Martha Redbone is a vocalist, songwriter, composer, playwright and United States Artist Fellow of Cherokee/Choctaw and African American descent. Her multi-disciplinary works share her life experience as an Afro-Indigenous woman and mother in an ever-changing world. Martha works in partnership with longtime collaborator Aaron Whitby. Their songs and storytelling give voice to issues of social justice, connecting cultures and celebrating the human spirit. Her works include several recorded albums, musical scores for Broadway and off-Broadway productions and high-energy live performances with her masterful band of funkateers.

Martha is invited by Jeffrey Gibson to engage with his installation POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT; she and her touring band will offer Song-scapes — an immersive, congregational concert honoring the space in sound, sonic time travel — connecting the ancestors and descendants, the past and present, unapologetically uplifting the Black and Indigenous interwoven American story in music. Move and dance in the space in second line parade with the musicians to the Hunter Center, where she and her band will pay homage to the sounds of the Indigenous foundation of American Roots music; Southeastern Indigenous influences in Blues, Roots, Rock, Gospel, HipHop, EDM, and more: This Is What It Sounds Like When Worlds Collide.

About the Artist:
Martha Redbone is a vocalist, songwriter, composer, educator, and United States Artist Fellow, celebrated for her tasty gumbo of roots music embodying the folk and mountain blues sounds of her childhood in the Appalachian hills of Kentucky with the eclectic grit of her teenage years in pre-gentrified Brooklyn. Inheriting her powerful gospel-singing father’s voice and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Southeastern Indigenous and African American culture, Redbone broadens the boundaries of American Roots music.

Photo: Cedric Pillard