Expanding the Web: ILI Sparks a Collaboration

In September 2024, The FlipCharts made a trek out to First Peoples Fund’s Oglala Lakota Artspace (OLA) to record new songs at their Wicahpi Olowan music program and film a music video on location.

It all started with a story of a spider. 

Talon Bazille Ducheneaux and Ennis Carter first met during Talon’s ILI Fellowship in Year 3. As the director of Social Impact Studios, Ennis stewards the documentation and story coordination for ILI, which includes getting to know the work of the Fellows and finding ways to amplify it. Talon, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, is a hip-hop & spoken word artist and producer, and was running his own studio to create work and support other Indigenous artists in and outside his community at the time. 

Forward to 2024, Talon is now the Manager of FPF’s Wicahpi Olowan Music Studio & Program and was part of the host team to welcome ILI Year 5  Fellows, Partners, and the ILI Team members during the Lakota Land ILI Cultural Intensive in May 2024.

Sharing stories is a foundation of intercultural learning during ILI cultural intensives. During one of the many experiential excursions, Talon and Ennis reconnected at a lunch table with others - where the stories centered on spiders. A common thread was that spiders seem to show up to give us a glimpse of chaos coming - and to remind us of the power we have to weave our own web over and over again.

Back in Philadelphia, when Ennis and her husband and FlipCharts band-mate Phil Carter began planning the studio recording of their next song “Spider & the Fly,” a collaborative idea formed. 

“I remembered Talon’s story about spiders from my visit to Lakota Land with ILI,” said Ennis. “Phil and I had been exploring an idea of connecting with and supporting other music communities through travel and recording, and this seemed like a perfect way to do both. So, we floated the idea of recording at OLA with Talon.”

"The Oglala Lakota Artspace, themed around Lakota Star Knowledge, aims to serve and support Native Artists, Musicians, Culture Bearers & the community through access to space/studio, recording services, classes, workshops and more,” said Talon. “The FlipCharts’ support in booking a session with us not only helps the work we do in assisting local Indigenous musicians monetarily, but also helps our reputation as a studio in assuring those artists about the space they come to in their home. It means a lot to host The FlipCharts as our first out of state booking!”

Over a 2-day weekend in September, two new songs were recorded, mixed, and mastered together - along with a site-specific music video at the OLA featuring the art and location of the space - and became the first installment of the FlipCharts’ new “SongBridge Travels” series.

"Working with Ennis & Phil was great! I enjoyed the concept behind the lyrics,” said Talon. “The way that they vocally delivered them gave me ideas about how to emulate some of what a cousin of mine calls, "web spinning" within the fx and how I mixed/mastered the project. It was absolutely a pleasure to host them, and to see concepts around the spider take on an intercultural collaboration.”

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