Navajo hip-hop artist and producer Cecil Tso has been making music for years. But, he’s just now releasing his first solo album under his professional name, Tsoh Tso. It’s called “Finding Our Balance,” and it represents something of an identity crisis in his life.
He was raised in Phoenix and Flagstaff until his mother passed away when he was 10 years old. His grandparents adopted him and he moved onto the Navajo Nation. But, he still went to school in Flagstaff and felt torn between the two places — and cultures.
Tso joined The Show to discuss how, for him, it often felt like he was torn between two worlds.
Full conversation
CECIL TSO: For me, I've always been kind of in the middle where like I'm a little too city for some people and I'm a little too rez for other people. So like, within my Navajo identity, that's one thing that's always come up, but then I'm also biracial. My mother was Navajo, my father's not, so then even deeper into that identity spectrum. That's been something that's come up a lot, like I've received kind of gruff from both sides of that over the years, just my place in hip hop, because I've always either been too, like, kind of too abstract, too weird for the traditionalists, but then I've been too traditional for the people that are like really abstract. My whole life has been trying to balance between, you know, different, different things and trying to figure out where I fit in.
LAUREN GILGER: Finding your balance in so many different ways. That's interesting, you talk about identity there and not being Navajo enough for some people or being too city for others, that kind of thing. Like, some of the songs on this album are, are not in Diné, but like, titled at least that way, like you use the language a little bit. Was that part of this?
TSO: Yeah, so there's a, there's one song that's called “Gáagii,” and that translates to crow or raven.
TSO: To be honest, that doesn't really have a deeper meaning. I just always liked, you know, I like the way gáagii sounds. I like crows, but then the other, the other song that's in Navajo, it's, my pronunciation isn't the best, but it's “t'áá hó'ájitéégóó, t'éiyá,” that translates to, “it's up to you.”
TSO: If you wanna do something, you have to be the one to do it, and that's kind of talking to myself because throughout the album if you listen to it like start to finish, there is a flow, a narrative, and it does tell a little bit of a story, and then I feel like in the beginning it's more conflicted and lost, but then by the end of it, I kind of find where I fit in and who I am, so then that final, you know, “it's up to you,” that's like, Telling me I have to keep at it and just keep pushing.
GILGER: Yeah. So the album is dedicated to your grandparents, so you mentioned, raised you after your mother passed, and you told the Navajo Times that your grandmother was preparing for passing, preparing you, her family, right, for her passing while you were making this album. What was that like? Did that show up?
TSO: So the photo that I'm using for the album cover, she took that picture. And to be honest, just the whole experience of, like, her knowing she was gonna pass away. And then talking to us about it and trying to prepare us for it, that's when I stopped working on the album. Once all that started, I just, you know, it's the end of a chapter of my life, and I just, I wanted to end it there and not have it carry over. That experience just ultimately called the album done.
And then it also helped me reflect a little bit because there's an a cappella, like a spoken word on the album called “The Falls.” And just her passing kind of influenced that because that wasn't planned initially. But, I just had so many feelings for her in the moment, but then also my grandfather who passed away in 2018, like, I feel like I'm still trying to fully process that, and then the combination of the two, you know, brought up my mother. So, it was kind of a, it was kind of a big sweep of emotion, but then I feel like her, her strength in those final months, those final weeks, it did help hold me up.
GILGER: The photo you mentioned that, is the album cover is really beautiful. It's, it's you as a kid riding on the back of a horse, right? And you said your grandmother took it from behind, you're kind of looking back at her. Was that a memory that stood out to you?
TSO: I completely forgot about it, but, you know, as things were happening and I started going through her things, all her photos popped up. So, I was just going through all her, all her pictures, and that one picture, I was like, “Oh, this is, this is great,” because I'm riding on the back of the horse, and the person on the front of the horse is my mother, and then the man next to us is my grandfather, and then my grandmother took the picture, so in this way I was able to include all three of them.
GILGER: Yeah. So, I wonder about this because there's so many collaborators involved in this, right? And as you said, like most of the work that you've done in the past has been a collaboration with another artist. I wonder how when you're writing something that is, you know, yours for the first time, and in your own voice, and so personal, like so emotional, it sounds like, how do you choose the people who will do this with you?
TSO: So they're all people that I've either known for almost half my life now, or they're people that, since I want to say maybe 2018, 2019, they've become consistent collaborators and their people have gone on to just trust. Because, you know. There's people that you work with in music that, you know, you do it the one time, and then that's probably it. But, then there's other people that you just keep going back to each other, cause you're just kind of in the same frequency, I guess, maybe the same vibe, and you understand each other, that mutual energy is there. So these, these are all people that I felt like that with.
GILGER: You have even a cut, right, of your grandfather when he was really little at the end of one of these tracks. Where did you find that?
TSO: Yes, it's on the very last song that “T'áá hó'ájitéégóó, t'éiyá.” At the very end of it, there's a little snippet where there's a little boy, and he says, “I'm Cecil Tso, and I'm going to sing Navajo songs.” That's a recording I found of him when he was probably 7 or 8, and was on an old 78 record that was just like sitting in a box.
GILGER: So his voice is the last voice you hear on this record.
TSO: Yes.
GILGER: What does that mean to you?
TSO: I think it means it means a lot because I'm named after him, and like a lot of people in my family, they don't expect me to live up to him per se, but they do look at me like as a reflection of him, because he did raise me and in a way, like, should I decide to and should I be able to, like, I would be filling in his shoes for, you know, certain things that happen on the reservation and where we used to live.
And I'm not there yet, but I think in my own way, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get there. So, in that sense, it meant a lot to me to have him like, be a part of, like, vocally be a part of that journey.
And then it was just amazing finding that recording because his passing, it happened so sudden, you know, there's no videos of him, there's, I forgot what his voice sounded like, aside from, a couple, a couple words here and there. So, then being able to find that, and then here, I mean, granted, it's like a 60-year difference, but being able to hear his voice again, it was a moment.
