Foundations — 1900 to 1970

• 1913Zitkála-ŠáYankton Dakota — writer and composer who co-wrote The Sun Dance Opera, the first Native American opera.
• 1930sMildred BaileyCoeur d'Alene — one of the great jazz vocalists of the swing era, and among the first Native stars in American popular music.
• 1958Link WrayShawnee — "Rumble," the instrumental that invented the power chord and got banned from radio anyway.
• 1960sPeter La FargeFolk songwriter of the Native protest era; wrote "The Ballad of Ira Hayes."
• 1960sBuffy Sainte-MarieA defining voice of the Native folk-protest movement — "Universal Soldier," "Now That the Buffalo's Gone." Her claimed Cree ancestry was challenged by a 2023 CBC investigation; the dispute is unresolved.
• 1970sRedboneYaqui & Shoshone — the Vegas brothers. "Come and Get Your Love," and the banned "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee."
• 1970sJesse Ed DavisKiowa/Comanche — the guitarist behind Taj Mahal, Lennon, Clapton and Dylan.
• 1971Jim PepperKaw/Muscogee — jazz saxophonist; "Witchi Tai To" fused peyote song with jazz.
• 1972XITNavajo rock band — Plight of the Redman, protest rock from Motown's Rare Earth label.
• Floyd Red Crow WestermanDakota — Custer Died for Your Sins; singer, actor, activist.
• The Densmore Recordings (1907–1940s)Library of Congress — thousands of the earliest recordings of Native song, an archive with a complicated history.

Traditional & Flute

• Doc Tate NevaquayaComanche — the recording that saved the Native flute from disappearing.
• R. Carlos NakaiNavajo/Ute — the most recorded Native flutist in the world.
• Joanne ShenandoahOneida — Grammy winner; a generation's leading traditional voice.
• Northern CreePowwow drum group with multiple Grammy nominations.
• 2026Bear CreekTook the 2026 Juno for Traditional Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year with On the Move.
• Smithsonian Folkways — powwow & ceremonyField recordings across nations.

Rock, Folk, Country & Blues

• Robbie RobertsonMohawk — The Band; later Music for the Native Americans and Scorsese's scores.
• Rita CoolidgeCherokee — two Grammys; later formed Walela.
• Keith SecolaAnishinaabe — "NDN Kars," the unofficial anthem of Indian Country.
• Bill MillerMohican — three-time Grammy winner, folk and flute.
• Pura FéTuscarora — blues singer tracing the Native roots of the blues itself.
• Martha RedboneChoctaw/Cherokee — soul, blues and Appalachian roots.
• Blackfire / SihasinNavajo — punk siblings turned roots-rock; toured with Joey Ramone.
• Samantha CrainChoctaw — indie folk, multiple Native American Music Awards.
• Black Belt Eagle ScoutSwinomish — Katherine Paul's indie rock out of the Pacific Northwest.
• William PrincePeguis First Nation — Juno-winning folk songwriter.
• Raye ZaragozaO'odham — folk songwriter; "In the River" came out of Standing Rock.

Hip-Hop & Electronic

• NOWStella StandingbearOglala Lakota — the first Lakota artist to take two International Indigenous Hip-Hop Awards (2023), two-time NAMMY winner, and an advocate for the MMIW movement. "SKODEN" went viral; she has since played the Phoenix Suns halftime floor.
• The Halluci Nation (A Tribe Called Red)Cayuga/Anishinaabe — powwow-step; the group that put Indigenous electronic music on world stages.
• Snotty Nose Rez KidsHaisla — Polaris-shortlisted hip-hop duo.
• Frank WalnSicangu Lakota — rapper and producer out of Rosebud.
• SupamanApsáalooke — fancy dancer and MC; MTV VMA honoree.
• LitefootCherokee — among the first Native rappers to build a national label.
• DJ ShubMohawk — "the godfather of powwow-step."
• iskwēCree/Métis — art-pop and electronic.

Classical, Opera & Throat Singing

• Jeremy DutcherWolastoqiyik — Polaris Prize 2018 for an album built from 1907 wax-cylinder recordings of his own ancestors.
• Tanya TagaqInuk — Polaris Prize 2014; still at the front of it. Her fifth album Saputjiji (2026) made the Polaris short list, written in open anger at colonisation and forced assimilation.
• Brent Michael DavidsMohican — classical composer and film scorer.
• Mato WayuhiOglala Lakota — composer of the Reservation Dogs score.

Breaking Now — 2024 to 2026

• 2026AysanabeeOji-Cree, Sucker Creek First Nation — swept the 2026 Junos with Contemporary Indigenous Artist and Alternative Album of the Year for Edge of the Earth. The biggest current crossover in Indigenous music.
• NOWSiibiiSigned to Ishkõdé Records and Universal Music Canada; Juno-nominated, and winner of the National Arts Centre emerging artist award. Pop that goes straight at addiction, violence, sexuality and urban Native life.
• NOWBrettyn RoseCountry — 2025 SiriusXM Top of the Country semifinalist with five Country Music Alberta nominations.
• NOWSunsetto · Lov · Cat ClydeIndie pop, R&B and folk — three more on CBC's 2026 list to know. Sunsetto's debut The Sun, the Moon and the Big Machine landed in 2024.
• Earth Surface People · Sage CorneliusThe Recording Academy's own list of Indigenous artists to know.

Abya Yala — Mexico, Central & South America

• Lila DownsMixtec — Grammy winner singing in Mixtec, Zapotec, Nahuatl, Maya and Spanish.
• Sara CurruchichMaya Kaqchikel (Guatemala) — sings in Kaqchikel and Spanish.
• Renata FloresQuechua (Peru) — "the queen of Quechua rap."
• Andean & Amazonian recordingsSmithsonian Folkways collections.
• Yaqui deer songs (maso bwikam)Smithsonian Folkways — the deer singers of Sonora.

Awards, Charts & Where to Listen

• Native American Music AwardsThe Nammys — three decades of winners, searchable by genre.
• Polaris Music PrizeCanada's album prize — won by Tagaq, Dutcher and others.
• Smithsonian Folkways — American Indian catalogueThe deepest legal archive of Native recordings anywhere.
• KSUT Tribal RadioFounded by the Southern Ute — streaming Indian Country daily.
• Native America CallingNational live call-in radio, with regular music programming.
• Indigenous Music CountdownThe weekly chart — the fastest way to see who is breaking right now.
• Daybreak Star RadioSeattle's Indigenous station — every genre, all Native artists.
• International Indigenous Hip Hop AwardsWhere the next wave gets named first.

Cinema — The Essentials

• 1998Smoke SignalsChris Eyre & Sherman Alexie — the first widely released feature written, directed and acted by Native people.
• 2001Atanarjuat: The Fast RunnerZacharias Kunuk — entirely in Inuktitut; Cannes Caméra d'Or, and often called the greatest Canadian film ever made.
• 2009Reel InjunNeil Diamond (Cree) — a century of Hollywood's Indian, dismantled. Start here.
• 2013Rhymes for Young GhoulsJeff Barnaby (Mi'kmaq) — residential school revenge story.
• 2019Blood QuantumJeff Barnaby — a zombie plague where only the Mi'kmaq are immune.
• 2021Night RaidersDanis Goulet (Cree/Métis) — dystopia built on the residential school system.
• 2022PreyAmber Midthunder (Fort Peck) as a Comanche warrior — released with a full Comanche-language dub, a first for a major studio film. Produced by Jhane Myers (Comanche); director Dan Trachtenberg is not Native.
• 2023Killers of the Flower MoonThe Osage murders. Lily Gladstone became the first Native American nominated for Best Actress. Directed by Martin Scorsese, who is not Native, with Osage consultation on language, dress and ceremony throughout.
• 2023Fancy DanceErica Tremblay (Seneca-Cayuga) — a search for a missing sister on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation.
• 1989Powwow HighwayGary Farmer and A Martinez on a road trip out of Northern Cheyenne country, from David Seals' novel. The director was not Native.
• 2015IxcanulIn Kaqchikel, with an Indigenous Maya cast, on the slopes of a Guatemalan volcano. Director Jayro Bustamante is Guatemalan but not Indigenous.

Documentary

• Sugarcane (2024)Julian Brave NoiseCat & Emily Kassie — investigation into a residential school; Academy Award nominee.
• Lakota Nation vs. United States (2022)The fight for the Black Hills, told by the Lakota.
• Gather (2020)Native food sovereignty — the companion to our Food of the Americas record. Native subjects and producers; director Sanjay Rawal is not Native.
• 2025Free Leonard Peltier (2025)Jesse Short Bull & Jhane Myers — a new generation fighting to free Peltier before he dies. Premiered at Sundance.
• 2025Endless Cookie (2025)Two half-brothers — one Indigenous, one white — between Shamattawa and 1980s Toronto. Animated documentary.
• Incident at Oglala (1992)The Leonard Peltier case. Directed by Michael Apted, who was not Native — see Free Leonard Peltier above for the Native-made account.
• Sundance Indigenous ProgramThe Native Lab and festival slate — where next year's films are being made now.

Television & Streaming

• Reservation DogsFX/Hulu, 2021–2023 — Sterlin Harjo & Taika Waititi. The first series with an all-Indigenous writing and directing team. The landmark.
• North of NorthNetflix/CBC, 2025 — Inuit comedy shot in Nunavut, in Iqaluktuuttiaq.
• Spirit RangersNetflix, 2022– — animated series created by Karissa Valencia (Chumash), with an all-Native writers' room.
• Dark WindsAMC, 2022– — Navajo Nation police thriller from the Leaphorn & Chee novels; Zahn McClarnon.
• Rutherford FallsPeacock, 2021–2022 — co-created by Sierra Teller Ornelas (Navajo).
• EchoMarvel/Disney+, 2024 — Alaqua Cox (Menominee) as a deaf Choctaw hero; Choctaw language and history throughout.
• Little Bird2023 — the Sixties Scoop, told through one woman's search for her family.
• TricksterCBC, 2020 — from Eden Robinson's Haisla novels.
• Molly of DenaliPBS — the first US children's series led by an Alaska Native character; Peabody winner.

Art — The Modern Masters

• c.1900NampeyoHopi-Tewa — the potter who revived and transformed ancient Sikyatki design.
• 1920sMaria MartinezSan Ildefonso Pueblo — the black-on-black pottery known worldwide.
• Oscar HoweYanktonai Dakota — broke the "traditional Indian painting" mold and forced the art world to widen.
• Allan HouserChiricahua Apache — the foremost Native sculptor of the 20th century.
• Fritz ScholderLuiseño — the Indian No. 1 paintings that detonated the genre.
• T.C. CannonKiowa/Caddo — colorist and poet of the new Native painting.
• Norval MorrisseauAnishinaabe — founder of the Woodland School.
• Bill ReidHaida — the sculptor on Canada's twenty-dollar bill.

Art — Working Now

• Jeffrey GibsonChoctaw/Cherokee — first Indigenous artist to represent the United States solo at the Venice Biennale (2024).
• Jaune Quick-to-See SmithSalish — the Whitney's first retrospective of a Native artist (2023).
• Kent MonkmanCree — his commissioned canvases hung in the Met's Great Hall.
• Wendy Red StarApsáalooke — photography and archive interventions.
• Cannupa Hanska LugerMandan/Hidatsa/Arikara/Lakota — monumental social-practice sculpture.
• Kay WalkingStickCherokee — landscape painting that reclaims the land it depicts.
• Rose B. SimpsonSanta Clara Pueblo — ceramic and steel figures.
• Marie WattSeneca — blanket and textile work made in community sewing circles.
• 2026The Whitney Biennial 2026 cohortRaven Halfmoon (Caddo), Anna Tsouhlarakis (Navajo), Nani Chacon (Navajo/Cree) and Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa) — Indigenous women at the center of America's defining survey show.
• 2026Raven HalfmoonCaddo Nation — monumental ceramic figures, inside the Whitney and out on the street.
• Seba Calfuqueo · Gabriel ChaileMapuche (Chile) and Argentine — Indigenous South America at Venice and the Whitney; Calfuqueo's first European solo opens in Madrid in 2026.

Where to See It

• Smithsonian NMAIWashington & New York.
• IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native ArtsSanta Fe — the center of the contemporary field.
• The Heard MuseumPhoenix.
• SWAIA Santa Fe Indian MarketThe largest Native arts market in the world, each August.

Foundations — 1829 to 1960

• 1829William Apess — A Son of the ForestPequot — the first full autobiography published by a Native American. His "Eulogy on King Philip" is still one of the fiercest speeches in American letters.
• 1854John Rollin Ridge — Joaquín MurietaCherokee — the first novel published by a Native American, written by a man whose father was killed over the Treaty of New Echota.
• 1883Sarah Winnemucca — Life Among the PiutesNorthern Paiute — the first book published by a Native American woman.
• 1911Charles Eastman — The Soul of the IndianSantee Dakota — physician at Wounded Knee, and one of the most widely read Native authors of his era.
• 1921Zitkála-Šá — American Indian StoriesYankton Dakota — boarding school as she lived it, written while she was also composing opera.
• 1927Mourning Dove — CogeweaOkanogan — among the first novels written by a Native woman.
• 1932Black Elk — Black Elk SpeaksOglala Lakota — the most famous Native book in the world, and one filtered through poet John Neihardt. Read it knowing that.
• 1936D'Arcy McNickle — The SurroundedSalish/Kootenai — the bridge between the early writers and the Renaissance.

The Native American Renaissance

• 1968N. Scott Momaday — House Made of DawnKiowa — the Pulitzer in 1969 that opened the door for everyone after him.
• 1969Vine Deloria Jr. — Custer Died for Your SinsStanding Rock Sioux — the manifesto that reset Native politics and scholarship at once.
• 1974James Welch — Winter in the Blood & Fools CrowBlackfeet/Gros Ventre.
• 1977Leslie Marmon Silko — CeremonyLaguna Pueblo — a returning veteran healed by story. Widely taught, rightly.
• 1984Louise Erdrich — Love MedicineTurtle Mountain Chippewa — the first of the great North Dakota cycle; she later took the 2021 Pulitzer for The Night Watchman.
• Gerald VizenorWhite Earth Anishinaabe — novelist and theorist who gave us "survivance."
• Paula Gunn Allen — The Sacred HoopLaguna Pueblo — recovered the feminine in Native tradition.
• Simon J. OrtizAcoma Pueblo — poet of land, labor and continuance.
• Sherman AlexieSpokane/Coeur d'Alene — The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven; wrote Smoke Signals. In 2018 he was accused of sexual harassment by several women and returned his Carnegie Medal; noted here rather than omitted.

Contemporary Fiction

• 2018Tommy Orange — There ThereCheyenne & Arapaho — urban Native Oakland; Pulitzer finalist. Wandering Stars followed in 2024.
• Louise Erdrich — The Night WatchmanPulitzer 2021, built from her grandfather's fight against termination.
• Cherie Dimaline — The Marrow ThievesMétis — Governor General's Award; residential schools rewritten as dystopia.
• Michelle Good — Five Little IndiansCree — five survivors after the school. Governor General's Award.
• Waubgeshig Rice — Moon of the Crusted SnowAnishinaabe — a northern community when the power goes out for good.
• Katherena Vermette — The BreakMétis — Winnipeg, told through the women of one family.
• Terese Marie Mailhot — Heart BerriesNlaka'pamux — a memoir written like a blade.
• Angeline Boulley — Firekeeper's DaughterSault Ste. Marie Chippewa — the YA thriller that went straight to No. 1.

Speculative, Horror & Genre

• Stephen Graham JonesBlackfeet — The Only Good Indians, My Heart Is a Chainsaw. The most decorated horror writer working.
• Rebecca RoanhorseHugo and Nebula winner; her Between Earth and Sky series builds epic fantasy from pre-contact Americas. Her earlier use of Diné material drew objection from Diné writers.
• Darcie Little Badger — ElatsoeLipan Apache — Nebula winner; Apache teen detective with the power to raise ghosts.
• Love Beyond Body, Space & TimeIndigenous two-spirit and queer science fiction anthology.

Poetry

• Joy HarjoMuscogee — the first Native United States Poet Laureate (2019–2022).
• 2021Natalie Diaz — Postcolonial Love PoemMojave/Akimel O'odham — the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
• Layli Long Soldier — WhereasOglala Lakota — a book-length answer to the U.S. apology to Native peoples that was signed quietly and never read aloud.
• Sherwin BitsuiDiné — Flóod Song, Dissolve.
• Tommy PicoKumeyaay — book-length poems in the voice of the very online.
• Billy-Ray BelcourtDriftpile Cree — youngest ever Griffin Poetry Prize winner.
• When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came ThroughHarjo's Norton anthology — the single best entry point to Native poetry.

History & Nonfiction — Native Authors

• 2023Ned Blackhawk — The Rediscovery of AmericaWestern Shoshone — National Book Award. American history rewritten with Native nations at the center.
• 2019David Treuer — The Heartbeat of Wounded KneeOjibwe — Native America from 1890 to now, told as survival rather than ending.
• Nick Estes — Our History Is the FutureLower Brule Sioux — Standing Rock inside the long tradition of Indigenous resistance.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer — Braiding SweetgrassPotawatomi — botany and Indigenous knowledge braided together; years on the bestseller lists.
• Dina Gilio-Whitaker — As Long as Grass GrowsIndigenous environmental justice from colonization to Standing Rock.
• Deborah A. Miranda — Bad IndiansOhlone-Costanoan Esselen — a tribal memoir assembled from the archive's wreckage.
• Jesse Wente — UnreconciledAnishinaabe — on reconciliation, and refusing the comfortable version of it.

Abya Yala — Latin America

• Popol VuhK'iche' Maya — the creation epic that survived the burning of the codices.
• Rigoberta Menchú — I, Rigoberta MenchúK'iche' Maya — Nobel Peace Prize 1992. Anthropologist David Stoll disputed details of the testimony; the Nobel committee declined to revisit the award.
• Humberto Ak'abalK'iche' Maya (Guatemala) — wrote in K'iche' and Spanish; declined his country's national prize over its namesake's record on Indigenous people.
• Natalia ToledoZapotec (Oaxaca) — poet writing in Didxazá.
• Elicura ChihuailafMapuche (Chile) — first Indigenous winner of Chile's National Literature Prize, 2020.
• Mikeas SánchezZoque (Chiapas) — the first published woman poet writing in Zoque.

Where to Find It

• Birchbark BooksLouise Erdrich's Native-owned bookstore in Minneapolis — ships anywhere.
• University of Arizona Press — Sun TracksThe longest-running Native literary series in the country.
• University of Nebraska PressNative Storiers and the deepest Native Studies list in publishing.
• IAIA MFA in Creative WritingSanta Fe — where a large share of the next generation is trained.
• Native Writers' Circle of the AmericasLifetime achievement awards and the First Book Award.