“My rap name is AKU-MATU. My music is mostly environmentally focused. Columbia University had some traditional songs in their archives, and I had some digital recordings from Kaktovik that I made when I was 18. I consider Kaktovik my home, my mom lives there and whenever I go there they say, ‘Welcome home.’ I worked with WD40 out of Seattle, and we have sampled that audio. And I rap. I rap as a polar bear, caribou, a whale, an ancestor from the future. I have a song about generational trauma called, ‘My Mom’s Song.’ We have 22 songs. It's a lot, but for the most part its environmentally focused.
Grist Magazine put out a call to all the environmental NGO’s [Non-Governmental Organizations], asking who they think are the environmental activists and leaders to watch for 2016. The head of Greenpeace put my name forward. I am now one of the 50 environmental activists to watch for in 2016. It’s a huge honor. The great thing about it is, it brings light to the issue I care about, which is protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Kaktovik is located in.
I have a show opening at the Anchorage Museum on October 7, 2016. It’s called, ‘Unipkaagusiksuguvik, The Place of the Future/Ancient’. It’s a progression of my installation performance art. For this show, I wanted to focus mostly on climate change. The Arctic is hit seven times harder than the rest of the world with climate change. I am trying to protect my village. I couldn’t imagine being Inupiaq without ice. It’s mind blowing what we are going through.” — Allison Akootchook Warden is Inupiaq and lives in Anchorage, Alaska.