Some great press about our first grant recipient, Shadow Devereaux, aka Foreshadow!
Photos: Ben Allan Smith, Missoulian
'Perfect Timing': Salish-Blackfeet rapper tapped to record with national producer
Cory Walsh
In the video for Shadow Devereaux’s song, “Bring Them Home,” the Salish-Blackfeet MC and producer stands with Chief Mountain towering behind him as he raps about the return of the bison herd to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
Devereaux produced the song for the 2024 documentary as “Foreshadow,” the name he raps under. The very first lines, “Call it perfect timing/better now than never though,” now supply the name and motto for his new solo album.
Last summer, he applied for a brand new fellowship, the Billy Conway Artist Fund, designed for emerging Indigenous artists. After some 12 years of do-it-yourself hustle, he was teamed up with a national producer, Lophiile, who has a Grammy Award to his name, in a state of the art recording studio in Livingston. After that, he knew the album title had to be “Perfect Timing.”
“That's exactly how it came about,” he said. “It just felt like it was the right time. Yeah, can’t really say much more than that.”
The seven tracks cover his youth on the Flathead Indian Reservation and messages about resiliency and pursuing goals even when they seem distant, with energetic, organic beats that draw on R&B, funk and more.
“I wanted to talk about where I grew up, how I grew up and really focus on the community that I grew up in on the reservation,” he said. A throughline in the tracks is “sticking to those big dreams that you have, or the passion that pushes you, sticking to that and carrying it out.”
“I wanted to kind of put that in the light and so that they feel like they have hope,” he said.
Deveraux grew up on the Flathead Indian Reservation and got into music early. His cousin, Buck Hitswithastick, is a musician and played in a metal band called War Cry. Devereaux got hooked on hip-hop when he was young, particularly inspired by Tupac Shakur’s “All Eyez on Me.” He remembers seeing 50 Cent’s movie, “Get Rich and Die Trying” in the theater with a friend and being so amped they started working on their own tracks.
“We went home and just, we wrote our first song and rapped it,” he said.
He dove in deeper when he was older. He dropped out of college and used his refund checks to buy gear and started recording with the Codependents.
“I was working on it every day, so it was as serious as it gets,” he said.
Over the years, he got tapped to open for touring artists like Deltron 3030, Bone Thugs ‘N’ Harmony, and many more, including the shows at the Wilma.
Early in the pandemic, he recorded a track and accompanying video, “Protect Your People,” as part of a health and safety campaign from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. It earned him a Native American Music Award for Best Narrative in a Video.
For Devereaux's new solo album Perfect Timing, he teamed up with Grammy Award-winning national producer Lophiile after receiving a fellowship for emerging Indigenous artists.
Supporting emerging artists
Devereaux is the first recipient of the Billy Conway Artist Fund, created in memory of the late musician, best known for his work as a drummer for the 1990s rock trio Morphine. Conway lived in the Bozeman area later in his career and toured around the state with songwriter Jeffrey Foucault. He also befriended the local artist community, including folks like writer-poet Chris Dombrowski and author David James Duncan.
After he died of cancer in 2021, his wife, Laurie Sargent, led an effort to honor his "legacy of creative generosity,” she said. He had a way of making people feel positive about their musical skills, regardless of whether they were a kid, a beginner adult or a working professional. The two lived in Montana for 13 years, and a common discussion was the lack of visibility and support for Native art in a state that has a high population of Indigenous people.
After she was offered financial backing for a memorial of some kind, she and her collaborators designed this fund, which provides financial support and mentorship and helps provide guidance for creative people in a complex industry.
The first applications opened last year. After multiple people sent him the link, Devereaux applied. Sargent said he was the perfectly timed fit for a few reasons.
“Something that attracted us about Shadow when he applied was that he was already a mentor to people in his community, to young people in particular. We felt like our effort and his effort would be doubled because he would not just find his way through the whole puzzle of creating and selling and marketing, but he would also be teaching other people how to do it,” she said.
“I wanted to talk about where I grew up, how I grew up and really focus on the community that I grew up in on the reservation,” he said. A throughline in the tracks is “sticking to those big dreams that you have, or the passion that pushes you, sticking to that and carrying it out.”
The mentors in the program are from Conway and Sargent’s circles, mostly in the Americana and roots veins, so they reached out to Lophiile, given name Tyler Acord, who they had connections with.
Devereaux didn’t know he would be working with Acord until he got the phone call telling him he’d won. The two clicked right away.
“He was super excited to do it. He loves Montana and loves hip-hop,” Devereaux said.
Acord’s a polymath musician who’s worked with R&B singer-songwriter H.E.R., including beats on her 2017 self-titled release that won the Grammy for best R&B album of the year. He’s played with the metalcore band Issues, R&B group Radiant Children and produced for the rapper Freddie Gibbs.
They traded ideas before the session. Acord had ideas for beats, and Deveraux already had three songs completed that he'd been saving for a future record: “My Purpose,” “Sunshine,” and “Bring Them Home.” He sent them to Acord, who reworked them and used them as a template for the record’s overall sound.
The fund arranged for five days at Paradise Valley Sound, a state-of-the-art studio in Livingston that was still under construction at the time. Devereaux, who has kids and his own studio, Area 41 Collective, was able to dive in and focus and “just be an artist.”
“We got an Airbnb out there, just stayed out there for a whole week and made music. All day.”
While Devereaux has always done everything himself in the past, from the production to the recording, now he was in the studio with a multi-instrumentalist who could translate ideas on the spot, from guitars, bass, keyboards and turntables.
“Anything I asked, he could do it,” Deveraux said.
They also worked very spontaneously by design.
“I didn’t write until I got there,” he said. “I like to hear the music before I write.”
He had a mental list of ideas for his lyrics and themes and was ready to make the timing count.
“I was prepared for sure — definitely mentally preparing the whole time,” he said.
Deveraux got hooked on rap when he was young, particularly inspired by Tupac Shakur’s “All Eyez on Me.”

Announcing
Our 2024 Grant Recipient:
Shadow Devereaux
aka
Foreshadow
The Billy Conway Artist Fund seeks to aim the spotlight on Indigenous Artists from Montana who create in the musical, literary, and visual arts. This labor of love has been created to honor and push forward Billy’s legacy of creative generosity- he was the backbone of many songwriters’ creative processes , for Billy it was all about the song, not about himself.
We at BCAF are thrilled and proud to announce our first grant recipient, Shadow Devereaux (aka Foreshadow)!!!! (We’ve been trying not to use a lot of exclamations, but we can’t stop ourselves on this one!)
Shadow Devereaux is a Salish and Blackfeet hip hop artist from the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana. His music blends the struggles of Indigenous youth with themes of positivity and resilience. Shadow's work exemplifies the power of art to inspire change and uplift those around him, embodying a spirit of creativity and cultural pride. He has honed his craft over a decade, mastering the art storytelling through song, with a deep understanding of engagement and cultural preservation. He bears a dynamic and impactful presence, both on and off the stage.
Shadow is a skilled audio engineer and and owner of the Missoula recording studio, Nu Wav. And, to top it off, he is father to three beautiful boys.
Just before Billy Conway left his body, he summed up life from that perspective by saying - with a sweet smile, “In the end, we’re all just a story.” If we look at it this way, we, as individuals, weave our stories into one another’s, and create something larger.
We are looking forward to witnessing the story of Shadow.
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