LONG BIO

MALI OBOMSAWIN. An award winning bassist, songwriter and composer from Odanak First Nation, Mali’s stunning debut Sweet Tooth (2022, Out of Your Head) received international acclaim and was named in “best of” lists from GRAMMY.com to JazzTimes and NPR. Sweet Tooth’s success has brought Obomsawin’s touring sextet to major jazz festivals across the US and Canada, and landed her a triple-feature in the soundtrack of FX’s hit series Reservation Dogs. Mali’s sophomore album “Greatest Hits” by Deerlady, an indie-shoegaze duo with guitarist Magdalena Abrego, was released January 19, 2024. NPR’s Lars Gotrich calls Greatest Hits a “headbang while you weep” record. In addition to touring her various projects this year, Mali’s score for the award winning documentary Sugarcane (dir. by Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie) had its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January 2024, where it picked up the SIFF director’s award and a distribution deal with Nat Geo and Disney+.

With an expansive background in American roots, rock, and jazz, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. She spent the early years of her career recording and touring internationally with folk-rock band Lula Wiles, who released three albums and an EP on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. An in-demand sideperson, Mali appears often with collaborators Jake Blount and with Julia Keefe’s Indigenous Big Band. She can be found in galleries and creative music spaces with friends and mentors Peter Apfelbaum, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble.

Mali studied Upright Bass at Berklee College of Music from 2013-2014. She went on to study composition and improvised music at Dartmouth College with mentor Taylor Ho Bynum, where she had the opportunity to work with Peter Apfelbaum (NY Hieroglyphics, Don Cherry), Craig Harris, Mary Halverson, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, and Tomas Fujiwara, among others. She was a twice attendee of the selective Acoustic Music Seminar in Savannah, GA, and toured and taught music extensively across the U.S., Canada, and overseas during her time at Dartmouth and Berklee, and received a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Government from Dartmouth in 2018.

Obomsawin received the 2022 International Folk Music Association's “Rising Tide Award," which honors new generation artists who embody the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice. She also received the New England Foundation of the Arts' New Work New England award in 2022, and SouthArts’ Jazz Road touring grant in 2023. Beyond the stage Mali is a community organizer and advocate for Indigenous rights, environmental justice and landback. She works as a writer and educator with Sunlight Media Collective, a Wabanaki-driven media team, to document and promote stories at the intersection of environmental justice and Tribal sovereignty. Her journalism has been published recently in Smithsonian, National Performance Network, and the Boston Globe. In 2020, Mali co-founded Bomazeen Land Trust, the first ever Wabanaki land trust, where she currently serves as executive director.