The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Indigenous Student Center hosted the musical group Bizhiki on Tuesday night for its Native November keynote. After performing, the group then answered questions on their personal guiding principles, their role in language and culture revitalization and advice for young indigenous artists.
The performance was the centerpiece of the Native November 2025 celebration, operating under the theme, "Live The Teachings As We Are Meant To," which focuses on using the wisdom of ancestors as guidance. The theme explores what it means to root one's life in traditional values, such as the ‘Seventh Generation’ principle, which holds that all decisions made in the present should result in a better world seven generations from now.
Bizhiki's unique sound blends the ethereal vocals and visceral drumming of Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings and Joe Rainey Sr. with an expanded musical palette. The band's intent is to integrate Ojibwe language and culture into mainstream platforms, making Indigenous sounds visible and familiar in daily life and actively pushing back against common stereotypes. Brothers Dylan and Joe believe their work to be an ongoing act of cultural revitalization and their work serves as a crucial tool for cultural preservation.
The band’s performance began with an opening monologue by Jennings that established the spiritual and ethical message within their music, emphasizing generational responsibility. The songs and spoken words explicitly call for listeners to remember the present generation of children who carry on the teachings, as well as the elders who fought to preserve their language and cultural ways.
Bizhiki views their music as a crucial act of cultural and linguistic preservation, aimed at moving Indigenous voices and sounds into contemporary, mainstream spaces.
“I was very, very fortunate and still very fortunate to have opportunities to work with a lot of our elders and a lot of our communities and some of our first language speakers,” Jennings said.
“I never stopped learning,” Rainey added. “Having an Indian center there at my disposal [and] having teachers… that would take their time to sit down with these rambunctious city kids.”
The ultimate goal of blending these styles and seeking mainstream platforms is to make Indigenous culture familiar and visible, they said, thus actively pushing back against stereotypes.
“We wanted to be able to try and normalize our sounds,” Jennings said. “We’re still part of these communities, we’re still here, we’re still strong as ever.”
The band’s name, Bizhiki (Ojibwe for “little buffalo”) comes from American Indian civil rights leader Bawdwaywidun Banaisee (Eddie Benton-Banai). The name honors leaders such as Benton-Banai and Clyde Bellecourt, who, like the band, worked to revitalize their way of life and promote a non-romanticized image of Native Americans.
Jennings and Rainey said their identity is defined by their core roles as community members, stating that their band is secondary to their primary commitment of community service. They said one of their main responsibilities is singing for ceremonies within their people, such as funerals and weddings.
Jennings emphasized that Bizhiki operates with clear boundaries regarding what can be shared publicly, using elders and family, such as his grandmother, as cultural “vetting entities” to protect sacred content.
“When our people need us for things, to sing for funerals, to sing for weddings, to sing for other types of ceremonies, that's where we're at,” Jennings said. “We're never trying to share anything that belongs in those spaces.”
The band views their place in the broader music world as having been validated, especially after an experience at an Eau Claire Music Festival. Rainey recalled the promoter's reaction after hearing them play. “I have never heard anything like that before in my life.” Rainey said he had been told. “It was a real statement to me. This is a very welcoming space to us. We should feel comfortable here."
The band's latest album, released in July 2024, was a deeply personal process that took nearly five years to complete. The creation timeline was heavily influenced by the collective grief they experienced during the pandemic, having lost close relatives and friends.
Jennings explained that the studio sessions served as a sanctuary for the members to process their shared loss.
“We lost some older brothers, some relatives of ours that were really, really close to us,” Jennings said. “We realized when we were getting into the studio together years ago, we were kind of just using it as an outlet for expressing, you know, working through grief. It's really what it was.”
Reflecting on their journey, the band offered advice to young Indigenous artists, emphasizing self-respect, community support and perseverance. Jennings urged aspiring artists to surround themselves with genuine people rather than "yes men," and to find strength in their background.
"As cliche as this sounds, just keep going,” Jennings said. “Be yourself, know where you come from. When you feel grounded, you feel safe. Just keep moving forward."
For young artists, Rainey suggests that they not let difficult emotions stop them from engaging in creative work.
"It's okay to feel how you are feeling when you are feeling those feelings, don't stop creating art," Rainey said. "We need your artistry in every way possible."
He added that supporting family and friends pursuing other professions is fundamental to being a good relative.
"It's free to be a good relative. That's what I say," Rainey said. "If you have a Native artist in your family or your friends... be supportive. Just be a good relative."
