Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

Renata Yazzie is a Diné (Din-EH) pianist, music educator, and musicologist-in-training whose work focuses largely on the expression of Indigeneity in historically Western European musical forms. A strong advocate for culturally appropriate music education, Renata is the recent founder of the American Indian Musicians’ Scholarship, which aims to provide financial assistance for Native students seeking post-secondary education in Music. Renata holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry and is working towards completing her Master’s degree in Music with dual concentrations in Musicology and Piano Performance at the University of New Mexico.

Lyla June is an Indigenous musician, scholar, and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her dynamic, multi-genre presentation style has engaged audiences across the globe towards personal, collective, and ecological healing. She blends studies in Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional worldview she grew up with to inform her music, perspectives, and solutions. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree, focusing on Indigenous food systems revitalization.

Sacramento Knoxx is a hard-working interdisciplinary artist creating music and film with strong Detroit roots. He produces a sound of electronic, indigenous, ghettotech, Afro-Latino, hip-hop, soul, rhythm, and blues. Knoxx is musically involved in all aspects of playing, creating, and producing sound while making visuals or images to capture different emotions and ideas. His versatile background with varying forms of music allows him to blend traditional & contemporary styles while constantly trying out new frameworks, creating music and film that work together rather than separate practices. Knoxx has built community concerts and workshops that have engaged many audiences in public spaces all around the city of Detroit. Knoxx shares interactive music performances, blending captured moments in life and creative imagery through large projection motion graphics & videos. Building from raw experiences & grit, his works launch vibrations to help assemble the world we want to live in. In addition to creating these dynamic storytelling installations, Knoxx creates documentary film and music videos that encapsulate the experience of struggle and celebration of the many diverse layers of community.