Sharing Your Soul's Music with R. Carlos Nakai

The Dandelion Effect

Of Navajo-Ute heritage, R. Carlos is the world’s premier performer of the Native American flute. He began playing the traditional Native American flute in the early 1980s and has released more than 50 albums in his career, earning Platinum status with his album Canyon Trilogy, the first ever for a Native American artist performing traditional solo flute music.
R. Carlos has received eleven GRAMMY nominations in four different categories and has traveled the world, making sound sculptures, he calls them-- collaborations with artists from other countries and cultures, hearing stories similar and different to his own and transcending the common stereotypes presented in mass media.

On the personal side of things, R. Carlos is wise, gentle, inspiring, a man that values listening, mentoring younger folks and simply BE-ing in this world and enjoying the journey of becoming more of himself every day. In this conversation, we walk through his lifelong musical process--beginning with clarinet and trumpet then discovering the Native American flute when a car accident left him with injuries to the muscles in his mouth that prevented him from playing brass instruments.

He speaks of the flute as a vehicle for telling your authentic story, the self expression that allows you to put yourself in the center of your life, to realize that the gifts and tools you were born with are exactly what you need to be who you are meant to be in this world. He opens up about a near death experience that guided him even more towards service through teaching and mentoring young people, and he leaves us with the question: Who Are You and How Do You Belong?
R. Carlos Nakai Website

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