Blaine Bailey Is Taking Back Native Culture

Blaine Bailey is proudly Cherokee and proudly Oklahoman. He’s building a musical career around both, while paying lip service to neither.

That’s evident on Indian Country, Bailey’s second studio album in two years, which dropped in early November shortly after the country singer competed on Taylor Sheridan’s CBS reality series, The Road.

“I’m glad to put out my best work so far,” Bailey tells Rolling Stone of the album. “I put in a lot of things that can relate to Natives and use my culture while throwing in some of the styles I’ve created over the years that have turned into my own sound.”

Bailey hails from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where he grew up heavily influenced by Tahlequah’s favorite musical sons, the Turnpike Troubadours. His musical roots are a mix of Red Dirt and Native culture. Bailey is a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, recognized as the first of the Cherokees to migrate to present-day Oklahoma from their tribal home in the Southeast United States in the early 1800s, initially voluntary to avoid encroaching colonization and eventually involuntarily after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Indian Country — both the album and the title track — is meant to reflect Bailey’s upbringing.

“I’m thankful for where I’m from and that I was able to grow up learning my culture, being in the woods, and living on the Cherokee Nation reservation,” he says. “Indian Country is me showing my appreciation that I was able to practice my culture. Some Natives, you know, might be born in a city and never know what their traditions are.”

The Keetoowah Band is protective of its history and culture, and Bailey embodies this. His most streamed song is “T-Shirt,” which he wrote and released in 2024 about the appropriation of Native imagery and culture. The song ends with the line, “Can’t you see that without me, you’d have a plain white tee.”

In November, he posted an unreleased song with a similar theme, “Conquering,” on social media, captioning it, “I wrote this song because I’m tired of Natives still getting hate in 2025. We were not conquered!” The response was overwhelmingly supportive, but Bailey received enough backlash to spur a follow-up post in which he called out hateful comments over a video of himself flipping the middle finger in response. He chose “T-Shirt” as the accompanying music.

Bailey is part of a growing movement within Oklahoma’s Red Dirt scene to strengthen the scene’s ties to its Native history while educating artists and fans alike about the relationship between Native culture and the region’s roots music. Ken Pomeroy’s breakthrough 2025 album, Cruel Joke, touched heavily on these themes, while Oklahoma-born writer and director Sterlin Harjo made Native culture an essential component of two FX series — Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown. Bailey’s music has featured in both series.

“Sterlin is putting us on the map,” Bailey says. “He’s showing people in the world and all around the United States who might not know that we’re actually modern. We wear modern clothes just like everybody else. We have jobs just like everybody else. We’re not getting some kind of magical check coming out of nowhere every month. We’re just the same as everybody else, and I love that he is showcasing what it actually looks like in Northeast Oklahoma. His shows really help to move the needle for what people think about Native Americans.”

Bailey’s determination to center his Native roots in his music, and his willingness to speak out about it without backing down, have caught the attention of artists across the Americana scene with a history of speaking their minds. In the past year and a half, Bailey landed opening slots on tours with acts like American Aquarium and Vincent Neil Emerson. On Feb. 6, Bailey will feature ahead of John Anderson at the Big Cypress Indigenous Arts & Music Festival in Clewiston, Florida — on the grounds of the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation.

But for all the difference Bailey wants to make as his music relates to his culture, he’s also an up-and-coming artist simply trying to enjoy the rise. His goals for 2026 are modest. He wants to keep growing his own fan base and take in every moment he can along the way.

“I realized I wanted to do this once I had maybe a hundred songs written,” he says. “Some were good, some were bad, but I had them, and I had been to concerts growing up, and it moved me to see the energy of a concert and people singing songs back to you. I remember being at Turnpike concerts thinking there’s probably no other feeling like that.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose book (Almost) Almost Famous will be released April 1 via Back Lounge Publishing.