The Indigenous Artists Prioritizing Community Over Virality—and Achieving Both

In the streaming era, music discovery happens at a breakneck speed. Spotify alone adds 100k new tracks each day. Yet, the songs that endure beyond editorial playlists often follow a slower arc, carrying with them memories of specific places and a loyal following.

Many Indigenous artists are embracing this long-game approach. They prioritize community over virality—and often achieve both.

Colorado-raised rapper and activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, Québec-born violinist and composer Geneviève Gros-Louis, and Diné producer Cecil Tso of hip-hop collective Fang Over Fist are building careers centered on thoughtful, place-rooted engagement that rewards authenticity over churn.

Music rooted in place and purpose

Xiuhtezcatl, a climate organizer with Nahua roots, first broke through the noise via a simple video clip of his aunt braiding his hair while he sang in English, Spanish, and his Indigenous language of Nahuatl. That raw intimacy drove 100k streams of his music video for the single, “Careful,” in its first month.

“It reminded me to stay grounded,” he says. “All of a sudden all these people from Latin America and from the diaspora living in the United States were like, ‘Wait, I see myself in this.”

Xiuhtezcatl says his followers’ response was heightened by the fact that most ESL speakers in the U.S.—himself included—miss out on formal education in their mother tongue. “The conflict and the emotion in that clip—I haven’t been able to replicate it since,” he said.

The hip hop artist spent much of 2024 collaborating with Indigenous musicians in Ecuador and Peru, gaining new inspiration in the Quechuan territory of Sarayaku near Ecuador’s Bobonaza River. There, he teamed up with Quechua pop singer Renata Flores, whose viral rendition of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” sung in her Indigenous language has reached over 2.2 million YouTube views in the past nine years.

In March 2025, Flores and Xiuhtezcatl released “SÍGUEME,” a trilingual track in Spanish, Nahuatl and Quechua that celebrates the shared experiences of Latin American and diasporic communities. Since its release, the song has boosted Xiuhtezcatl’s monthly listeners to over 50k.

The video opens in Quechua against a backdrop of the Andes. Xiuhtezcatl said he learned parts of Flores’ language and attempted to flow between dialects the way water flows through life on earth.

Xiuhtezcatl leans on author Adrienne Maree Brown and her guiding principle of prioritizing critical connections over critical mass for both his musical marketing and activism. Simply put, he is less interested in flashpoint fame than in creating something long-lasting.

He also points to artists like Tyler, the Creator as examples of artists who built a profound connection with their audience long before they were embraced by the mainstream. 

“They were written off time and time again,” Xiuhtezcatl said. “It’s not appealing, it’s not marketable, it’s not all these different things. However, they hit these turning points where they became accessible to the masses, and it’s because of the depth of the connection with their core audience that that mattered. That’s what builds something real,” he said. “That’s longevity.”

That connection between survival and creativity is especially important for Indigenous artists. “A lot of Indigenous communities have survived because of oral storytelling,” he said. “Our oral histories are what has kept our cultures intact.” 

Now 25, Xiuhtezcatl still sees a long road ahead, and he hopes to blaze a trail for others along the way. “I feel like I have so much to share and to leave behind… for other young artists who are aspiring to do this stuff,” he said.

He recently opened for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on their Fighting Oligarchy tour, where he performed for an audience of 35,000. “To feel that energy and that level of connection with such a large audience was very astounding,” he said. Since the event, his Instagram followers have soared by over 30k, making it his most dominant channel across all platforms.

In that way, Xiuhtezcatl sees himself as a bridge. “I am a microcosm of the communities that I come from,” he said. 

He sees a shift happening among Indigenous youth who are carving out space in mainstream music without letting go of who they are. “We’re not just these pieces of history we’re so often framed as,” he said. “We are part of contemporary culture. We are part of the future.”

Ancestral sounds in modern scores

For Geneviève Gros-Louis, a Wendat violinist and composer based in Los Angeles, longevity means honoring lineage and shaping how Indigenous stories are heard onscreen. 

In recent years, she has scored more than 40 episodes for National Geographic, including "First Alaskans" and "Life Below Zero," both now streaming on Disney Plus. The network has submitted her work for Primetime Emmy consideration.

Even with this growing recognition, Gros-Louis stays grounded in her community and creates compositions with a historian’s ear. Her latest score for "Courage," a short film about Lumbee hoop dancer and Cirque du Soleil performer Eric Hernandez, includes a vocal performance from Hernandez’s uncle.

"The scene shows Eric embracing his culture," Gros-Louis said. “He’s doing this beautiful slow-motion movement with the hoops, and then his uncle’s voice comes in through the music. It’s meant to feel like his ancestors are with him—and it literally is his ancestor in the track. To have his actual uncle’s voice in that moment, his literal family, adds something lasting. I know 99% of people will not realize this connection, but it gives it a spirit and an energy that brings it to life.”

Gros-Louis brings to her work a degree in violin performance and a decade of orchestral experience. Still, she adds personal touches that would not be possible without her deep community ties. When producers of "First Alaskans" needed a specific drum sound tied to an Alaskan tribe, she sourced a custom recording directly from a friend working in an independent studio. That personal connection made all the difference.

When it comes to marketing, Gros-Louis says she doesn’t care much about follower counts: “I don’t have a huge following. I have, I don’t know, 9,000 something [on Instagram],” she said. “But it’s the quality over quantity.”

That quality has mattered. One of her most recent collaborations was with Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas, who is of Shoshone and Hopi descent. “All of those random connections are a result of the Indigenous telephone network,” she said. “Seriously.”

She says Instagram, not TikTok, is where those connections happen. She has more than double the followers on TikTok—over 23k—but said the platform doesn’t foster the same kind of creative dialogue. “It does not pass the vibe check,” she said. “The kind of interactions I’m having on Instagram are really deep and insightful. Artistic collaborations. Real connections.”

"That’s how Nat Geo found me," she added.

Music as community—not content

And Tso, a Diné rapper and producer based in the Southwest, crafts full-length albums alongside independent collaborators that explore themes of identity, place, and connection to his Navajo heritage. 

For Tso, crafting an album is about emotional coherence. He shapes songs by the quality of emotions they evoke. “If it makes me feel something, I keep it,” he said. “If not, I scrap it. It’s that simple.”

Tso is a member of Fang Over Fist, a self-managed collective that functions as a label, production house and booking team. Based primarily in Arizona, the group includes collaborators across Utah and New Mexico, and maintains close ties to independent music circles such as Connecticut-based Fake Four Inc., which released "Finding Our Balance," Tso’s most personal album to date. Although the record was released under his name, he describes it as a collaborative project.

“I still had a team,” he said. “I wouldn’t do this by myself.”

Tso’s recording process is built on intuition. He plays instruments by ear—acoustic and electric guitar, bass, synthesizers—and builds songs one feeling at a time. “It’s not necessarily the composition itself,” he said. “It’s a feeling I follow until something clicks.”

While many artists track streams or social shares, Tso uses a combination of Bandcamp downloads, word of mouth and physical sales to drive engagement. “Spotify is easy to share, but Bandcamp is where the people who really care about music go,” he said. The group has sold CDs and cassettes at shows and hopes to put out vinyls in the future. “That’s how we fund what we do,” he said.

When “Finding Our Balance” dropped, Tso opted out of playlist submissions, PR campaigns and paid promotion. He says he wanted to see what would happen if the music traveled through relationships alone.

“I didn’t want it to be content,” he said. “I just wanted it to be an album. And I wanted people who listened to be real, with a genuine interest.”

The response has been slow and steady. Without a marketing budget, Tso says the album found listeners in Europe and earned a radio interview through Phoenix NPR-affiliate station KJZZ. The Navajo Times has also featured Tso in recent coverage.

Tso is now focused on building from that foundation. "I’m figuring out what comes next,” he said.

What the metrics don’t tell you

All three artists rely on the belief that numbers matter, but not at the expense of the connection their music fosters. In a moment when attention is a commodity, they are betting on the underlying but ineffable quality of “heart.” It may be impossible to quantify—but it’s indeed responsible for pulling focus.

Xiuhtezcatl, who says he leans heavily on Instagram’s broadcast channel feature to make himself  available to listeners, enjoys analyzing the strategy behind successful drops. “I love the metrics of it,” he said. “I really enjoy deeply studying other artists, their rollouts, the way that they translate the attention of their audience into listeners, into fans, into ticket purchasers,” he said. But even with all that research, he doesn’t believe there’s a formula for what makes music truly resonate. “You can’t synthesize that [quality] in a lab,” he said. “You can’t generate it in a writing camp.”

His forthcoming album “Tōnatiuh,” coming in June, is named for the Nahuatl word for “sun.” Most of the visuals were filmed in southern Mexico City, where his family has ancestral roots. 

Gros-Louis, too, has a new project on the horizon: “Wendat Indie,” a debut solo album slated for release in June. Supported by a grant from her community, the album reimagines traditional Wendat social songs that have been historically performed for friends and guests. The project features orchestral instrumentation with vintage wax cylinder recordings from more than a century ago, along with vocals from singers who incorporate the Wendat language.

 “They’re very beautiful, uplifting pieces of music,” said Gros-Louis. “It's all about preserving the culture and keeping it alive for the next seven generations.” The album will be available to stream and download on the Huron-Wendat Nation’s website.

Like all musicians, each of these Indigenous artists have learned to navigate the industry on their own terms. So far, they’re betting on depth over virality and—perhaps most importantly—on the idea that the most lasting music bears witness to its listeners.