Singer-songwriter AGALISIGA “THE CHUJ” MACKEY, who sings in his Native Cherokee language, plays Saturday at Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness (49th & Peoria), where Chef Nico will be dishing up complimentary traditional Native food samples. The event is BYOB. Make sure to take home a free commemorative glass.

Singer-songwriter AGALISIGA “THE CHUJ” MACKEY, who sings many of his songs in the Cherokee language, grew up in the small traditional Cherokee community of Kenwood, OK. With a folksy presence and deep baritone voice honed from his upbringing singing Cherokee ceremonial songs, Mackey melds classic country and blues sounds, a la Jimmy Rodgers and R.L. Burnside. In a short time, the young father of two has grown from covering vintage tunes down at the creek to performing on big stages around the Midwest, while cultivating a growing audience among country fans and Native Americans alike. He is a language and culture educator at the Cherokee Immersion Charter School, where he teaches preK-8 ceremonial songs and contemporary Cherokee music.

NICO ALBERT WILLIAMS, the Executive Chef of Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness, began her culinary education in her mother’s California garden and kitchen, preparing family meals. After relocating to Northeastern Oklahoma, the post-removal homeland of her mother’s people, she embraced the opportunity to re-establish a relationship with her Cherokee community, first and foremost through the language of food. Her journey to learn traditional Cherokee ways, dishes, and the wild and cultivated ingredients involved in their preparation, expanded into an embrace of Indigenous cuisines from many tribes, and to activism in Indigenous food revitalization and food sovereignty movements. Her work centers on the revitalization of ancestral Indigenous foodways to promote healing and wellness in the Native community. She steadily expands her knowledge of traditional ingredients and techniques through research and collaboration with Indigenous chefs and traditionalists from all Nations. Nico is the recipient of the 2021 Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission Dream Keeper’s Award for Leadership in Business, and the 2022 Cherokee Nation Phoenix Seven Feathers Award for Culture. Her work has been featured on Food Network Magazine, USA Today, Hulu, BBC, Cherokee Nation’s OsiyoTV, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Atlas Obscura, and PBS, among others.