Osage Nation Singers Receive Standing Ovation For Powerful Oscars Performance
Watch the history-making performance from last night’s Academy Awards.
Disney/Frank Micelotta
Members of the Osage Nation received a standing ovation for their powerful live performance during Sunday’s 96th Academy Awards.
Dressed in traditional ceremonial attire, composer Scott George and his fellow Osage Tribal Singers stunned audiences with “Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)," the Oscar-nominated song created for the final scene of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Against the backdrop of a rising sun, dozens of Osage danced and sang around a drum, bringing the crowd to its feet.
“When you see us up on stage, we're hoping that you see us as a people that have survived and that are able to hold on to what we have,” George told The Oklahoman prior to the Oscars ceremony.
Mission accomplished.
George, of Del City, Oklahoma, is the first Indigenous writer to be nominated in the Oscars best original song category, as well as the first member of the Osage Nation to be nominated for an Academy Award.
In a January interview with The Osage News, George said that the song has lyrics that translate to “stand up,” and “God made it for us.”
“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,” he explained. “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.”
Scorsese discussed his decision to end Killers of the Flower Moon with a special piece of music created by the Osage people in a behind-the-scenes featurette.
"By the end of the film, we had to have some sense of the presence of the Osage: They survive, and the music of the Osage is the best display of this extraordinary survival," he said.
In the end, the Oscar for best original song went to Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O'Connell, for "What Was I Made For?" from Barbie.
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