Klee Benally is the lead vocalist and guitarist of Navajopunk rock bandBlackfire. Benally is also an activist, artist, silversmith, and filmmaker. He also performs traditional Navajo dances and is a champion fancy war dancer.
Background
Benally was born in 1975. His parents are Jones, a traditional Navajo medicine man, and Berta Benally, a folk singer and songwriter born to Russian-Polish Jewish parents. His sister is Jeneda and his brother is Clayson. They belong to the Bitter Water Clan. Together they grew up on Black Mesa, Tusayan, and Flagstaff, AZ but their father is from Black Mesa, Navajo Nation. Benally is featured as a model in contract photographer John Running's work from the 1990s to 2000s. Benally and his family have been photographed by Running as part of an agreement with Canyon Records that distributes music by their band Blackfire. Klee now lives with his wife, Princess, in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Music
Klee, Jeneda, and Clayson formed the punk band, Blackfire in 1989. They have toured internationally. They incorporate aspects of traditional Navajo music in their songs. They were also influenced by bands such as Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Subhumans, Crass, Bad Brains, and other punk bands. The name refers to the pollution, especially from coal mining, on the Navajo Nation.
Video and film
Benally has made many documentary shorts. He directed a documentary called "The Snowbowl Effect," which addresses proposed ski area development on Arizona's San Francisco Peaks. He is currently in production of a feature film he wrote and directed called "Power Lines."
Community work
He was also the coordinator of the southwest Native American Film and Video Festival at the Museum of Northern Arizona in 2004 and 2005. He has co-founded grassroots projects such as the Taala Hoghan Infoshop, Indigenous Action Media, Outta Your Backpack Media Project, Flagstaff Activist Network and the Save the Peaks Coalition. "Our generation has a whole lot of anger," says Benally. "We can try to turn negative into positive, be productive." In May 2010, Klee was part of a direct action where he and 5 others locked down at Tucson Border Patrol Headquarters to protest border militarization on Indigenous lands and Arizona SB 1070.
Awards and recognition
He won numerous awards for his art at the Heard Museum in Phoenix and was the first student to win Best Show at the Navajo art show at the Museum of Northern Arizona in 1991. In 2010, Benally was awarded the Livable Community Award by a Flagstaff community group for his work for social and environmental justice.
