'Good Medicine': The story of Supaman and his full Crow regalia began at Montana State

Internationally acclaimed Apsáalooke (Crow) artist Supaman heads to Livingston’s Shane Theater on April 11, showcasing his fusion of traditional Native American music and contemporary hip hop.

His one-of-a-kind sound has defined a decades-long career, but what many may not know is that style was born on the campus of Montana State University.

A relative of Supaman, whose legal name is Christian Parrish Takes the Gun, organized MSU’s Native American Heritage Day years ago and Parrish Takes the Gun, an accomplished fancy dancer, was asked to perform.

Then, another performer fell through last minute. Looking to fill a gap in the schedule, Parrish Takes the Gun’s relative remembered that fancy dancing wasn’t his only talent.

“She said, ‘Hey, don’t you guys rap?’ She heard that we did hip hop,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “She said, ‘Why don’t you do a couple songs? We need to fill some time’.”

Parrish Takes the Gun and his nephew were both still wearing their fancy dance regalia — the elaborate, feathered ceremonial dress handmade specifically for performance. It wasn’t something he’d ever seen worn outside of powwow or ceremony, Parrish Takes the Gun said, so the two headed back to the car to change into something more fitting for hip hop.

But his relative stopped them, saying she needed them on stage now.

“I was in my outfit with my nephew, and we were just standing there like, ‘What do we do?’ So we got up in our regalia,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “This was the first time ever that we did hip hop in our regalia, because we didn’t have time to change.”

After centuries of genocide, assimilation and erasure, Parrish Takes the Gun said he learned in childhood to protect traditional cultural practices, such as regalia, as sacred. Crow songs, he said, are a foundational part of the tribe’s spirituality, believed to be gifts from the wind.

Mixing that culture with the rap and hip hop he’d loved since childhood had never crossed his mind.

“Growing up, knowing the way it is, I automatically knew that you just don’t throw stuff together and try to do it on your own and just make something up yourself,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “You’d get scolded.”

Thinking back to that first performance, Parrish Takes the Gun said the crowd responded well. When they stepped off the stage, a Crow elder approached, and Parrish Takes the Gun braced for a scolding. Instead, the elder encouraged them, recognizing the blended style as a powerful way to reinvigorate Crow culture among the youth.

“He said because our young people (are) dying, we’re losing our culture. They’re committing suicide, drugs and alcohol, all these bad things. But when you reach them with good messages, that’s powerful. Keep that up,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “When he said ‘Keep that up,’ I took it to heart.”

Now, Parrish Takes the Gun always performs in full regalia — and has continued refining his style into something with no real precedent. On stage, he builds tracks in real time using a looping pedal, layering beatboxing, flute, and scratching into a live beat while simultaneously performing the rapid, precise footwork of Northern Plains fancy war dancing.

The approach earned him a 2017 MTV Video Music Award for “Stand Up / Stand N Rock #NoDAPL,” a collaborative anthem supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as multiple Native American Music Awards.

Also recognizing that combining traditional Indigenous elements with contemporary hip hop carries a heavier cultural weight, he’s intentional about the messaging in his music.

“In all my raps, I’ve never cussed,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “I always try to be positive from the get go. Nothing vulgar.”

Through his success, Parrish Takes the Gun has held onto what the elder told him that day, making youth outreach a cornerstone of his career. He regularly visits schools and communities across the country, leading assemblies and workshops that use hip hop and fancy dancing to reach Native youth.

At the start of this year, he also launched the “Good Medicine Scholarship” for Crow students interested in the arts.

“I remember how I felt about scholarships,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “It was always for athletics and academics, and anybody was that was Native that was into nerd stuff, there was nothing really for them.”

The scholarship reflects a creative household. Parrish Takes the Gun’s wife, Angela Howe, is a fashion designer and head of Choke Cherry Creek, a contemporary Indigenous fashion label that blends the traditional artistry of her Crow and Blackfeet roots with modern design.

Like her husband, Howe extends her work beyond the stage and runway, leading beading, sewing, and jewelry-making workshops and speaking to youth about perseverance and cultural pride.

“It’s been beautiful. It’s been awesome for me to see, because I get to see her light up,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “When she’s speaking to young Native women, and telling them her story and how they get empowered.”

Parrish Takes the Gun said he and his wife have been able to lean on each other for support, both carving out careers that have taken their work far beyond the Crow reservation. Howe’s work has shown at New York Fashion Week, Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, and Paris Indigenous Fashion Week, and her clothing is now part of an exhibit at the World of Culture Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden.

But when they’re not traveling the world, Parrish Takes the Gun and his wife still call the Crow Reservation home, where he grew up and where the two met in high school. Off the stage, he leads a quieter life as an avid reader — listing “The Fifth Agreement” and “The Power of Now” among his favorites — and has spent a lifetime turning over the same questions and concepts that find their way into his music.

“If I’m not writing music or reading, I’m thinking,” Parrish Takes the Gun said. “How I can make my short lived experience the highest quality. Like talking to somebody, I want our conversation, as short as it may be, I want them to leave that conversation feeling better about life.”