plans for the proceeds and all that.

Joe Troop
All the proceeds from this song are gonna go to the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, which it's just his legal aid fund. I'm ousting for premieres for the music video. We'll see what the cat drags in. You know, it's hard because it's like there's radio silence for Leonard. So I wanna use the song, play it at my live events and have people say Leonard's name. 

Joe Troop
We got on stage with my quartet a couple weeks ago at the Wheatland Music Festival in Michigan, and we said his name in front of, you know, five or six thousand people. They said his name, Leonard Peltier. It was nice to hear his name uttered into that space. So, I mean, I have a meager folk musician’s platform. I ain't famous, you know, I'm just a professional banjo player <laughs>. It's not like I have millions of people in my back pocket or anything. But I believe in the grassroots. I believe in the walkers on the Walk to Justice that are out there, you know, carrying that prayer from Minneapolis to Washington, DC. And I wanna do my best to get more people saying Leonard's name, and to potentially come to Washington, DC, in November and make some noise with us.

Joe Troop
There's gonna be some major rallies and concerts. I think on the 14th and the 18th of November. Details are to be confirmed because it's a small but mighty operation coordinating this. I know Kathy Peltier is on the march herself, Leonard's daughter. And I'll be on the march myself the 13th through the 18th. So follow them on Facebook – Leonard Peltier’s Walk to Justice – and stay tuned, because things are gonna get real in November. And it would be really wonderful to have critical mass, particularly in Washington, DC, because that's where major press outlets are more liable to be. 

Rory
Well, we'd love to hear some music.

Joe Troop
Yeah, I could do the song I wrote for Leonard.

Joe Troop
(singing) I thank God for all the outlaws that went and did the world some good. This whole world could use good trouble, we ought to do as Leonard would. We have broken every treaty, disavowed them from the start, causing hardship with indifference, and a cage around our heart. We write doctrines of injustice, which we sanctify as law. We incarcerate their warriors. For doing right they take the fall. In a run down Florida prison, Leonard Peltier's doing time, 45 long years and counting, though he's guilty of no crime. It's an old familiar story. Truth against the FBI. Locked up warrior lives his sundance; Uncle Sam's caught in a lie. I thank God for all the outlaws that went and did the world some good. This whole world could use good trouble, we oughta do as Leonard would. We've defiled their sacred mountains, chiseled faces in the stone, our belligerent dead presidents ever looming o'er their home. When their youth rose up in protest, and demanded dignity, Uncle Sam took AIM on groundless blames with impunity. Nowadays Uncle Sam's building pipelines to contaminate our wells, he's got legal aid from billionaires and a lot of gas to sell. But courageous folks like Leonard put their freedom on the line. Guided by the great Creator, they break Sam's law, so we survive. I thank God for all you outlaws, out there doing the world some good, this old world could use good trouble, we oughta do as Leonard would. Free Leonard Peltier.

Andrew
This really feels like it could be–

Joe Troop
An anthem.

Joe Troop
Yeah. I mean, it's scrappy, so hopefully the song will serve to like rally people to the cause. It might become an anthem. I don’t know. 

Joe Troop
Native people from the across the Americas care about this issue. You know, it's important to realize that it's an international cry for clemency and justice. My co-conspirator and really good pal, Rode Diaz, directed the music video for “Free Leonard Peltier.” Rode Is Mayan, Kaqchikel, and is really involved in artivism efforts with indigenous people from all over the United States, and of course from Guatemala. And it's a personal point of satisfaction that the director of this music video was himself a victim of genocide. His family was killed in the 1980s by the Rios Montt American backed reign of terror of indigenous Guatemalans. So, therefore, I think the video takes on new life. It can be a part of this larger movement of healing, you know, and some of the people that were involved in the making of the video and the song, they said, you know, this was all prophesied that there will be a multi-ethnic push for Leonard's clemency and for, you know, a coming together for the sake of Mother Earth. 

[MUSIC UP]

Joe Troop
It's nice to feel like you're connected to a spiritual continuum. And I feel that. The same day that I met Wombli in that tipi in Argentina, I had found a condor feather. We were climbing up to where condors were known to perch. And I found this huge feather. These things are massive. It must be like two and a half to three feet long. And it was sticking in the ground and standing straight up. And then I met Wombli that night. And for whatever that's worth, that's why I wrote this song.

Joe Troop
But yeah, I think there's gonna be a good push and my publicist is working. We'll see, we'll see what happens. I do think that there's been an interesting amount of like natural or supernatural confluence with this whole process for me. So I wouldn't be surprised if, if it does reach some ears and some eyes. And we'll have one hell of a party if Leonard walks free.

CREDITS

This podcast is produced, written, and edited on Tongva land by Rory Owen Delaney and Andrew Fuller. 

Kevin McKiernan serves as our consulting producer. 

Thanks to Bobby Halvorson for the original music we’re using throughout this series. And thanks to Mike Cassintini and Ben Rubin for their engineering assistance, and to Peter Lauridsen and Sycamore Sound for their audio mixing. 

Thanks to Maya Meinert and Emily Deutsch, for helping support us while we do what, we hope, is important work.

Special thanks to Joe Troop, Free Dirt Records, and all of the native and non-native artists who contributed to the Free Leonard Peltier song and video, including Monty Hawk Branham, Alexis Raeana, Nokosee Fields, Marsha Harris, Ashley Self, Jason Crazy Bear, Jane Jacobs, Seth Harris, Crystal Cavalier, Mike Wyckoff, and Rode Díaz.

And thanks, most of all, to Leonard Peltier. To get involved and help Leonard, go to whoisleonardpeltier.info or find us on social media @leonard_pod on Twitter and Instagram, or facebook.com/leonardpodcast.

This podcast is a production of Man Bites Dog Films LLC. Free Leonard Peltier!