Mali Obomsawin

Mali Obomsawin is an award winning songwriter, bassist and composer from the W8banaki (Abenaki) First Nation at Odanak. With an eclectic background in American roots, jazz, and indie rock, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. A Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist, Mali has received acclaim from NPR and RollingStone and toured internationally with the band Lula Wiles. She was the 2022 recipient of International Folk Music Association's “Rising Tide Award," which recognizes new generation artists who embody the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice. She frequents the folk music circuit as both frontwoman and sidewoman, appearing at festivals like Newport and Philly Folk with Jake Blount and Lula Wiles, and also performs in the creative music scene with the likes of Peter Apfelbaum, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble. She is a member of The Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band and Indigenous Performance Productions' Welcome To Indian Country. As a composer-arranger, she scored the upcoming film We Are Warriors, collaborated with Red Sky Performance and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Palaver Strings. Her debut album, Sweet Tooth, explores Indigenous identity, colonization, and resistance using original compositions for sextet and archival material from the Wabanaki community. Beyond the stage Mali is a community organizer and advocate for Indigenous rights, environmental justice and landback. She works as a writer and educator with Sunlight Media Collective, a Wabanaki-driven media team, to document and promote stories at the intersection of environmental justice and Tribal Sovereignty. Her journalism has been published recently in Smithsonian, National Performance Network, and the Boston Globe. In 2020, Mali co-founded Bomazeen Land Trust, the first ever Wabanaki land trust, where she currently serves as executive director.

Appears on:

OOYH 017: Mali Obomsawin - Sweet Tooth

maliobomsawin.com