country
Salina, Oklahoma
Photo courtesy of artist
Cherokee musician and educator, Agalisiga “Chuj” Mackey, has been turning heads with a vibrant and fresh idea: country music sung entirely in Cherokee. With the goal to create projects that speak directly to different times and experiences—inspired by Māori language revivalists’ blueprints—Chuj Mackey is composing original music that speaks to his upbringings in the Cherokee Nation, as well as translating iconic country songs into Cherokee. Through his recordings and mesmerizing performances, with a deep and rich voice that draws equally from tones and inflections of Cherokee ceremonial song and the unhurried confidence of traditional country, Mackey says his goal is “to inspire people to create in the language on their own.”
Growing up in Kenwood and Tahlequah, Oklahoma, on the Cherokee reservation, Chuj Mackey benefitted from the Nation’s efforts to increase the use of the Cherokee language, which today has only an estimated 1,500 first-language speakers. Now at age 22, Mackey teaches at the Cherokee Immersion Charter School (Tsalagi Tsunadeloquasdi), where he plays an important role in the movement to revitalize the culture and language that the U.S. government spent two centuries trying to eradicate through policies including forced removal on the Trail of Tears and compulsory attendance at boarding schools. Chuj’s songs, like his work as an educator, are a vehicle to teach Cherokee to the next generation, telling stories that reflect contemporary Cherokee life as well as the community’s history, legends, and values.
As a child, Chuj Mackey learned Cherokee songs and dances in the most traditional way possible: participating in ceremonies and community celebrations at the side of his elders. At home, country music was also a constant presence. His grandfather loved to two-step to Bob Wills, while his mother and grandmother were devotees of outlaw country. Chuj reflects that, “A lot of those country songs, that’s stuff that our people, that the Cherokee speakers have lived.” As a high school student, he and his brother taught themselves to play guitar with the help of his uncle, a mandolin player. In the isolation of the pandemic, Chuj kept his family entertained singing favorite country songs, and in 2022, a video of his singing came to the attention of Cherokee filmmaker Jeremy Charles, who asked him to try writing a song in Cherokee for the multi-genre compilation Anvdvnelisgi. The experience was life changing for Mackey—with the support of his wife, Paloma Lopez, he went on to write and produce an album of original country songs (plus two classic covers translated into Cherokee: Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released”) titled Nasgino Inagei Nidayulenvi, or It Started in the Woods.
Agalisiga “Chuj” Mackey has begun to perform for enthusiastic audiences beyond the Cherokee Nation, including at the grand opening of the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, OK, and a recent appearance at Willie Nelson’s Luck Ranch. His song “Tsitsutsa Tsigesv” (“When I Was a Boy”) was featured in the opening credits of an episode of the TV show The Lowdown. But his focus remains with his community. As his friend and musical collaborator Jeremy Charles has said, “It’s really been a privilege to watch Chuj grow as an artist and embrace his role. His mission as a musician is to further the language. He knows what influence he can have over young speakers. You get this young man with an old soul on stage, and he’s a gem that sticks out.”