Indigenous musician goes -- reluctantly -- for Oscars glory

LOS ANGELES - Scott George spends his weekdays providing affordable housing for Native American families in Oklahoma, and his weekends singing at traditional Osage dances.

That schedule will have to be interrupted next month as he travels to Hollywood for the Oscars, where the song he wrote for Martin Scorsese will compete with tracks from Billie Eilish, Mark Ronson and Jon Batiste for an Academy Award.

"I guess you could use the word surreal. But I don't really know what that means any more compared to this," George told AFP.

"Music is -- even though it's something I wake up with every day -- it's something we pursue on the weekends," he said.

George is a proud member of the Osage Nation, whose often tragic history forms the subject of Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon." 

The movie, which is up for 10 awards on March 10, tells the story of how the Osage struck enormous oil wealth in the early 20th century, only to be exploited and murdered by their duplicitous white neighbors.

The film was made with the deep collaboration of the Osage people, and filmed on location in their heartland.

"So when he asked us about the song, or about putting a song in there, we knew what he wanted."

Even so, the initial answer was no. Many Osage songs contain the names of old warriors from two or three centuries ago.

"These are ours. This belongs to us," explained George.

"And so we said, 'Well, we can't give him that. We can do something close, but we can't give him that.'

"So that's where that came from. We started composing our own song for him."

The result was "Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)," a powerful six-and-a-half minute anthem featuring thunderous drums, and lyrics encouraging the Osage people to stand up and be proud after surviving so many ordeals.