Over the past few years, Agalisiga Mackey has spent a lot of time on Tulsa stages strumming his guitar as he sings lyrics in Cherokee. Soon he will have his own stage to perform on when Palomino Books & Music opens July 1 in the Kendall-Whittier District.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The country-folk singer and his author wife, Paloma Lopez, live 50-plus miles east of Tulsa in Salina. But through numerous trips for gigs and cultural activities, they\u2019ve fallen in love with the community of T-Town creatives, many of them Indigenous. That inspired them to launch a business to help make it even stronger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n Customers inside Palomino Books & Music during its Kendall-Whittier Third Thursday pop-up on June 18, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s the music man and I\u2019m the book lady \u2014 that\u2019s what we call ourselves,\u201d Lopez said as she shelved books ahead of the opening. \u201cWe both kind of had the thought of what could we do as artists, as creatives in our respective areas, what can we do on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n The bookstore at 2411 E. Admiral Blvd. carries a curated selection of books from Indigenous authors and about Indigenous topics. There are also chart-topping fiction, must-read classics, thought-provoking non-fiction and bilingual books for all ages.<\/p>\n Mixed in within the options are used copies, which make books more accessible to the community, Lopez said. The store is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.<\/p>\n The bookstore also fills a void left by\u00a0Whitty Books\u2019 departure<\/a>\u00a0in January 2025 after nearly seven years of operations in the historic district.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mackey, a Cherokee Nation citizen, and Lopez are both language educators and plan to soon offer Cherokee language courses at the store.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lopez\u2019s passion for literature runs deep. She is the author of a children\u2019s book, \u201cPopo the Xolo,\u201d inspired by the nine levels of Mictl\u0101n and the role Xolo dogs play by guiding those who have passed on in Indigenous cultural understandings of present-day Mexico.<\/p>\n Recent years have brought lots of changes and more roles for Lopez, and she enjoys the opportunity to add \u201csmall business owner\u201d to her list.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been someone who\u2019s liked to have my hands in lots of pots, and it\u2019s hard for me to kind of tie myself down to one area or one thing,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cI\u2019ve been a horse girl my entire life, and I\u2019ve also been an artist, a writer, a student, and now I\u2019m a mom and bookstore owner.\u201d<\/p>\n Mackey admits he\u2019s not much of a reader, but he no longer has an excuse not to be with so many books surrounding him. Being the musician in the family, he\u2019s more excited about the listening room, which he debuts July 3 with a solo performance from 8 to 9:30 p.m. That day, Cherokee artist Kindra Swafford will paint a mural that divides the bookstore from the seated performance area.\u00a0<\/p>\n A song swap featuring Mackey, Jolleen Brown, Kalyn Fay and Jared Tyler will follow at 8 p.m. July 17. Doors open at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n The store also carries vinyl from Horton Records, minus Mackey\u2019s sold-out debut album, and a curated collection of used vinyl from nonprofit founder Brian Horton\u2019s private collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lopez said they could have stayed closer to home and opened a similar store in Tahlequah, but \u201cwe\u2019re both young. We\u2019re in our 20s, and we have that kind of nature to want to explore, and Tulsa is our spot to do that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve come to learn this city really is such a hub for Indigenous creators and really just creators in general that are putting Tulsa on the map,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got it all, and we\u2019ve got the best, and I say that coming from the West Coast. There are people who know what\u2019s up and are doing really cool things, and we\u2019re excited to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n News decisions at the Tulsa Flyer are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This story was originally published by\u00a0<\/em>Tulsa Flyer<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and is republished with permission. To view the original story, visit\u00a0<\/em>https:\/\/tulsaflyer.org\/2026\/06\/26\/culture\/post\/palomino-books-music-opening\/<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cherokeephoenix.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past few years, Agalisiga Mackey has spent a lot of time on Tulsa stages strumming his guitar as he sings lyrics in Cherokee. Soon he will have his own stage to perform on when Palomino Books & Music opens July 1 in the Kendall-Whittier District.\u00a0 The country-folk singer and his author wife, Paloma […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2483150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[21990,341174,341173,354422,306904,22366,368302,488887],"class_list":["post-2483149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-albums","tag-cherokee","tag-cherokee-nation","tag-indigenous-peoples","tag-oklahoma","tag-rock-music","tag-tulsa","tag-xolo-company"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/New-Tulsa-bookstore-sets-the-stage-for-Indigenous-language-music.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2483149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2483151,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2483149\/revisions\/2483151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2483150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2483149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2483149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2483149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n TIM LANDES \/ TULSA FLYER<\/span>
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