Over the last few years, musician, artist, and collaborator Nokosee Fields has proven himself to be one of the most provocative, significant, and capable voices in the North American traditional music scene. A quest for balance shapes his work, whether he’s reconciling the weight of tradition with his creative impulses; challenging the demands and vacuity of colonialist, capitalist structures and systems with the richness of his experience and upbringing as a member of the Osage, Creek and Cherokee Nations; or simply anchoring the beat in the rhythmic push and pull of the multiple bands in which he works.
The great nephew of celebrated Cherokee fiddler Sam O’Fields, Nokosee carries a longstanding Cherokee fiddling tradition into the present. Through powerful live and recorded performances, he lovingly and playfully reimagines his tradition with immense skills and sensitivity as a performer of traditional fiddle music. His prowess has not gone unnoticed: He’s won some of the most prestigious contests in the United States and has performed and taught at flagship festivals and workshops. His recent DIY sourcerror project, released anonymously online, delivers compelling, fresh interpretations of older North American fiddle repertoire. Besides garnering critical acclaim and solidifying his reputation as a leading fiddler and interpreter in the traditional music scene, the project explores the relationships between the archive and embodied performance, using lo-fi audio technologies to critique histories of anthropological field recording practice and the tendency of contemporary roots music industry to fetishize the past. Building off of the sourcerror project, he obtained grant funding to record an album of rare Indigenous, Black, and white fiddle repertoire from North America with his band BOOJUM. The album is now in post-production and will be released in 2022. Beyond his fiddling, he works as a touring musician, playing bass in the country band Western Centuries and in top-tier Old-time bands Hard Drive and the Onlies. An in-demand recording artist and performer, he has recorded and worked alongside some of the most well-known artists in the field–luminaries like Tim O’Brien and Dirk Powell.
As a musician and artist, Nokosee seeks to restore balance to the unbalanced. In seeking balance, he creates work that is as provocative as it is beautiful.