Osage singer Scott George is the first Native American to receive an Academy Award nomination for his music and lyrics of “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People),” which is featured in the closing dance scene of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
George’s nomination is for Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song).
Scott George has been traditionally singing around Indian Country for more than 40 years. He is well known in Osage country as he has served on many Drumkeeper committees for decades, as both a singer and head singer.
But this morning, when the Oscar nominations were announced live on “Good Morning America,” he was utterly shocked to learn of the nomination. While George said he is not ready to quit his day job, he is working through what to wear to the Oscars, and who to travel with. He is hopeful the Osage Tribal Singers drum group will be invited to attend and perform “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” on the Oscars stage.
Osage News spoke with Scott George to learn about the process behind writing the song, on which he worked closely with Vann Bighorse. George said he and Vann hoped to create a song that would evoke the sense of the Osage Inlonshka dances, without intruding on the connections that Inlonshka songs hold to Osage ancestors who are referred to by name, and the living families who still claim those ancestral names and their relationships to them.
Osage News: Congratulations on your Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. You’ve made history as the first Osage and Native American to receive the nomination. Were you expecting it at all?
Scott George: [Laughs.] No. We made that short list and thought well, that’s nice, but I didn’t think it would get this far. It’s just kind of crazy. I’m shocked, I guess, to hear about it this morning. I’m honored to represent our people in that manner, but the weight of it really hasn’t landed on me yet.
Osage News: How did you find out you had received the nomination?
George: We had gotten a text a couple of days ago to watch “Good Morning America,” so we were sitting around there getting dressed [this morning]. You know how television is, they keep dragging it out, delaying and delaying so you keep watching, so I was getting ready. I got a text from a friend of mine down in Austin, and he said “Congratulations,” and I got a text from Chad Renfro, who said, “You just made the nomination.”
Osage News: Wow, that’s just incredible. Do you know what you’ll wear to the Oscars, and who you’ll take with you?
George: [Laughs]. No, I have no idea what I’ll wear. We’re just kind of shocked and trying to get back to business, so I don’t lose my job [at Potawatomi Housing]. I’m not ready to quit my day job. Not at all. We kind of have a traveling group, and we had to pare it down a bit when we sang on the red carpet. I’m kind of wondering if I’ll be able to bring the group to sing there. That would be nice, if we all got to go and sing it. We would be on stage. I have no idea what goes on, throughout the week, and if there are other presentations that you don’t see televised.
Osage News: I hope you do get to go, and all perform together on the stage at the Oscars. That would be incredible. What was the inspiration behind the song, and how did it come together?
George: When we were asked to do this by Martin Scorsese, they had been to our dances and we knew what they wanted. They wanted to capture that. And us being kind of traditional, we didn’t think it was going to be appropriate to use any of those songs in there. A lot of our songs have somebody’s name in them, and there’s still people that claim those relationships, so we knew that was going to be an issue.
So I talked to Vann and we decided that we would make our own [song]. I was on the phone with Vann, not every morning, but … calling him, saying, “What do you think about this? Does that sound like something you’ve heard before?” That’s the pitfall, is that you have these songs in your head all the time, and you don’t know if it was something you heard a long time ago and it came back to you, or if you got a hold of something. So, the process is trying to find what you want to say and express what you want to say in the song and fitting it into a tune.
Osage News: What did you want to express in this song?
George: The words are fairly simple, and a lot of our songs are like that. You have to go ask the composer what he meant. This one is just telling you “stand up,” and “God made it for us.” But in reality, my thoughts behind it are we’ve gone through all this, and this is showing what we’ve gone through, this movie—what our people went through, and still go through today, in some form or another. If it wasn’t for God, Wakanda, we wouldn’t be here. So, I’m asking our people to stand up, basically, and be proud of the fact that God created a way for us. So that’s the thought behind it, anyway.
And when you’re making a song with words in it, you have to be careful, because a lot of people won’t learn it if it’s got a lot of words in it. It’ll be hard to sing.
Osage News: Do you watch the Oscars? Are you a film buff?
George: No. [Laughs.] If I ever watch it, it’s usually the last thirty minutes of it. And I probably haven’t watched the Oscars in the last five years, because usually the movies that are nominated for, I’m usually not interested in watching it. I like historical or action and I’m not a real comedy guy. So, I look for those. During the pandemic, I think I blew up every movie they had on there, on Netflix. Now on Saturday, I go through there, saying, “seen it, seen it, seen it.”
During the pandemic, we got into a series called “Diriliş: Ertuğrul” about a Turkish nomad before the Ottoman Empire, and it was amazing. The series was amazing. It’s back when they were living during the period when the Mongolian conquest was going, and they’re spreading their way to the west, and it was all sword fights and everything else. The series itself was just amazing and I think there were over 80 episodes in one season. There’s a lot of parallels in what they went through and what we went through and how we lived. So, it was interesting to us in that regard.
Osage News: You’re on Drumkeeper Committees. I don’t imagine this nomination will stop you this June?
George: Yeah. I don’t plan on giving it up too soon. I’ve been on there since 1983. It’s been a while. At some point, I’ll have to think about letting those young guys take it, because it’s hard on your body, sitting out there for that long period of time. Right now, I’m not quite ready.
Osage News: What drew you to the path of being a traditional singer?
George: Well, I was about 13 or 14 I guess, and I was interested in being put into the dance, and I sat over in Hominy in the DeRoin Camp. I was sitting there next to two singers. Joe and Russell Rush. And they were sitting on one of our platforms there and I was sitting there and they were tying their drumsticks up, and repairing things. I asked them a couple of questions because I was kind of interested in singing, too. They said you got to be around it, you got to listen to those songs and start small. Go to hand games or something like that, sit out there with them.
So I went and approached my mom and stepdad and they said you need to make up your mind, [if you are going to dance or sing]. I said, I think I want to sing. That’s alright, they said. They went and got me what I needed. He bought me a little record player. Here you go, he said, better get to listening to them. I would go to hand games. They had hand games down in Hominy and Pawhuska. So I’d catch a ride there. Once I started driving, I tried to go everywhere.
So I was singing quite a bit at powwows before I even started singing in our dance and then in ’76 or something around there, we started singing with Morris Lookout over at Grayhorse War Mothers, and that kind of drew us to [Morris Lookout], and he started talking more about us singing around our drums, and teaching us more about the songs and giving us tapes. He even had a lot of the songs written out on paper, so he had interpretations for some of them and that kind of sped us along at that point. Then in—I think it was ’83—when I first went out there at Hominy, my brother Kenny BigHorse, he had already made his move the year before to sit out there. So they were goading me. “Come on. Come on, brother. Just ask him.” So I did and [Morris Lookout] said, “Come on out here.” So, I’ve been out there ever since. I haven’t missed a year since.
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