[piano intro] [upbeat bluegrass music] - [Announcer] Come along for our journey to find the people whose dedication and passion come to life.

♪ They freak when they see the low frequency ♪ ♪ The puppet MC made of PVC ♪ - [Announcer] To amuse, entertain and inspire, these hands and hearts are joining to make a difference with culture and beauty.

It's all on "My Home", coming up next.

[upbeat bluegrass music] All across the state, we're uncovering the unique stories that make North Carolina my home.

♪ Come home ♪ ♪ Come home ♪ [music fades] [calming music] - [Luke] I grew up on the Qualla Boundary.

There's just always this feeling of belonging.

You know, being in this area.

[water trickling] Cherokees are from Oklahoma.

When they come back here, they just feel like they're home.

Being in Kansas for 12 years, every time I came home it was like...

I was like renewed, I guess.

There's just something about this place that is special.

You know, being who I am, I always wanted to come back and help my people in some way.

You know, my thought was, "Oh, I'm gonna come back and work for the tribe," but that didn't really pan out.

You know, there's not as many jobs available, so I had to figure out a way to give back and I think I have figured out a way to do that by creating Buffalotown.

[calming music continues] Buffalotown is a company that me and my wife started in 2017 and it started out as just t-shirts, that with a Cherokee focus.

I like to think of our brand nowadays as a lifestyle.

It's kind of a way to show people who we are, where we're from, and to kinda show that connection to the community and the culture.

So growing up, you know, being a native kid, the only way to identify as a native person was to rock something like a Cleveland Indian hat or Redskins hat or shirt or whatever.

It's just anything we could find with a native on it.

Now these days, there's an alternative to that to say, this is something authentic, authentically Cherokee and we can rep this and show who we really are.

Hopefully, I'm offering something to the youth now that they can say that, "Hey, that's my culture.

I can take that, I can wear that.

I can kind of be proud of who I am."

[calming music continues] Osiyo, my name is Luke Swimmer, owner of Buffalotown Clothing with my wife, Tabitha.

And Snowbird, AKA Buffalotown is my home.

[mellow funk music] This is what the shorts look like when I'm working on the designs like these all have new basket designs in them.

And that's what people don't understand.

It's like, I didn't just take it and copy and paste.

Like I had to actually reweave the dang basket design, one splint at a time on the computer.

You just kinda gotta let the pattern speak to you.

And it's not like I'm sitting down knocking out these designs in an afternoon.

It's like, man, it takes months of planning and design work and everything else to get to that final product.

It's cool, I've heard people say like, "I like what you're doing.

You're making our stuff cool again or you're helping make our stuff cool or making the young people wanna wear their culture more."

Because not a lot of people carry baskets anymore.

But if we can take those patterns and put 'em on other stuff that people do carry like maybe book bags or shorts or shirts.

I mean, that's still kinda repping who we are in like a new way.

So, ton of respect for basket weavers and to make it with your hands and like pottery to go around and make all these designs.

I mean it's crazy.

[inspirational music] It's kinda surreal thinking of where we started to now, seeing it in multiple stores.

You know, we're over the mountain in REI.

We carry in the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Qualla Creations downtown, a couple stores here in Cherokee and looking to expand.

I mean, we get people reach out and say, "You know, I wanna carry your brand."

But we kinda have to take a look at the store and see if it kind of falls in line with what we're trying to do.

[inspiring music continues] Everything that we sell in stores, it's always exclusive to that store.

So not everybody's gonna have the same shirt.

We're gonna make you kinda do some work if you want all the designs or shorts or whatever.

So, we just don't wanna throw any old design in whatever store.

[inspiring music continues] - And here we are at REI in Pigeon Forge and this is our Buffalotown section.

We have been really happy as an REI store to be able to partner with Luke Swimmer.

It's been a really awesome way that we've been able to engage with people who are just coming to visit the park for the first time.

It gets to go past what you think of, when you think of like a Smoky Mountain National Park souvenir, you actually get to take a piece of culture with you.

So we have the spider design as well as these panther designs.

And then what's been really cool is these designs with an arrowhead with the Kuwohi name.

It's been an ongoing project to bring back the name Kuwohi to what a lot of people know as Clingman's Dome.

And these have been a great way to engage with people and just bring light to the people that have called this land home for a very long time.

[inspirational music continues] - So it's kinda like looking at the old patterns and the old baskets and the old artwork.

It's like at some point that was a new design, that was something new for people.

You know, that was that artist's interpretation of what was going on around them at that time.

So it's kinda like me and another smaller group of artists who have kinda taken that and like, "Well let's create new patterns and new designs or let's take old designs and revamp them and make them popular again," so that it's not just shirts and stickers.

It's fellowship.

It's people coming together with a common goal I guess.

It's us as Cherokee people having that resistance and that ingrained in us to keep going and to do whatever it takes to survive.

[gentle music] Growing up I didn't grow up with anything.

You know, I didn't have a lot of stuff.

So I always seen my dad and my grandma, if we needed extra money, they would create something, 'cause they were all potters.

So they would make pottery, go to town and sell it.

And that wasn't unique to our family.

That was a common practice for a lot of families here in Buffalotown.

It was kinda my way of making something and making money so that I can support my family.

I got five kids now, so we got a household.

[laughs] - So it started out Luke had some extra money, extra prize money from the Powwow, and that's how we did our first run of shirts.

And it was a super small run, but we just set up on the outdoor courts down here and that's how we sold it.

He started out with $500 and that's how he got it.

It's crazy to see where we started and see how much we've grown over time.

Hopefully, you see our stuff all over the US now.

I'm thankful for sure.

A lot of our customers are repeated customers from the area and I'm really thankful for them, for the support that they've shown over the time.

They're the reason why where we're at now.

- Yeah, so this is the annual 4th of July Powwow.

It's like our biggest event every year.

You know, this Powwow's always been around since I was a kid.

And I think I've been dancing like 13 years now.

I just always kind of was attracted to the style of dance.

And when it was my time to start dancing, I was like, "Now I wanna be a chicken dancer."

And ever since then, I've been a chicken dancer.

And the dance is to imitate the prairie-chicken.

It's like a little grouse type bird out, Great Plains kinda area.

It does like a mating dance.

Like when we're out there dancing, yeah, we're imitating that bird.

And it comes from the Cree and Blackfeet people up near Canada.

- [Announcer] Fingerman's chicken.

Good luck, gentlemen.

[cultural drumming] Medicine Dale.

[bells jingling] - I dance Powwow just to be connected.

It's a way to show who I am as a native person and take pride in that.

The biggest thing I want is that connection to the community and the culture.

And we're awesome people.

You know, we have a killer history.

I mean, all the resistance that we went through.

I mean everything that the United States tried to do to get rid of us and we stayed here and we did what we had to do to survive.

So, that's the big thing, the understanding.

I mean, at the end of the day, it's just a t-shirt, but it's cool that that shirt has kinda created these emotions and feelings and everything you want as a brand.

You know, it's awesome to see people that I don't know wearing the brand, people that I look up to wearing the brand.

We're for everybody and we're a community and I wanna send that message to people like, "You don't have to work for the tribe to help your people and you can do all kinds of things.

It doesn't have to be a nine to five."

So just like all the native people in my community that I seen growing up, like making baskets, making pottery, to kinda supplement their income.

Just have fun and keep it fresh and make the people proud if you can.

[cultural drumming fades] [calming music] - My name is Tarish Pipkins, AKA Jeghetto.

I'm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

[calming music continues] I started building puppets 14 years ago.

I've been in the game.

[materials clattering] The thing that got me into puppets, I was always a visual artist.

I was doing these wire sculptures.

I called it 3D scribble.

One day, I decided to put a clothes on one to actually make it move.

So it was a really crude abstract wire puppet with clothes on it.

I named him W Livewire.

I started working with different materials, all recycled like a scrap wood, PVC, and just started developing my craft.

[calming music continues] [scissors snipping] When I'm building a puppet, I notice once it's coming to completion, I actually start talking to them once they get, you know, reach a certain point of development.

They actually grow into a personality.

If you know, let's say I would drop one, I would actually apologize and speak to the puppet.

You know, tell them I'm sorry.

[laughs] I mean, it might seem a little weird, but they're a part of me.

So I consider my puppets an extension of me.

♪ They freak when they see the low frequency ♪ ♪ The puppet MC made of PVC ♪ ♪ Best of both worlds ♪ ♪ Hip-hop and puppetry ♪ ♪ Throw your hands up in the air if you're feeling me ♪ ♪ Jeghetto, the puppet maker, my creator ♪ ♪ Wrote rhymes on the iPad trying to save paper ♪ ♪ One with puppet theater up in here ♪ ♪ We all family, let's make that clear ♪ ♪ Kicking that boom bap old school rap ♪ ♪ Whoever would've thought ♪ ♪ That a puppet would bring it back ♪ ♪ Yo rock 'em, shock 'em robot, flows red hot ♪ ♪ When it comes to ripping mics, I gave it all I got ♪ ♪ They freak when they see the low frequency ♪ ♪ The puppet MC made of PVC ♪ ♪ Yo, they freak when they see the low frequency ♪ ♪ The puppet MC made of PVC ♪ [puppet roars] [indistinct chattering] [puppet roars] [puppet roars] [puppet roars] [puppet roars] [puppet roars] [child shrieks] [Tarish laughs] [indistinct chattering] My long-term goal in puppetry, it's actually own my own puppet theater.

Like have the own building and do workshops with children and have kids do everything from writing plays to building puppets, sale distribution, merchandise.

I just want to teach entrepreneurship to kids through puppetry.

- You want us to cut it right here?

- [Tarish] Lemme see.

Put it on top on one foot [indistinct].

People don't know that puppetry is considered a high art like composing orchestra or playing an instrument.

There's a lot involved in it.

Learn something, teach it, pass it along.

Then you move along wherever you go after you die.

[calming music] [indistinct chattering] I do have an example of puppetry being like this deep emotional medium too.

I did a show called "The Shadow Box".

It was a screenplay written in the '70s about a hospice.

And there were three families dealing with a dying family member in a hospice.

So I built the puppets and the director said, "You know what?

Let's not put faces on the puppets.

Let's leave the faces blank."

But we still put hair and clothes on them.

At the end of the show, audience members were coming up to us after the show like, "How did you make that puppet smile?"

Or, "How did you make the puppet frown and cry?"

And me and the director looked at each other like, "There are no faces on the puppets."

People were so drawn to the story that they projected faces on the puppets.

So things like that happen and I mean, how can you explain that?

[calming music continues] [shoes shuffling] There have been periods in certain societies, especially kingdoms [group cheers] where puppetry was banned because it was so renegade against society, basically against the powers that be.

They would have street performances and say basically there was a king that ruled and there were puppeteers who were speaking out against that king through puppetry.

And I mean, people were like arrested and executed.

So I'm a rebel.

I'm against oppression.

Basically at heart, I'm an anarchist in the true definition of anarchy which is no ruler, no slave.

No master, no slave.

The main thing that makes me a good puppeteer is my passion for the art.

I don't stop.

I am puppetry.

[calming music fades] [funky music] - When people come to see me do a poem or come to the theater or hear a piece of music from the band, first I want them to enjoy it.

Hopefully it sparked something in them, at least a bit of creativity or positive thought.

And also, I hope that they learn something in the process.

Whether it's about Black people specifically, whether it's about myself or whether it's about them.

I want them to be able to learn something and takes something away from what they got out of the experience.

[funky music continues] Y'all show your love for Courtney on the bass.

[audience member cheers] My name is Quentin Talley and my home is Charlotte, North Carolina.

♪ When you discover the truth ♪ ♪ And when your dreams come true ♪ ♪ Baby, say what you will ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm here for the kill ♪ I'm a artist.

I do multiple things in art.

Started as an actor, moved on to directing, producing, community organizing, curation.

Actually, my love for the art started very early.

I grew up in Greenwood, South Carolina.

And then first grade, then our teacher told us, whoever got the highest grade on the test would be able to choose their part in our school play.

I got the highest grade and the school play was "The Little Gingerbread Boy".

Of course, The Little Gingerbread Boy looked like me.

He had the same color as me, so I became The Little Gingerbread Boy in first grade and my career has taken off since then.

[funky music fades] Y'all show your love for the band one more time.

[audience cheers] My work reflects the Black experience in various ways.

You know, I grew up a southern kid.

A lot of my stories and especially on the poetry side reflects that in telling stories.

There's so much going on in the world, it's always good to kinda decipher all the craziness [laughs] that happens in life through the lens of poetry and it kinda makes it more accessible to folks.

We come from resilience.

[inspiring music] The ones who survived the journey.

This is history, tradition, legacy.

Fought for every inch, just for the right to be.

Finding ourselves in this American dream.

We are history since landing on these shores, the way we crossed over troubled waters.

We are the ones who sing a song full of hope that the dark past has taught us.

So we go into the future like the ancestors who knew they guide our path with the torch that they passed to you, and to you, and to you too.

And if you so choose, this moment is ours and the mission is to show improve.

For years to come, we are the ones.

We've been singing this song like Nina Simone, like Marian Anderson, like Mahalia Jackson.

We bend the Blues like BB King, like Howlin' Wolf, muddying the waters.

And we've been running towards the future.

Now the stars are yours.

All you gotta do is reach for 'em.

Follow the North star.

That is tradition, history, legacy, survival type tactics.

We come from resilience.

[music fades] Poetry is kind of... Is more of a solo act.

Just you sitting with your thoughts.

You know, writing this poem.

You know, picking a topic.

In 2006 when I got to Charlotte, [gentle jazzy music] I was doing poetry, but theater has always been my go-to and first love.

So I started OnQ Productions in 2006.

And the mission was to produce classic, contemporary, and original performance works that reflect the Black experience.

So "Miles and Coltrane Blue [.]"

by Concrete Generation was written by my friends and a group of poets.

We were talking about theater and music and how there was no work or production about Miles Davis or John Coltrane.

So Miles Davis, famous trumpeter, and if I'm not mistaken, one of the highest grossing jazz musicians of all time.

Same thing with John Coltrane.

And John Coltrane is actually from North Carolina.

So those are just two legends of many a legends in the Black music canon that deserve these stories.

Having that conversation with the musician, you just realize how many stories there are to tell about Black people and their experiences.

[uptempo jazzy music] I've always been a fan of music.

Musically, it started early for me as well.

You know, growing up in a church choir, always singing in the church choir.

And just always have been around music.

♪ It's cool ♪ When I got to Charlotte, I was always working with the musicians because at the poetry spot, you would have a band that would play before the poets came on.

So always had that kind of vibe with the band.

And indirectly working with those musicians, wanted to formally put together a band.

So we started about five, six years ago and we do a little bit of everything from jazz, funk, of course Spoken word.

Came up with the name, Quentin Talley & The Soul Provider.

♪ Whether right now or next week ♪ What I like most about the art that I make, it really changes on any given day.

[Quentin laughs] Whether it's a poem that I wrote or a new song with the band.

There's the little butterflies in my stomach I get, when I hear a hear a song the band has done.

I'm like, "Oh, that's super dope."

It's like a kid at Christmas for me.

And it's always been cool to kinda create worlds out of nothing.

[uptempo jazzy music continues] It's really cool to have something that came out of your thoughts and into the world, to be presented to people and they want to tell folks about it, support you.

So that's always a blessing and it's just a beautiful thing to me.

[music fades] Yeah.

Y'all say your love for the band, baby.

- [Announcer] Next time on "My Home".

Get ready to meet some amazing animals in North Carolina who are delighting with their unique work, charm and star power.

- What drives us is seeing the smiles on people's faces.

The joy that we bring.

I mean, he's our pet.

We never thought our pet would be the superstar that he is.

Oh, Yeah.

Good boy.

- Nice, thanks, man.

- Thanks, man.

- You're welcome.

[pig squeals] - [Announcer] It's all on "My Home".

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