Indigenous DJ blends electronic music with Amazon sounds to protect communities
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
Eric Terena, a member of the Terena people in Brazil, combines electronic music with sounds from the Amazon rainforest to amplify the voices of native communities and protest environmental destruction.
Terena began his activism at age 19 with the Indigenous Climate Movement and later co-founded Mídia Indígena, a communication network designed to counter misinformation about the climate. He now samples natural sounds and mixes them with electronic and hip-hop music, sharing his message in over twenty-six countries.
Terena describes the advance of industries like mining and intensive farming as an “acoustic massacre,” where the noise disrupts ecosystems and endangers wildlife. To counter this, he uses bioacoustic equipment to record jungle sounds, monitor sound density for illegal activity like fires, and preserve sacred songs and endangered indigenous languages. He collaborates with other musicians, including rapper Taki Supay and Djuena Tikuna, and is developing an open-source platform with the collective Lanceros Digitales.
The platform, scheduled to launch in February 2027, will archive traditional tracks and ensure communities from Canada to Patagonia receive all rights and royalties, bypassing record label intermediaries.
