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Rising Tide Award
The Rising Tide Award was launched in 2021 to celebrate a new generation artist who inspires others by embodying the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice.
The Rising Tide Award’s scope was expanded in 2024 in acknowledgement of the fact that some find their voice in art later in life, and therefore seeks to celebrate emergent artists of any age who inspire others by embodying the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice.
2025 Rising Tide Award
OKAN
OKAN, a powerhouse duo rooted in Afro-Cuban traditions and contemporary global influences, is this year’s recipient of the Rising Tide Award. Since its inception in 2021, this honor has celebrated artists who inspire through their creativity, community engagement, and advocacy for the ideals of the folk music tradition. OKAN exemplifies these values, blending their vibrant musicality with a deep commitment to cultural connection.
On tour, OKAN doesn’t just perform—they engage directly with the communities they visit, offering workshops that explore Afro-Cuban rhythms, storytelling, and song. This interactive approach empowers participants to connect with their own creativity while deepening their appreciation for OKAN’s heritage. Their music transcends borders, fostering a sense of unity and inclusivity.
OKAN’s dedication to both artistry and community has made them a beacon of inspiration, embodying the transformative spirit of the folk music tradition.
2024 Rising Tide Award
Sara Curruchich
Since emerging in 2012, Guatemalan songwriter and vocalist Sara Curruchich has sung in both Spanish and the Kaqchikel language of her people, the first musician to use the latter in popular music for an international audience. Her music is thus born from her people’s collective and individual feelings, history, memory, culture, languages, and struggles, as well as her own, personal stance as an artist. Her 2015 song “Ch’uti’xtän” first gained her fame within her country. Since then, she has released two albums and multiple singles. Curruchich is also an activist in defense of women’s and indigenous people’s rights, for which, she won the MIAW Transformer Award at the 2021 MTV Millennial Awards, served as an ambassador for the HeForShe movement with UN Women Guatemala, and was selected for the Ford Fellowship Foundation Global Fellowship Program. Sara’s voice and message of love, awareness, respect, and defense of life in all its forms, have led many people to regard her as a beacon of light and hope.
2023 Rising Tide Award
Alisa Amador
Alisa Amador points folk music toward its future — a future that’s cosmopolitan, multifaceted, and multilingual; qualities that have in fact been at the community’s heart all along. Amador, who comes from a folk music family, grew up in Boston, Maine, Puerto Rico, and Argentina, and her songs show the influence of all of those places. A native Spanish speaker who’s spent most of her life in the States, Amador moves easefully between the two languages in her songwriting. As a high schooler, she studied jazz, and is known for sometimes scatting during performances. Amador’s ability to blend all of these influences within sharply rendered yet gently flowing songs helped her win NPR Music’s prestigious Tiny Desk Contest and Folk Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards.
2022 Rising Tide Award
Mali Obomsawin
Mali is an award-winning Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist from Odanak Wabanaki First Nation. She is a bassist, singer-songwriter, and composer who embraces multiple music traditions and has toured internationally as part of the band Lula Wiles. She is also a proud member of Welcome to Indian Country, an Indigenous performance production, and has worked with Red Sky Performances. Her latest project, Sweet Tooth, explores concepts of Indigenous identity, colonization, and resistance. Known for her sardonic songwriting, beyond the stage Mali is also a freelance journalist, penning insightful must-read articles for The Boston Globe, National Performance Network, and Smithsonian Folklife Magazine. She is a tireless advocate for Indigenous sovereignty and collective liberation, and works with the organizations Racial Equity and Justice as well as the Sunlight Media Collective. She is the founder and Executive Director of Bomazeen Land Trust, a Wabanaki-led nonprofit for land rematriation and food sovereignty. Mali is currently scoring and serving as musical supervisor for the upcoming film We Are The Warriors, addressing racist mascots and verbiage.
2021 Rising Tide Award
Raye Zaragoza
A galvanizing presence and self-assured artist, she describes her work as music that “fights for, represents, and celebrates those left too long outside the spotlight”. Deemed “one of the most politically relevant artists in her genre” by Paste Magazine, Zaragoza is both tender and tenacious as she examines life, self, identity, immigration, and the times in which, for many, simply existing is political. Raised in New York City and living in LA, Zaragoza independently released her debut album Fight For You in 2017 covering topics related to social justice, feminism, the environment, and Indigenous rights and featured songs The American Dream, In The River, and Driving to Standing Rock. Her sophomore album Woman In Color was released in 2020 on her own Rebel River Records label, and embraces all aspects of her mixed-race identity as a Japanese-American, Mexican, Indigenous woman. Songs include Fight Like A Girl, Red, and They Say – an intriguing critique of demographic pigeonholing of folk music. She is a recipient of the Global Music Awards’ Heretic Award for Protest/Activist Music and the Honesty Oscars’ award for Best Song.
