​California-born and North Carolina raised Camille Parker is a new kind of country artist. Her debut single “The Flame'' has earned over 1.5 million on-demand streams and charted in the top 10 of Apple Music’s country charts in over 17 countries. Parker’s arresting vocal delivery, contemporary songwriting, and genre-fluid approach to production has resulted in collaborations with some of Nashville’s brightest and most celebrated creators. Parker is currently recording her debut EP alongside GRAMMY award-winning and platinum-selling producers Chris McClenney and David Phelps. Most recently she was inducted as a member of CMT’s Next Women of Country class of 2022.

BRELAND is a paradox. The Jersey-born-and-raised, feel-good creative force is perhaps the most unlikely and predestined breakout Country star on today’s horizon, where he defines and defies labels by embracing all kinds of music with an exuberance that’s blinding. Employing a strong wash of modern Pop, the double Georgetown Business/Marketing degree’d music obsessive offers the shimmer of Bruno Mars, the slink of Luther Vandross, Drake or Teddy Pendergrass and a couple handfuls of old school dirt floor Southern Gospel interjected into his positive vibe take on modern living and Country music. “Joy is a lifestyle and a decision,” explains the PLATINUM-certified artist. “To me, people often mistake happiness for it. But joy comes with purpose; it’s exchanging energy, a driver. Joy’s as contagious as anything; when someone’s walking with it, it rubs off on everyone around them. Music does that, too…” Whether the Casio-dripping ride-or-die friends anthem “Here For It,” featuring Ingrid Andress, the romping homestyle “County Line” that celebrates his small town life, the bumping celebration of confident woman everywhere “Thick” that shouts out Lizzo, Megan the Stallion and Serena Williams among others, the New Jack sultriness of “Alone At The Ranch” or the slinky, Soul-tinged “Don’t Look At Me” the man Rolling Stone called “a symbol of Country music’s ongoing evolution” blends an intoxicating cocktail that’s equally effervescent and smart. It also makes Cross Country the perfect title for BRELAND’s Bad Realm Records/Atlantic Records/Warner Music Nashville debut. The spirited songwriter who can namecheck Hemi engines, crispy chicken, “Country Grammar,” East Atlanta, the Rolling Stones and broken cowboy boots connects from the inside out. He strips the best aspects of life – and music – to their essence, then delivers 14 songs that distill a kind of Country that reaches across genre definitions to be wholly new, fresh, alive and his own. “I’m seeing more and more artists blurring genres, not worrying about what it is,” says the young man who came to Nashville from urban music Mecca Atlanta, GA. “Country music is global, too. C2C in the UK, festivals in Europe, Canada and Australia make it so much bigger. It’s speaking to people from different backgrounds, ideals, who look different but feel the same things. “For me, I listen to a lot of Stevie Wonder, Glen Campbell, Earth Wind & Fire, Kendrick Lamar, Kacey Musgraves, Drake. The people I collaborate with – Sam Hunt, ERNEST, Keith Urban – they listen like that, too, so it all ends up in my songs.” BRELAND also believes in depth to his lyrics. A tremendous bit of unadulterated euphoria is balanced by a seriousness and reckoning that creates a sub-arc on his major label debut. With three songs – the luxurious “Told You I Could Drink” (with Lady A), the acoustic stroll and debut Country radio single “For What It’s Worth,” the memory-tinged misdirection “Happy Song” – he explores not just regret, but his part in the break-up. “It’s a by-product of who I am,” he offers. “The toxic Pop music of the past few years, men and women who don’t really shoulder any responsibility for what happened. But I wanted the sad songs to have a level of accountability. ‘Good For You’ and ‘For What It’s Worth,’ they look at what happened – and what I wish. I’d much rather sing a break-up song from that perspective.” “Being good ain’t good enough If I never was that good for you…” He opens the subdued acoustic “Good For You” with a list of impressive achievements, owning there’s no equivalent in love. With a fluttering tone that suggests Usher or Prince at their most intimate, BRELAND offers a deeper look at broken hearts. Giving his silky ballads more heft under the hood, he introduces a way of looking at love that’s been missing since Conway Twitty. That deeper look informs the plucky “Growing Pains,” another self-awareness song that’s as much self-compassion as own where you are, learn the lesson and carry on. A song that looks hard at the falter – “Mama told me days like this will come / and that when they do, don’t let them break your luck…” – and rises stronger and encouraged in the knowing. That same striving, growing and believing infuses the Mickey Guyton duet title track with an authenticity both have lived. Like “Here For It,” the next wave of Country stars recognize the dream in each other, supporting and lifting each other up. “I’d put ‘Growing Pains’ in there, because it’s a perspective I have on friendship. If I’m going to show up for people, I can’t show up for anyone if I don’t take care of myself. It’s the thing no one tells you, and it’s easy to not realize.” “I’ve built a network of people who love me the way I want to be loved! They’ll call me out, tell me. When Ingrid and I wrote ‘Here For It,’ I thought it was for her album, then it didn’t make it – and I got to have it. Nobody writes friend songs from that perspective, and that’s what we’re talking about…” “Mickey, when I first came to town and had ‘My Truck,’ she reached out and said, ‘Whatever you need…’ She’s the real deal when it comes to being someone who shows up and creates community. We’ve only written a couple times, but I wanted her on ‘Cross Country.’ She was eight months pregnant, so she joked, ‘My heart is all over this song…’ But we sent her a version with the open verse for her, then we wrote it – and she sent back that vocal! This is the woman who at the CMT 2021 Awards, when I’d never done an awards show, said, ‘Hey, you should come back out and sing ‘Friendship Train’ with Gladys Knight.’ See what I mean?” Indeed, BRELAND’s bottomless positivity and creativity draws people to him. Lady A’s Charles Kelley met him at Miranda Lambert’s CMA after-party, said “Give me your number so we can write.” In a world of empty promises, the Lady A singer not only called, Kelley co-wrote “Told You I Could Drink” with BRELAND and his back home from Burlington, NJ, friend Zachary Manno. “His Dad was Superintendent when my Mom was Vice Principal of the Elementary School, so we grew up faculty kids who fell out of touch. When I called him and said, ‘I’m bringing Charles Kelley over to your apartment — and we’re writing a hit!,’ who knew? But it was a focus track before this was even out.” That irrepressibility is relentless. Acknowledging the occasional down day – “I had to realize I can’t let my life be ‘Something good happened, I feel great!,’ then ‘Something didn’t happen, and I feel…’ It’s just out of my control” – the more his journey has come together, the more the child of two pastors has come to believe it was meant to be. “The more things fell into place, all the serendipitous moments… I come from a household of faith. Growing up, my parents told me I was going to do something special. And in the world of every kid gets a trophy, that’s not my parents. I made a decision in November when I was bogged down by music stuff, that I was going to be grateful for everything, whether it feels good or not, whether it was bad or not, even a day off, GRATEFUL!” “In February of 2020, we had ‘Thick.’ Lady A were cutting their vocals in May of 2022. It was 26 months of creation, 26 months of growing and writing… and trusting. I knew I wanted to make a project that wasn’t preaching, ‘You can do it.’ I have these songs where I am saying, ‘Yeah, you can…’ because I have, that say: Ignore the doubters and people saying, ‘This isn’t how you do it,’ because I have. I don’t really care if it’s not how I’m supposed to do it if I can be faithful to my purpose. That’s every single one who hears this album. I want people to walk away feeling inspired to make their own Cross Country, and you don’t have to make music at all! Whatever you want to pursue or do, don’t give up because of it might be perceived as or what’s supposed to happen. Listen. Dream. Do it.” BRELAND laughs again, knowing the preacher in his genes is on full display. He’s not apologizing, but acknowledging we all need a little cheerleading, a little honesty and the faith to make the leap. Without creating a manual for doing the unthinkable, he’s created Cross Country as a field guide to jumping. “Cross Country is more than Country and Hip Hop. It felt like people thought that’s what I am. ‘County Line’ and ‘Throw It Back’ are the only ones that are that, the rest go everywhere, and that’s the idea.” “If these songs only live in Country, then I didn’t do my job. I want to create something Country listeners and other listeners of Pop or whatever can listen to. We as a society are dealing with a lot of different divisions that only music is going to bring together. Music can bring people from different places, cities, states, ideas together. So, I’m playing with all these different genres to build bridges between Country and R&B, Hip Hop and Gospel, and Pop. The language? The instruments? I’m not sure, but let’s get all those different groups together through music and the songs.”

A Houston based singer-songwriter, Ashleigh Brae's voice is a force of nature that seamlessly weaves country music with gospel and R&B. Ashleigh's clear tone effortlessly soars over her carefully curated background vocals in her 2021 single, "Longhaul". The same is true for her upcoming release, "Too Much to Carry" (available June 15) which gives listeners the opportunity to hear a softer side of the artist, and they are sure to be mesmerized. ​ Ashleigh Brae is a member of The Black Opry and shared the stage with other members in Atlanta, GA in February 2022. She also performed and at the MC1 Artist Showcase in Nashville, TN in 2022. ​ ​

Valerie June Hockett (born January 10, 1982), known as Valerie June, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Her sound encompasses a mixture of folk, blues, gospel, soul, country, Appalachian and bluegrass. She is signed to Fantasy Records, and its parent company, Concord Music Group worldwide. Through music and poetry, June wants to energize individual and collective change. Bio courtesy of Wikipedia

Bravery can take many forms. For Danielle Ponder it took the shape of a leap of faith: leaving her successful day job working in the public defender’s office in her hometown of Rochester to devote herself full-time to sharing her powerful voice with the world. The singer-songwriter’s mesmerizing eight song debut Some of Us Are Brave reinforces that her faith was not misplaced, and her leap has been rewarded with a safe landing. Written and recorded over three years, the album is a refreshingly original, shiver-inducing mix of pop, R&B, blues, rock, and moody trip-hop topped by Ponder’s celestial voice— an instrument that can plumb melancholy depths with a heartsick murmur and scrape the sky with hurricane force wails. The sixth of seven children, Ponder had always been musical but chose to pursue a career in law after her brother received a 20-year sentence due to a “three strikes” law. But even as she became a tireless advocate for justice in her community—first as a public defender and later as a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer in that same office—the music was never far from her heart as she played in bands and wrote songs, first between classes, then between cases. “I loved being a public defender, I loved standing next to my clients and advocating for them,” says Ponder. “But it came to the point where I had to choose.” And so, she leapt.

Rachel Maxann is a diverse vocalist hailing from Memphis, TN. Rachel has had the pleasure of being able to move to different areas in the world and perform. Each new space has allowed her to grow in a new way while experimenting with different styles every location. Rachel’s genre is self-described as Post-Modern Folk and Vintage Indie-Rock with a dash of blues and soul. Rachel’s musical accomplishments range from performing alongside Valerie June on her Moon and Stars Tour, to performing at festivals around the country. You can follow Rachel Maxann at www.rachelmaxann.com, and on social media under Rachel Maxann Music.

Having already established a global fan base with her previous singles “Almost Love,” “My Revenge,” and “Fight With You,” 2022 and 2023 pose to be Ashlie Amber’s fiercest years to date. With the unveiling of her 2021 February single “Those Nights,” Ashlie Amber celebrated the first self-penned release of her career, along with the launch of her publishing company Diva Music Group. Now, her latest self-penned release “Open” is shutting it down, and is a reminder from the rising global star that she has a voice and she is ready to use it to create change and open doors for artists around the world who maybe don’t get the support they deserve from industry insiders just because they don’t tick enough of their corporate boxes.

The Rounder Records debut from Amythyst Kiah, Wary + Strange marks the glorious collision of two vastly different worlds: the iconoclastic alt-rock that first sparked her musical passion, and the roots/old-time-music scene where she’s found breakout success in recent years, including recognition from Rolling Stone as “one of Americana’s great up-and-coming secrets.” Along with tapping into the vibrant musicality she honed in part through her studies in East Tennessee State University’s Bluegrass, Old Time, Country Music program, the Chattanooga-bred singer/songwriter expands on the uncompromising artistry she’s displayed as a member of Our Native Daughters—an all-women-of-color supergroup whose Kiah-penned standout “Black Myself” earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best American Roots Song and won Song of the Year at the Folk Alliance International Awards. Produced by Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Amos Lee, Andrew Bird) and made with esteemed musicians like Blake Mills, Wary + Strange arrives as a deeply immersive body of work, endlessly redefining the limits of roots music in its inventive rhythms and textures. With an unforgettable voice that’s both unfettered and exquisitely controlled, Kiah gracefully interlaces political commentary and personal revelation, ultimately offering a raw yet nuanced examination of grief, alienation, and the hard-won triumph of total self-acceptance.

Allison Russell is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician and activist. Prior to her solo music career, Russell performed as a member of various music groups including Po' Girl, Birds of Chicago, Our Native Daughter and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon. She released her first solo album, Outside Child, in 2021. The album was nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award in the Best Americana Album category, and the single "Nightflyer" was nominated for both the Best American Roots Performance (Russell) and Best American Roots Song (Russell and Jeremy Lindsay, co-writers). In addition to her three Grammy nominations, Russell has been nominated for four Canadian Folk Music Awards, two Juno Awards and has been named to the long list for the Polaris Music Prize. Bio courtesy of Wikipedia

Jake Blount (pronounced: blunt) is an award-winning musician and scholar based in Providence, RI. He is half of the internationally touring duo Tui, a 2020 recipient of the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, and a two-time winner of the Appalachian String Band Music Festival (better known as Clifftop). A specialist in the early folk music of Black Americans, Blount is a skilled performer of spirituals, blues and string band repertoire. Blount has performed at the Kennedy Center, the Newport Folk Festival, NPR's Tiny Desk, and numerous other venues across and beyond the United States. He has presented his scholarly work at museums and universities including the Smithsonian Institution, Berklee College of Music and Yale University. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, No Depression, and NPR. His most recent album, The New Faith, is the latest installment of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings' African American Legacy Series. Blount enrolled at Hamilton College in 2013. He received his first banjo lessons from Dr. Lydia Hamessley the same fall, and started to structure a course of study around the early traditional music of Black communities in the United States. An electric guitarist since age twelve, Blount shifted his focus to string band music after taking up the banjo and fiddle. In the years that followed, Blount studied under modern masters of old-time music: Bruce Molsky, Judy Hyman (of the Horse Flies), and Rhiannon Giddens and Hubby Jenkins (of the GRAMMY-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops). Blount first achieved widespread recognition within the old-time scene when his band, The Moose Whisperers, claimed first place in the traditional band contest at Clifftop. Blount was the first Black person to make the finals in any category, and he has repeated the feat multiple times since. He launched his career in earnest in the summer of 2017: he received his B.A. in ethnomusicology and released his debut EP, Reparations, with Tatiana Hargreaves. The next three years saw the release of Tui’s Pretty Little Mister, Blount’s victory in the Clifftop banjo competition, and his selection both as a 2020 Strathmore Artist in Residence, and as a member of the International Bluegrass Music Association's Leadership Bluegrass Class of 2020. Blount released his debut solo album, Spider Tales, on May 29, 2020 through Free Dirt Records. Produced by Jeff Claus and Judy Hyman (of the Horse Flies) and featuring Tatiana Hargreaves, Nic Gareiss, Rachel Eddy and Haselden Ciaccio, the album debuted at #2 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart and received widespread critical praise. The Guardian declared it an "instant classic" and awarded it five out of five stars. Bandcamp selected it as Album of the Day, and it received positive coverage in NPR, Rolling Stone Country, Billboard Pride and AV Club. Spider Tales later appeared on "Best of 2020" lists from NPR, Bandcamp, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and elsewhere. It was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2021 International Folk Music Awards, and received "Best of the Americas" at the Songlines Music Awards in the same year. Blount's latest record, The New Faith, was released on September 23, 2022 as part of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings' African American Legacy Series, in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture. An Afrofuturist concept album, The New Faith explores traditional Black religious music as it might exist post-climate crisis. The album represents a significant progression in Blount's sound, utilizing his formidable skills as an acoustic musician as well as newfound affinities for electric guitar, looping, and digital processing. The album received widespread critical acclaim, garnering five-star reviews from The Telegraph, Songlines and Financial Times and receiving positive coverage from outlets including NPR, Bandcamp, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and more. It appeared on "Best of 2022" lists from Rolling Stone, NPR, PopMatters, Songlines, Folk Alley and more.

Blurring the lines between Country and hip-hop music, Blanco Brown makes a southern sound that he proudly calls “TrailerTrap.” It’s a boundary-breaking, multicolored genre of his very own – which draws upon the rawness and storytelling abilities of his two biggest musical influences, Johnny Cash and Outkast. His debut album, Honeysuckle & Lightning Bugs, shows off the full range of its creator, who juggled multiple roles as the project’s songwriter, producer, vocalist, visionary, and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, harmonica, lap steel, spoons, tambourine, to name a few). Since 2014, Blanco has been honing in on his unique sound, which is a mix of countrified influences and street-smart lingo, that balances both the urban and rural settings in which he grew up. His viral hit “The Git Up” (certified 11x PLATINUM across three countries) took the world by storm, claiming the top spot in charts across the globe and spawning nearly four billion views across social platforms. It claimed the No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for 12 weeks and was the top-selling digital Country song in the US for 13 weeks resulting in Billboard naming him as their No. 1 Top New Country Artist for 2019. In addition to being named Billboard’s “7 Country Acts to Watch in 2019,” the Georgia native is a background singer, artist and Grammy-nominated engineer who has worked with big name talent including Fergie, Childish Gambino, Kane Brown and Chris Brown. The multi-talent’s multi-national Platinum-certified collaboration “Just the Way” with Parmalee has garnered more than 300 million on-demand streams, earning Brown his first No. 1 hit on Country radio (in the US and Canada) and becoming the most played song on iHeartCountry in 2021. Recovering from a life-threatening accident and leaning on music to heal, Blanco released “Nobody’s More Country” in 2021. Then, while hitting the road hard this summer, he instantly captured the attention of audiences at festival dates as well as his headlining Monster Energy tour shows across the nation opening his set with a breathtakingly powerful cover blend of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey.” Blanco has been showcasing his world-class vocal talent and stage presence in preparation for his upcoming, emotionally charged new track “I’ll Never” that is unlike anything the No. 1 hitmaker has ever released. With steel guitar and country instrumentation, “I’ll Never” is sure to be THE upcoming “song of wedding season,” concrete in its meaning that you’ll “never stop loving” those in life who are important to you. On November 4th “Let it Slide,” was released featuring Blanco, LOCASH and the lovely Leslie Jordan.

Described as “...a Black Lucinda Williams…” (Vanity Fair) with lingering comparisons to Sly Stone, Nina Simone and Billie Holiday, Harlem-based performance artist, vocalist, songwriter, musician, and producer Queen Esther was raised in Atlanta, Georgia and rooted in Charleston, South Carolina’s culturally rich and enigmatic Lowcountry, a region with African traditions and Black folkways that span centuries and continue to inform her work. As her fourth release on her imprint EL Recordings, her 2021 self-produced Black Americana album Gild The Black Lily – “...a minor masterpiece…” - LIRA (Sweden) – continues to garner acclaim, so do her writings about American music history, and her TED Talk "The True Origins of Country Music".

Brian Artis (aka. Harmonica Beast) is a Virginia Beach based Guitarist , Harmonica player and , Singer/Songwriter; a member of the music duos Grain of Salt , Artis & Steele , The Capo Twins , and The New Driftwood Duo. As Owner Operator of Paradox TMT Brian created Paradox TMT's At 6:30, The Dragonfly Summer Concert Series and The Half Moon Beads and Rocks Atlantic Music and Hoopfest.

Brittany Amber Howard (born October 2, 1988) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter known for being the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and main songwriter of rock bands Alabama Shakes, Thunderbitch, and Bermuda Triangle. Her work with Alabama Shakes has garnered her nine Grammy Award nominations including Best New Artist and Album of the Year for Sound & Color. They eventually won four awards including Best Alternative Music Album. In 2018, Alabama Shakes announced they were going on hiatus. During this time, Howard released her debut studio album as a solo artist, Jaime, in 2019. The work received critical acclaim and earned her seven Grammy nominations, winning Best Rock Song for "Stay High". Bio courtesy of Wikipedia

Ashlie Amber has been performing full time all over the world for the past decade including landing TV airtime on the 2012 Season of American Idol as well as being nominated for multiple Henry Awards by dominating several leading roles in renowned musicals including The Color Purple, Spamalot, and RENT.

Autumn Nicholas is a gifted songwriter and performer who has amazed audiences around the country. Reminiscent of the singer/songwriter sensibility of Julia Michaels and Dermot Kennedy, the swagger of Kacey Musgraves, the warmth of Adele and the soul of Etta James, Nicholas’ lyrics and melodies tell stories. Stories about love, pain, loss, and hope. She seamlessly blends pop, country and folk melodies, tackling issues from equal rights, loss, love and hope. Her textured vocals create imagery that brings the listener in, so they feel that her journey is their journey. She is an award-winning Nashville-based artist and performer that connects with fans in large venues and small intimate performances. Billboard wrote about the Shades of Beige EP:” Nicholas uses her stellar pop/R&B sound to address issues like labels ("Light"), social inequality ("Side By Side") and much more, all while showing off her incredible vocals and her natural acumen for songwriting.”

Already being hailed as “the next Woody Guthrie,” Crys Matthews is among the brightest stars of the new generation of social justice music-makers. A powerful lyricist whose songs of compassionate dissent reflect her lived experience as what she lightheartedly calls "the poster-child for intersectionality," Justin Hiltner of Bluegrass Situation called Matthews’s gift "a reminder of what beauty can occur when we bridge those divides." She is made for these times and, with the release of her new, hope-fueled, love-filled social justice album Changemakers, Matthews hopes to take her place alongside some of her heroes in the world of social-justice music like Sweet Honey in the Rock and Holly Near. Of Matthews, ASCAP VP & Creative Director Eric Philbrook says, “By wrapping honest emotions around her socially conscious messages and dynamically delivering them with a warm heart and a strong voice, she lifts our spirits just when we need it most in these troubled times. ”Matthews began performing in 2010, but cemented her acclaim at Lincoln Center as the 2017 New Song Music and Performance Competition grand prize winner. That year she also released two new projects—her album of thoughtful songs on love and life called The Imagineers, and her EP called Battle Hymn for an Army of Lovers, which tackles social justice themes. Matthews also won the People’s Music Network’s Social Justice Songs contest at the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance. Loyal fans quickly followed as Matthews racked up performances at large music festivals and prestigious venues across the country including the Sundance Film Festival, Kerrville Folk Festival, and locally at venues like The Birchmere, TheHamilton, Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, and Jammin' Java. In her TedTalk about difficult conversations called "Sing, Don't Shout—An Alternative Approach" Matthews spoke about being born and raised in a small town in southeastern NorthCarolina by an A.M.E.preacher, and how she witnessed the power of music from an early age. A former drum major and classically-trained clarinetist turned folk singer, Matthews is using her voice to answer Dr. Martin Luther King's call to be "a drum major for justice." “I believe in hope,” Matthews said. “As a social-justice songwriter, it is my duty to keep breathing that hope and encouragement into the people who listen to my music.” And, from the title track to the last track, Changemakers does just that all while tackling some heavy topics like immigration, the opioid crisis, Black Lives Matter, and gun safety to name a few.“ Ani DiFranco said, “People used to make records as in a record of an event," said Matthews, “so I hope that these songs will serve as a time capsule, a record of the events of the last four years and what it was like to live through them.” Crys Matthews's thoughtful, realistic and emotional songs speak to the voice of our generation and remind us why music indeed soothes the soul.

“It’s a paradigm shift.” And as simply as that, Yola encapsulates the giddy expansiveness, stunning emotional breadth, and exponential musical growth of her sophomore album Stand For Myself, out July 30. She may only be saying four words, but it’s a whole new world. Everything about the album—musically, lyrically, spiritually—explores the epiphany that making decisive choices leads to freedom. If her critically acclaimed 2019 debut Walk Through Fire was an exhilarating exercise in country soul, Stand For Myself explores the concept of genre. The album features a fluidity of sound that defies categorization weaving elements of symphonic soul, mellifluous pop melodies, disco grooves, rootsy rawness, and ecstatic gospel power into a package with instant appeal. For those who fell in love with the singular British artist on Walk Through Fire—and the love affair was fierce with both critics and the Recording Academy which recognized Yola with four Grammy nominations—listening to Stand For Myself is like stepping out of Kansas into Oz. Home may have been cozy and full of great songs, but it’s time to take the Yola ride in full Technicolor. And there’s no place like Stand For Myself. “The album is like a window into my mind, my life experiences, my politics, my hopeful and sentimental sides, and my hope for humanity at large,” she says of the 12-track collection that covers a wide swath of ground in its 45 minute-plus running time. At her most melodically and lyrically free, it is an album of both artistic freedom and subtle social commentary, that Yola hopes will connect personally with anyone who has experienced being made to feel “other.” Yola makes exciting new vocal choices on Stand For Myself. While her gale force power remains undiminished, she probes the layers of her instrument. “So often people come out all guns blazing and they don't navigate nuance,” she says of her purposeful vocal approach. “I thought, do you know what? Instead of punching out of the gate with absolutely everything I have, I'm going to really try and navigate nuance.” The results show themselves in glorious fashion as she pushes herself to both higher and lower registers, modulates her attack with laser-like precision and generally explores new textures on songs like the transporting title track, the addictive “If I Had To Do It All Again” and the slow-burning “Great Divide” which deftly balances grit and light. Lyrically, she explores the difference between surviving and thriving (the languid R&B soul-searcher “Barely Alive”); inventively imagines new outcomes grappling with mortality (the inventive “Break The Bough”); frolics in the intersection of sentimentality and sexuality (the deeply sensual “Starlight”); recognizes the value of allyship (“Be My Friend” featuring vocal contributions from Brandi Carlile); and takes control of her own destiny on the anthemic title track. In examining and embracing the various elements of her identity: black, female, empathic, creative, erotic, bawdy, sophisticated, curious, intelligent, and more, Yola takes listeners on a journey to self-actualization that they might not even realize they’ve been on until the album ends. “That's it,” she says accompanied by one of her deeply infectious laughs. “I want to trick people into empathy and self-actualization!” On the title track, she urges the listener to stand for themselves and those around them by challenging biases that fuel bigotry, inequality and tokenism which have deeply impacted her personal life and professional career. “It is about how people continue to bury their heads in the sand to hide from inconvenient truths that create a profound need to change how they think,” she says. Her own journey to Stand For Myself was a somewhat circuitous route, for which, in hindsight, Yola could not be more grateful. As the anniversary of her debut album approached in February 2020, the artist was intended to embark on opening dates in arenas and stadiums with Chris Stapleton, headline and festival gigs, and a journey to Australia to play Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann's untitled Elvis biopic starring Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker and Austin Butler as Elvis. Second album recording was to happen sometime in and around all of that. She got in one show with Stapleton before COVID-19 derailed those plans and headed home with an eerie sense of the unknown looming in front of her. Finding herself in lockdown back in Nashville allowed Yola to have something she hadn’t experienced in a year, time. “I wasn't seeing anybody and I was just staying up until five o'clock in the morning until my brain was really fuzzy and hazy and then ideas would just jump out,” she says. “I studied my creative process to the point where I knew what kind of state my brain needed to be in to generate ideas and knew what time of day my ideas turn up and so the whole process was ‘Okay, I'm going to start writing some things now explicitly for this record.’" Over the course of some weeks she brought her early morning visions to life, alongside song ideas she had been germinating for the last decade. Pandemic-penned ideas were developed with Joy Oladokun, Ruby Amanfu, fellow Highwoman Natalie Hemby, Bobby Wood, Pat McLaughlin, and more. She headed back into the studio for a week in October 2020 with Walk Through Fire producer Dan Auerbach and a fresh band of collaborators including Dap-King bassist Nick Movshon (Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse), drummer Aaron Frazer, who plays with Durand Jones and the Indications and is an emerging artist in his own right, and in-demand session percussionist Sam Bacco (Sheryl Crow, Johnny Cash), among others. The pair got the work done quickly thanks to Yola’s own prodigious studio work, her new sense of purpose and the ability to work with a creative partner who understood her in a new way. “Walk Through Fire was a collaboration, in the truest sense of the word,” she says of the album that grew out of her personal story of literally and figuratively surviving harrowing experiences that spawned fan favorites like the title track and “Faraway Look.” “It was a getting-to-know-you record.” She says, “Dan and I talked about the music that we had in common, and then we found that middle ground.” After a year of touring, learning, writing, and introspection Yola was able to record Stand For Myself as the person she has known herself to be for years because what wasn’t new about the album was her innate sense of self. She wanted to show her vulnerability, her hope, her intricacies, and to ultimately uncover all of those things for the listener. “I want people to feel like they know a dark-skinned black woman, a little better,” she says. “I could be the first, and all with an English accent and a chocolate bar skin tone. I will be an example of nuance that one can reference that someone might not have had, because the media does not want to portray us in a way that is nuanced.” If, she says, the first record was about introducing a person who, at a low point, recognized the need to ask for help, this second one illuminates that “I've been proven through this fire and I'm back to where I started, the real me. I kind of got talked out of being me and now I'm here. This is who I've always been in music and in life. There was a little hiatus where I got brainwashed out of my own majesty, but a bitch is back.”

Natalie Jean is a Haitian singer/songwriter that specializes in Americana music. She can sing in English, French, Spanish and Haitian Creole. Natalie Jean has been nominated for and won many awards for her music including 6 nominations at the 2021 Josie Music Awards, in which she won “World Artist of The Year”. She also won Americana Artist of The Year at the Indie Channel Music Awards. She has also won two gold medals at the Global Music Awards. Most recently, she won Outstanding Achievement in Songwriting for her song “I Told You No” in the Great American Songwriting Contest in the Adult Contemporary Category and a Silver Medal in the 2021 Global Music Awards for Female Vocalist. Natalie is a voting member in the Recording Academy, the organization that hosts the Grammys each year. Also, she is Grammy balloted. Natalie does not follow any guidelines or rules when she writes her music. She utilizes a vast array of genres when writing, trying to break down the barriers that usually constrict Americana musicians. She stays true to herself writing and singing from her heart and soul, trying to create music that makes a difference, music that people can take to heart and feel connected to.