Ep. 48: Two Lands, One Sound: Indigenous Music from Aotearoa to Turtle Island with Theia

Turtle Island (aka North America) meets Aotearoa (aka New Zealand), and the stories of Indigenous resistance mirror each other. Dr. Candace Manitopyes speaks with Māori artist Theia, whose music is less performance and more ceremony. Candace describes experiencing Theia’s live show as a moment of kinship across oceans, a palpable spiritual recognition that transcends borders and mirrors the shared wounds of colonization. Theia speaks about her journey from major-label constraints to full creative sovereignty, describing how leaving the industry machine allowed her to create the music she was born to make—music that confronts misogyny, racism, religious trauma, and the violent legacies of colonialism. Through her songs, she carries her grandmother’s stories, the generational scars of language loss, and the relentless fight for Māori sovereignty. The conversation moves into the political crisis unfolding in Aotearoa, where treaty rights, language, protests, and Māori cultural practices are under attack. Theia names both the devastation and the uprising—the collective defiance, the resurgence of language learners, artists, healers, and community protectors refusing to disappear. Candace and Theia speak to the alchemy of art: how music becomes medicine, how beauty can hold the darkness without collapsing, and how Indigenous women carry fire in ways the world is only beginning to understand.IG: @theiaofficialxo  -Relentless Actions1. Name one belief about your worth, your culture, your voice, or your ancestors that didn’t come from you but from colonial conditioning. Write it down. Then write the truth beneath it. Burn, shred, or bury the lie. Keep the truth visible.2. Choose an action that requires courage (emailing a representative, donating to an Indigenous-led movement, showing up physically, correcting someone’s harmful language, or publicly naming the injustice happening in Aotearoa and on Turtle Island). Let the action stretch you.Relentless Reflections1. Where am I still choosing comfort over justice, and who pays the price when I stay quiet? Sit with this without defending yourself. Let it sting. Let it teach you something about the gap between the person you are and the person you’re becoming.2. What part of me is still afraid of my own power, and who taught me to fear it in the first place? Trace that fear back (family, church, school, government, media). When you see its origin, ask yourself: What would my life look like if I stopped inheriting their limitations and started inheriting my courage instead?ResourcesResistance in Indigenous Music: A Continuum of Sound, academic article A Radical Revival: Indigenous Music Strikes Chords that Cross Borders, an article Send Us a Text with Your Thoughts or Questions!Join the RIW Patreon Community RIW WebsiteMusic Produced by Award-Winning Anishnaabe DJ Boogey the Beat