Telling Alaska’s Story: Making music in the Yup’ik language

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Byron Nicholai started out shooting drumming videos on a flip phone from his parent’s living room in Toksook Bay. He would post them to social media and viewers liked them.

Now, almost 10 years later, he has dropped a new album, the second of his blossoming career. He made the move to Anchorage to pull it off because his home village doesn’t have the internet speed needed to produce music. That’s because Nicholai records all of his own music right in his bedroom.

He writes and sings everything in the Yup’ik language, and now, his original works are starting to get noticed.

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