‘I just wanna ride’: Meet Tony Knight, Diné country-rapper from Flat Rock

TSÉHOOTSOOÍ

It didn’t have a brand, but the small microphone was only $30.

The price was in his budget range, so he purchased it and left the pawnshop in Phoenix.

When Anthony Blackhorse returned home, he tested it and it worked properly. He’s had it for four and a half years.

“It’s nothing fancy,” he said.

He also has a laptop he purchased for about $200. He said it’s nothing much because the screen’s cracked, the keyboard keys and the touchpad don’t work.

He must connect it to his TV and use an external keyboard and a wired USB mouse to use the laptop.

“It’s a whole lot of wiring,” he explained. “Plus, I have to hook up my microphone and everything that goes to it.

“It’s trying to do its best to work with everything that I’m doing with it,” he said. “My patience with that laptop has grown, so everything’s OK for me.”

The laptop is installed with music production software to create music from nothing under his stage name Tony Knight Muzik. His music videos have thousands of views on YouTube and TikTok.

One of his songs, “I just wanna ride,” about life and driving on the dirt roads in the Navajo Nation, has more than 52,000 views.

“This should be played on the radio,” one viewer posted.

“I play this song daily,” another said.

Blackhorse is from Tsésitł’é’é, Arizona, near Tséch’ízhí, where he grew up alongside his mother, Helena Artine, and his younger brother, Christian Artine.

Blackhorse is Áshįįhí and born for Bitáá’chii’nii (Táchii’nii).

Native country rapper

Blackhorse grew up listening to country and hip-hop – influences that have long vacillated between inspiration and strain.

But the genres are slowly but consistently finding common heritage, swapping structural elements, and taking comfort in each other’s sounds.

“I heard a song when I was young, and that really caught my ear,” Blackhorse said in an interview during his lunch hour last Thursday.

“It was the guitar that caught my attention the most – the acoustic, the electric guitar that played,” he said. “I loved the rhythm of the country tune, that country twang sound with the banjos.

“On the hip-hop side, I like the balance, the rhythm, the movements,” he explained. “When you combine guitars with hip-hop, it’s just soothing music that catches the feeling.

“And when you add good lyrics, good words to that song, it’s meaningful, and that song will come out good,” he said. “It’s a feeling I can’t express in words.”

When Blackhorse isn’t making music or performing on stage, he takes care of his family and travels for work. He’s currently working at a construction site in Tséhootsooí.

“I don’t know where I got my music from,” he said. “I don’t know how it came about, but it’s something I love doing.”

Blackhorse has been making music for a decade but never took it seriously because he kept it off the radar, sharing his music only with people he knew.

“It’s been so long, so I decided to take that first step in my music and do something different,” he explained. “And it was something I wasn’t even ready for (because) I didn’t think my music would actually touch so many people.”

It could be that Blackhorse’s songs make a psychological or emotional association between people, things or events in Diné Bikéyah.

“So many people would relate to my music,” he said. “I got kids who know my music, and it’s just too awesome to read comments from people about my music. From there, I just decided to take my music to another level.

“They (people) call it (my music), ‘a little bit of country with a little bit of hip-hop’ all mixed together,” he added. “It’s been going good so far, and people love it.

“Now that it’s come this far,” he said, ‘my views have gone up on my videos, and I just hope that it continues to grow in a positive way.”

Future is a different story

Blackhorse would like to write and produce music as far as he can see. But when he gets there, he may see further.

He said his only goal when he gets there is to build a small recording studio specializing in quality professional audio recording, editing, mixing and mastering services in the Navajo Nation where young Diné can go to record their music. That’s the dream.

“If I ever made it, where I’m actually successful, I’d love to build that small studio,” he said. “I want to build a studio for artists out there that want to make music and do something with their music.”

Using the recording studio would be free of charge, compared with professional studios outside the Nation, such as Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque, where studio rates start around $50 per hour, including an engineer, recording editing, mixing and digital delivery.

Blackhorse said some musicians don’t have that kind of money or the gas money to travel, so they may have to save up, which can take a while.

“And you’ve got to be on your A-game right then and there,” he said. “Then traveling, with the gas prices so high right now, I think it’s best to do it on your own.

“I learned everything on my own because I don’t have money to pay for a decent engineer or a professional engineer to mix and master my music,” he said. “I’m (self-taught).”

Blackhorse said his music isn’t recorded at high quality, but it’s decent, and he does his best to record quality.

“And when I do that, it takes a whole lot of time out of me,” he said. “It takes me (up to) two weeks to finish one song.

“I just want to bring good music to everybody,” he added. “Something different for everybody to listen to. I just want to make my mother proud. She’s been there since day one, for my family, my kids, my brother, who’s my biggest fan.”

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