New roots: Black musicians and advocates are forging coalitions outside the system

October 29, 2021   |   5:01 AM ET
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/29/1050322605/new-roots-black-musicians-and-advocates-are-forging-coalitions-outside-the-syste

The next chair over from her was Joy Clark, a lyrical lead guitarist who’d put in a decade playing in New Orleans bands, including one of Cyril Neville’s, and was now venturing into performing her own folk-leaning, confessional material. Holden’s songs were viscerally confessional too, but also possessed the crescendoing dynamics of Chris Stapleton, whose recordings he’d studied, and a touch of emo intensity.

When it was his turn to sing, Holden first offered a disclaimer: “Excuse my mismatched socks.” That elicited an expression of solidarity from someone across the room — “If anybody judge you, they takin’ everybody” — a playful vow drowned out by collective laughter.

In that space, there was little use for distinctions between markets, formats or categories. These performers congregated around shared experiences, having each encountered formidable barriers in the way of their aspiration to work anywhere along a continuum of country, contemporary folk and roots music that’s been preserved and promoted as a domain of whiteness.

“The way that I always understood that you were supposed to do it is to just pay your dues, pay your dues, pay your dues,” said Lizzie No, a singer-songwriter who balances contemporary folk subtlety and alt-country sturdiness, arrived at the house the next day. No had made the rounds at industry conferences and music festivals like this before, laboring under the notion that she could get ahead simply by proving herself, she explained, “and then at some point hopefully it’ll start to be paid back in a way. I never felt like I knew the right people.”