There is a little space in the morning before everybody needs something from you. Before the phone starts going off. Before work, school, appointments, bills, and whatever happened yesterday get their turn. The sky starts changing, somebody puts coffee on, and for a minute you can hear yourself think. That is the space I want to talk about. Not because sunrise fixes anything. It does not. But because sometimes a new song meets you there and gives you a different way to carry what is already yours. Something steady. Something you can take into the day without having to explain.

That is where I am placing “I Know,” the collaboration between Shub, known to many listeners as DJ Shub, and Cree singer-songwriter Sebastian Gaskin. The track brings Shub’s electronic production and powwow influences together with Gaskin’s R&B vocals. Those are the credits, and they matter. But the part that interests me most is what happens after the credits, when the music gets into somebody’s car, kitchen, headphones, or workday. What does it make room for? Who does it bring to mind? What does it let us feel without making us explain ourselves first? That is worth sitting with this morning.

Start With the People: Indigenous Music on KHEW Radio

For KHEW 88.5 FM, serving listeners here at Rocky Boy, a music story ought to start with people. Not numbers on a streaming page. Not whether somebody outside our community has finally decided Native artists are worth paying attention to. People. The person driving early. The parent trying to get everybody moving. The young adult figuring out whether leaving home and loving home can both be true. The relative who says they are doing fine, and maybe they are, but you still check. A song can reach all those places without knowing a single name. That is worth our attention.

I do not want to turn every Native song into homework. Sometimes you like a track because the voice catches you. Sometimes the production is clean and you want to hear it again. That is enough. We should be allowed that kind of listening, too. Still, there are songs that open another door once you stay with them. You start thinking about the people who taught you how to care, the ones you miss, and the ones you should probably call back. You realize the music is not asking you to become somebody else. It is making space for you.

What Shub and Sebastian Gaskin Bring to “I Know”

Shub is a Mohawk artist and producer from Six Nations of the Grand River, known for helping shape powwow-step and for his earlier work with A Tribe Called Red. Gaskin is a singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist from Tataskweyak Cree Nation. Their backgrounds are distinct. That matters. Indigenous music is not one sound coming from one place, and Native identity is not a shortcut around learning who somebody actually is. These two artists meet through collaboration, not sameness. On “I Know,” electronic production and an expressive vocal approach share the space, giving the collaboration its own direction rather than flattening either artist.

The most useful detail about the song comes from Gaskin’s description of its starting point. He said they wrote it imagining their cultures as a lover. That idea changes the conversation. Culture becomes something you have a relationship with, not something you perform correctly for an audience. There can be closeness, distance, tenderness, uncertainty, and the decision to keep showing up. I find that more honest than pretending belonging always feels simple. You can love where you come from and still be learning how to hold that love. You can have questions without your connection becoming less real or less yours.

Belonging Without an Audition

Here is what I want a young listener to hear in that conversation: you do not need to arrive finished. You do not need the perfect words every time somebody asks who you are. You do not need to turn your family into an explanation that strangers can understand in thirty seconds. Being Chippewa Cree is not a caption I want polished until it sounds good to everybody else. It is a relationship I want treated with care. There is a difference. One is about presentation. The other asks how you live, how you listen, and how you treat people.

And no, that does not mean everything is automatically easy inside a community. People disagree. Families carry things. Young people get tired of being talked about like a problem waiting for a solution. Older people get tired of feeling unheard. Some days, everybody seems to have advice and nobody seems to have time. I am not interested in covering that up with a pretty sunrise paragraph. I am interested in what helps us stay in conversation anyway. Music cannot do that work for us. It can give us a place to begin without turning the first sentence into an argument.

A Love Song Can Hold More Than Romance

What I like about the idea behind “I Know” is that it leaves room for ordinary feeling. Love does not have to arrive dressed as a big statement. Sometimes it looks like paying attention. Sometimes it sounds like somebody saying your name right. Sometimes it is admitting that a relationship needs more from you than pride. If you approach culture through that lens, the question changes. Instead of asking whether you look connected enough, you start asking what connection needs today. A phone call? Some patience? Showing up? Listening without preparing your answer while the other person is still talking?

That is my reading, not a claim that every listener has to hear the same message. A good song can survive people bringing different lives to it. Somebody might hear romance first. Somebody else might hear longing. Another person might just want that voice and that beat on the ride home. None of those listeners needs permission from me. The point is not to win an interpretation. The point is to pay enough attention that the music can surprise you. We spend plenty of time being told what things mean. There is value in discovering something for yourself and staying curious.

Rocky Boy Is Not a Backdrop

When I say this is a story for Rocky Boy, I do not mean putting our community’s name beside an artist’s name and calling the job finished. I mean asking what the story gives the listener here. Does it respect their intelligence? Does it understand that people can care about music and still have a full life happening around it? Does it leave room for humor, exhaustion, ambition, and regular everyday business? Nobody should have to become a symbol just because they are Native. We deserve stories with enough room for us to be complicated, particular, and fully human here.

That includes how we talk about home. I love the idea of watching the sunrise, but I do not want to sell somebody a postcard version of reservation life. Home can be beautiful and frustrating in the same afternoon. You can want more opportunities without wanting less connection. You can leave for school or work without turning your departure into a judgment on everybody who stays. You can stay and build something without owing anyone an explanation for not leaving. Those choices belong to people, not to a neat story about what a successful Native life is supposed to look like.

What Community Radio Can Make Room For

This is where I think local radio has a responsibility. Not to tell everybody what to feel, and not to pretend one playlist can represent every generation. The responsibility is to pay attention. Say the artist’s name. Get the credit right. Give a song enough context that listeners can meet it honestly. Then let them have their own response. For a KHEW Radio feature, that means treating Native artists as artists, not just as an occasion for a message. Their craft deserves a conversation. Their collaboration deserves one, too. Neither should disappear behind a headline about representation alone or easy inspiration.

It also means remembering the listener who does not follow every release announcement. You should not need a music industry vocabulary to enter the conversation. Shub and Gaskin are bringing different musical strengths together. Start there. Listen for how the voice and production sit beside each other. Notice what draws your attention back. You do not have to prove you understand a genre before deciding a song means something to you. There is enough gatekeeping in the world already. Radio can open a door instead of standing in it, especially when the person approaching that door is hearing something new.

For the Ones Still Figuring It Out

At twenty-five, I do not think having an opinion means pretending you have everything handled. There is a kind of pressure that comes with being old enough for people to expect answers while you are still sorting through the questions. Work. Money. Relationships. Where to live. How to help. What to keep private. What kind of person you are becoming when nobody is watching. I want music coverage that remembers that part of being young. Not a lecture about potential. Not a warning about mistakes. Just recognition that building a life can be exciting and heavy at the same time.

So if you are listening while trying to get yourself together, this is not me telling you a song will straighten everything out. Keep the appointment. Send the application. Have the conversation you have been avoiding. Ask for help when you need it. Music belongs beside those things, not in place of them. What it can offer is company, or a little room to breathe before you do the next difficult thing. Sometimes that is the right size of hope. Not a promise that the whole road clears. Just enough steadiness to take the next part without giving up on yourself.

Connection Is Something We Do

There is another reason the relationship idea stays with me. It makes connection active. Loving a place is not only saying it is yours. It is deciding how you behave toward the people who share it. Are you listening when somebody younger speaks? Are you making room for somebody who is learning? Can you correct a mistake without turning a person into that mistake? I am asking myself those questions, too. Nobody gets a lifetime pass for having the right words in their biography. The part that matters happens afterward, in choices that probably will not get posted anywhere online.

That is also how I want to think about supporting Indigenous music. Not as a task you finish by sharing one link. Listen because the work deserves your attention. Learn which artist made what. Talk about the part that actually moved you instead of reaching for the same broad compliment every time. Let musicians be specific. Let them experiment. Let them make something tender or strange or meant for dancing without demanding that every track explain an entire people. Support feels more real when curiosity comes with it. Otherwise, we are praising the idea of Native creativity without hearing the actual work.

Watching the Sunrise Together

The sunrise in this headline is not a claim about the song’s title. It is a way of thinking about the moment we bring to listening. Morning does not ask whether yesterday went well before it arrives. It just puts another day in front of us. What we do with that is less simple. Some mornings call for energy. Some call for quiet. Some call for a familiar voice telling you something without demanding an answer. A song like “I Know” gives us something to consider in that space: what we love, how we stay connected, and what deserves our care.

For me, the center of this story is people. Shub and Sebastian Gaskin, making something together. The listener finding a feeling they were not looking for. The relatives we carry into a new day, whether they are beside us or far away. Here at KHEW 88.5 FM, that is the conversation I want around the music. Not a perfect speech about identity. Not somebody else’s picture of who we should be. Just a little attention, a little honesty, and something worth hearing while the light comes up. Then we get on with the day, and try to treat each other well.