Native Threads Featured Artist Profile: Marcus "Quese" Frejo
Born in Oklahoma City, Quese’s first exposure to rap and hip hop came through his older brother’s interest in this music, listening alongside as his older brother experimented with a microphone, a mixer and a few record turntables. Quese absorbed the influence of “old school” rappers such as Run DMC and Public Enemy. By the age of fourteen he was performing his own lyrics at local and regional shows. Quese’s mother is a full-blooded Seminole, his father half-Pawnee and half Mexican-American. His Indian name, Quese Cachahvce Little eagle, means, “white tiger opposing the enemy little eagle.”
Quese’s talents quickly moved beyond lyrical composition, and he soon began composing and producing his own music. His contemporary influences grew to include like-minded rappers seeking out and challenging cultural boundaries, such as Mos Def, De La Soul and Common. As his interests led him to develop his talents as a composer and producer, his energy propelled him in performances at hip hop celebrations and MC “battle” competitions in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Dallas, and his home state of Oklahoma, including performances on Native American reservations throughout the country.
“I’m a sheep in wolf’s clothing, a wolf in shepherd’s skin
messaging through smoke signals, satellite and medicine.
Not a veteran, but a young man, with fist-clenched one hand
With one smile, one cause, one life, but with one plan.”
These lyrics offer just a glimpse of both the weight and fluidity of the verses through which Quese creates a vivid portrait of the world. His goal is to invite his audience to acknowledge and engage Native American culture through its languages, which are dangerously close to extinction. His musical influences are filtered through the traditions of community, as heard in the oral records that he creates and incorporates into his music.
Quese interviews traditional people in order to weave archival oral testimonies into his music as both audio artifacts and testimony to the experiences of these peoples in contemporary American society. In one remarkable interview that evokes a sense of both immense loss and fragile hope, a Native American expresses his feelings about the treatment of his people, both historically and currently.
The bond between Quese and his subject is evident as Quese learns that the man is Seminole Creek: The man delivers a message of defiant hope to anyone who might be listening, proclaiming, “We’re still alive… and we’re still here.”
As a hip hop beat fades in, the man’s voice fades out as he talks about the sadness he feels of being able to speak their Native language, but having no one to speak it with. Quese allows the man to speak his native language to a new audience through a medium as much a part of him personally as it is a part of mainstream culture today.
QUESE / MC
Opening act for:
• Snoop Dogg
• Ludacris
• Tyrese
• Cee-Lo
• Archie
• Clipse
• Petey Pablo
• Bone, Thugs and Harmony
• Eyedea
• Atmosphere
• Grandmaster Flash
• The Pharcyde
• Hieroglyphics
• Visionaries
• Kumbia Kings
• dc Talk
Performed on the following Native American reservations:
• Lowerbrule
• Pine Ridge
• Crow Creek
• Muckleshoot
• Salish-Kootenai
• Crow
• Owyhee
• Salt River
• Hopi
• Navajo
• Jemez
• Santo Domingo
• Prairie Band Pottowotomie
• Upper-Sioux
• Ho-Chunk
• Meskwaki
• Traverse Bay
• Choctaw Mississippi
• Narragansett-Shinnecock
• Seminole (OK., FL.)
MC Battle Winner:
• Celebration of Hip Hop MC battle champ, St. Paul, Minneapolis.
• Oklahoma Blaze MC Battle Winner, Oklahoma City, OK
• 97.9 The Beat Hip Hop station MC Battle winner, Dallas, Texas.
• Texas Coca-Cola MC Battle winner, Texas.
• Gypsy Tea Room/Furious Styles Anniversary MC Battle winner, Phoenix AZ.
TV/Print Appearances:
• MTV/Def Jam MC battle contest semi-finalist (MTV 2)
• The Source magazine (August 1999)
• Various Appearances on MTV, CSPAN, WB
Miscellaneous:
• Recording studio owner & entrepreneur.
• Has completed four full-length albums.
For more info contact: Tina Santomauro, tingermusic@hotmail.com/646.251.5430
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