Stella Standingbear Releases 'Rap Star 2' After Her First Headline Tour

Oglala Lakota artist Stella Standingbear released her EP Rap Star 2 on Oct. 29, weeks after finishing her first headline tour, the Off the Rez Tour.

Asked in an Oct. 23 interview with IND how she was feeling, she needed two words: “blessed, inspired.”

It was her first tour, and she headlined it: 30 shows on the official run by her count, “not including all the community events I did in between on my time off.” The tour crossed the U.S. and Canada.

It brought “a lot of learning lessons,” she said, and she looks forward to growing on the tours to come. As she put it, “this is just the beginning.”

The people who showed up

What stays with her is who came out. Some were Native people living in the cities she played. Others “drove hours from the rez just to come into the city.”

“Having that representation, in those spaces, meant everything to me,” she said. “We’re still standing and it’s important for us to have that representation in those spaces.”

Over many conversations on the road, people reminded her of something she said can be hard to see from the inside: that “my success is a part of all of our healing journey.”

Those conversations were a reminder of the work she does, she said, “even though tour could be chaotic, things can go unexpected. It was nice to have my people there to ground me through it all, really.”

She picked every artist on the bill, and most are friends. She and Natasha Fisher had been online friends for a couple of years and had talked about touring together. It was Fisher’s first tour, and Lobatamy’s first tour too. Fisher joined her for several dates.

In cities where she didn’t know anyone, she asked around and found “amazing emerging Native artists in a lot of these communities.” Her aim was to “give them that platform to grow as well.”

“Not a gatekeeper,” she said.

A verse back the next day

Radio brought another milestone: the “Mmhmm” remix featuring Paul Wall. “I grew up listening to him. My mom put me on his music,” she said.

The remix began with a Native DJ from the Albuquerque area who had DJed for her before. He offered to work the song to radio, and he turned out to be good friends with Paul Wall. She sent the song over, and the verse came back the next day. She thinks she was on the road, heading to a community event, when it arrived.

“I just played it in the car and I was like, yeah. He slid on this one,” she said. She called it a “fire verse, legendary verse, actually.”

The remix went on to spend nine weeks on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart, peaking at No. 31. She didn’t see it coming. “Everything was so unexpected. The tour was unexpected this year,” she said. “I just thought we were just gonna send it out to some DJs.”

As an unsigned Native artist, she said, she shared that chart with SZA, Drake and Justin Bieber. “It was surreal to see those names.”

Ready to wrap the era

Rap Star 2 picks up from Rap Star. Its five songs are “GO MODE!” “Worldwide,” the “Mmhmm” remix, “HUH?” and “RAP STAR.”

“I’m just having fun in my Rap Star era. I think that’s what music is all about is just having fun.”

“GO MODE!” came first, on Oct. 22, with a video that includes Off the Rez Tour footage and a cameo by World Champion hoop dancer Eric Hernandez. She made the song about a year ago, after her first NBA halftime performance, with the Phoenix Suns, and her first ComplexCon in Las Vegas. The halftime show is sampled at the top of the track. At the start of the second verse she tried a different cadence, and it struck her as funny. “I’m like, you know what? I’m just gonna keep it.”

Touring pushed the EP back, she said, because a release comes with music videos and photos, which are hard to manage on the road. “I feel like I’m ready to wrap it up,” she said of the Rap Star era. She plans Rap Star 3 to finish it, then her debut album.

That timing is hers to set. Asked what being independent means to her, she started with one word: “Freedom. I get to be creatively free. I could release when I want to.” She added, “I don’t have to answer to anyone besides myself.”

Asked what she hopes comes next, she named more success, breaking boundaries, impact, pushing herself and “creating a space for those to come.”

She closed with something she says all the time. “I’m powered by the people, so the people made everything possible, all my success.”