Ronald Mason, known by many as RONN!E The Blue Eyed Native, (Sƛ̕púlmx) Cowlitz Tribe, is a Two-Spirit artist, designer and the production manager at Daybreak Star Radio, an online radio station that plays 90% Native music.
Part two of a five-part series in collaboration with the Museum of Pop Culture, with support from 4Culture.
In collaboration with MoPop for their “WA Untold Pop Culture Stories” series, MoPop wanted to focus on the stories of King County pop culture creators in order to ensure that a more accurate representation of pop culture artists in America are preserved for future generations. As a queer Ojibwe woman I came to this project hoping to bring varying Indigenous stories, identities and perspectives to the forefront. Oral histories are traditionally how many Indigenous people have passed down our culture, customs, and tradition. Through this series we recognize Indigenous pop culture voices, experiences, and perspectives with the intention of honoring and celebrating their unique story.
The second in the series is Ronald Mason, (Sƛ̕púlmx) Cowlitz Tribe, known by many as RONN!E The Blue Eyed Native. RONN!E is a Two-Spirit artist, designer and the production manager at Daybreak Star Radio, an online radio station that plays 90% Native American (encompassing all the Americas from the Arctic to the Antarctic) music, and up to 10% of music from those who specifically support Indigenous causes or have spent significant time learning Native instruments and styles. You will hear everything from traditional drums, Pow Wow, Native flute, and rattles to R&B, Hip Hop, Rock & Roll, Metal, Funk, and more.
We sat at the Daybreak Star Radio headquarters at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center where RONN!E shared their thoughts on the lack of Native representation on mainstream radio stations and the joy they found in helping to uplift those voices through DayBreak Star Radio.
“We’ve gone a long time in the entertainment industry where we had no place or if we had a place, we had no say in it,” RONN!E shared. “We live in a world right now where Brooke Simpson won The Voice, but they still don’t play her on the radio. So that was part of my joy was coming here to be able to help with that aspect of getting the Native voices out there and to make sure that everything we do is culturally respectable. Because we do answer to not just my tribe, but all 574 here in the United States and the hundreds in Canada, the First Nations tribes. We also throw a lot of honor to the Indigenous nations across the globe too, because a lot of them have gone through the same struggles as Native Americans or First Nations.”
Brooke Simpson, Haliwa Saponi Tribe, placed third in season 13 of the NBC singing competition.
RONN!E shared that the work they do at Daybreak Star Radio is their dream job. They are proud to work for a place that didn’t wait for the mainstream to accept or acknowledge Native artists, instead creating something all their own.
“When they created this radio station, it was no more about asking for a seat at the table,” RONN!E said. “It was, ‘We’re going to make our own damn table now.’”
And now that Daybreak Star Radio has created the platform, it has become a place where Native artists can come and speak about Native issues they may not feel comfortable bringing up with non-Native interviewers on mainstream radio and television interviews.
“A lot of us, when we try to have conversations with non-Natives about what we do or the struggles that we have, or a lot of Natives write music about the struggles that we’ve gone through, people don’t really want to talk about that,” RONN!E shared. “It makes them uncomfortable… And that’s why you don’t hear a lot of Natives go on, what’s that one with Kelly Rippa? You [don’t] hear a lot of Natives going on there screaming “Land back.” You just hear them talking about their project and moving on. But we can have full on conversations with these artists.”
RONN!E has interviewed everyone from Stevie Salas, Mescalero Apache descent, guitarist for artists like Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger, and Justin Timberlake who even produced the documentary “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World,” which explores the contributions of Native American musicians to popular music, to Lily Gladstone, Piegan Blackfeet (Siksikaitsitapi) and Nez Perce (Nimíipuu), the breakout lead actor in the movie “Killers of The Flower Moon.”
Looking to the next seven generations, RONN!E advocates for involving the youth in this work through youth interns, and his work with the Cowlitz Tribe as a cultural resources board member and pow wow chair.
“This is definitely important because music is a part of everyone…” RONN!E said, “any song that comes out of an Indigenous voice, it’s important. We gotta keep it alive.”
The full length interview can be found here. The interviews were video and audio recorded and saved in the MoPop Online Collections Vault with over 1,000 others.
You can follow RONN!E, and Daybreak Star Radio on Instagram and listen to Daybreak Star radio on their app or stream the shows from your phone online!
You can read part one featuring Paige Pettibon, descendant of the Bitterroot Salish of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Black & white, highlights the complexity of Indigenous identities, and uplifts shared community values through a range of artistic mediums here.
