Friday Features: Amythyst Kiah

For this week’s Friday Features, part of our #BFPLatHome online programming, enjoy a virtual musical performance at home by Amythyst Kiah whose raw and powerful vocals resemble a deeply moving, hypnotic sound that stirs echoes of a distant and restless past. The artist’s eclectic influences span decades, finding inspiration in old time music, alternative rock, folk, country, and blues.

Access the performance via @BFPLNY’s Instagram Live >>

Amythyst’s performance will support the MusiCares Covid-19 Relief Fund.  If you like the music, consider joining Brookfield Properties in making a donation, if you are able.

Friday Features is a new online series that takes a look back at past Arts Brookfield performances and installations, and checks-in with our favorite artists at home, featuring new live performances, artistic interventions, and discussions. Friday Features is part of #BFPLatHome, Brookfield Place’s series of online programming that brings the shopping, dining, and cultural events so unique to BFPL, to YOU at home. There is something different every day!

Access all content via @BFPLNY’s Instagram page.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Born in Chattanooga and based in Johnson City, Amythyst Kiah’s vocals are accompanied interchangeably with banjo, acoustic guitar, or a full band.

Our Native Daughters, her recent collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell (Birds of Chicago), has delivered a full-length album produced by Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell, Songs of Our Native Daughters (out now on Smithsonian Folkways). NPR described the opening track, Black Myself, written by Amythyst, as “the simmering defiance of self-respect in the face of racism.” The song was nominated for a Grammy for Best American Roots Song. The supergroup hit the road in July 2019 with a series of special dates that included performances at Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Museum of African American History & Culture as well as Newport Folk Festival. The group was nominated for Duo/Group of the Year at the 2019 Americana Honors & Awards. Black Myself won 2019 Song of the Year at the Folk Alliance International Conference.

Provocative and fierce, Amythyst’s ability to cross boundaries is groundbreaking and simply unforgettable. Her stylistic range will be on full display in her next full-length album expected in 2020. Amythyst regularly tours the United Kingdom and has performed at Celtic Connections, Southern Fried Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, and SummerTyne Americana Festival. She is a crowd favorite at Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion in the U.S. and has shined at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, and opening for artists such as the Indigo Girls, Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, Old Crow Medicine Show, First Aid Kit, Darrell Scott, and Tim O’Brien.