Chhoti Maa’s Musical Ceremony for ‘Indigenous Songbook’ at SFJAZZ

Before the music can begin, Vreni Michelini Castillo lights copal and sage to smudge the cozy rehearsal space. Next, the rapper and singer, who goes by the moniker Chhoti Maa, leads a prayer to give thanks to their ancestors for bringing them and five musicians together. 

For the past 17 years, Chhoti Maa has been crafting an eclectic style of music that is an amalgamation of R&B, hip-hop, cumbia and what they dub “migrant soul” and “neufolk.” The Oakland musician will bring this sound to SFJAZZ as part of their August series, Indigenous Songbook, which spotlights four different musicians who integrate their Indigenous heritage into their artistry. 

Identifying as mixed — Kikapú from their mother’s side, Purépecha on their father’s, with European and African roots — Chhoti Maa has spent their whole life nurturing and learning more about these lineages. 

Growing up in Guanajuato, Mexico, the artist remembers watching traditional Chichimeca ceremonial dance, or danza, outside their grandmother’s house. “Danza was always a part of my upbringing,” Chhoti Maa says. “And now that I’m a danzante, those sounds have influenced my music.” 

Shakers, rattles made of shells and clay flutes from these ceremonial dances now feature prominently in Chhoti Maa’s songs. For their last two studio albums, Chhoti Maa collaborated with producers beto guapoflaco and Keith Avelino Hernandez. 

While performing in Chile, a seed was planted: a woman musician asked if Chhoti Maa had ever considered performing with an all-femme and nonbinary band. Chhoti Maa sat on that idea for a year and finally felt invigorated to make it a reality. They slowly put the word out to a few peers in the Bay Area music scene, and through mutual connections they found the right instrumentalists: Carolina Acuña-Olvera on the congas and cajón, Rocio Cordova on the jarana, Bri Izaguirre on the drum pad, Camellia Boutros on bass and Corina Santos on violin. Together they make up the Indigo Ensemble. 

Before the band came together, Chhoti Maa performed with a much more lo-fi set-up, with one of their producers playing backing tracks and occasionally a few instruments. Indigo Ensemble marks the next phase of their artistry, a more expansive sound where the violin and jarana add texture to their voice as it undulates from husky to a soft high pitch. 

Back at the rehearsal, Chhoti Maa and the band play “Quita Sal,” a track off their forthcoming album, 7 Luminarias. It’s a song inspired by the George Floyd uprisings, describing the collective pain that drove protesters, including Chhoti Maa, into the streets to call for an end to police violence. The group retakes the song multiple times, trying to figure out where Santos, the violinist, can have a solo moment. Although Chhoti Maa wrote this song, they don’t tell the others how to play, and there’s a profound openness to letting each musician experiment and embellish it in their own way. 

“Chhoti is so loving and humble, like super open to sharing the creative process,” reflects Rocio Cordova, the jarana player. “There’s no ego at all in wanting to have it Chhoti’s way.”

By the fourth take, the ensemble has settled on a faster-paced rhythm in the middle of the song. Congas and violin swell to accentuate Chhoti’s vocals expressing yearning and release. “It’s not just like a performance. It very much feels like a ceremony,” adds Cordova. 

That ceremonial quality to Chhoti Maa’s music is no accident. In addition to sourcing inspiration from their Kikapú and Purepecha lineages, they’ve studied with master musicians including singer Bobi Céspedes, who performs in the Lucumi tradition; Zamora, a drumkeeper for the Wakan Wiya Two Spirit Drum; and C.K. Ladzekpo, who composes and drums in the Ewe tradition of Ghana. 

“My teachers have helped me understand the range of my voice and also my responsibilities to both communities: Indigenous and the diasporic African community. And that I’m indebted and responsible to both,” explains Chhoti Maa.

In addition to these cultural values, there’s often a throughline in Chhoti Maa’s music about connecting global struggles of protecting land and water. Take the song “Atiza,” which laments the displacement of Black and brown folks from their Californian communities. For the SFJAZZ performance, Chhoti Maa updates it with the lyric “viva Palestina,” or “long live Palestine,” to shed light on the current bombardment of Gaza that has uprooted civilians from their homes. 

Bassist Boutros, who is of Palestinian and Lebanese ancestry, says, “This resistance element is very present in Chhoti’s music. And it speaks to me, there’s a lot of parallels and I’m just really happy to support it as a bass player.” 

Chhoti credits this collaboration with the ensemble as critical to their growth. It’s an ethos that speaks to their own guiding principle of decolonization, what they define as shedding “the way in which colonialism wants us to be individualists, wants us to be selfish. But we have to reroute ourselves in traditions and reroute ourselves in Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous practices.” 

Which is why Chhoti Maa’s show at SFJAZZ is not one to miss. They and the Indigo Ensemble will show what it means to breathe new life into one’s body of work while centering the musical lessons their ancestors and teachers have imparted.  

Chhoti Maa performs two shows on Saturday, Aug. 17 at SFJAZZ’s Joe Henderson Lab as part of ‘Indigenous Songbook.’ First show is at 7 p.m. and the second show is at 8:30 p.m.