Nahko Bear Knows The Healing Power Of Music Through 'Moving Your Bodies'

For nearly ten years now, Portland-based world music collective Nahko & Medicine For The People have been conducting an ambitious quest to change the world for the better using the dual weapons of music and community.

Their 2016 release Hoka took this journey to the next level, with its intensely personal lyrics coalescing into a strong message about forgiveness and responding to adversity. "I keep thinking about how music obviously lasts beyond your time, and it's definitely a great chapter of a time for us that was sort of the marking of us coming together as a band," reflects frontman Nahko Bear. "We were able to refocus our time, because we hadn't really been able to work together on that level before, so it really shaped us in a good way, and set us up for a really powerful year of composing and next level activism and bringing some really important messages and inquiries and challenges to our community through the music."

"It continues to be a revolving experience — it's social work at the end of the day."

As anyone who has experienced Nahko and the gang in the flesh will attest, they find the best place to build such community is at their live show. "It's a place where you can create a safe environment to have discussions and dialogue through music and through just speaking to people and having this inclusive response happen, whether it's through them singing back with you or just getting an overall energy playing with them," Bear enthuses. "It's an inclusive effort and I love going to shows like that, and I love being able to create a show that's so eccentric and focussed on the listener and their willingness to transform with you and to go to those places and take a look at that through music and through moving their bodies with each other and just having this experience — an experience where they can walk away having learned something."

Bear is a firm believer in music's redemptive and healing properties, and seeks actual change rather than mere lip service. "When evolving the message it always has to pertain to yourself first — as a writer and even in your special connection the work of the self is so critical to the work that you put out in the world," he proffers. "There's no question or not whether I've made a difference, it continues to be a revolving experience — it's social work at the end of the day.

"I need to see real results on a social level, and as I'm getting results from nature and nature responds to me in very unique and trippy ways, I fully recognise the power that music has to transform lives and to speak a language that is universal but not commonly used anymore for social and political change, too. It's fun — I'm having a blast, bro."