Leyla McCalla - 'Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes' [Live at Tigermen's Den 2020]

Leyla McCalla stops by Tigermen's Den in New Orleans in celebration of her new Folkways release, 'Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes.’ Video by Lily Keber Mixing & Engineering by Adam Keil Featuring Pete Olynciw on Bass 'Vari-Colored Songs: A Tribute to Langston Hughes' available on CD, LP, and Digital. Stream/download/purchase: Smithsonian Folkways: https://folkways.si.edu/leyla-mccalla... Bandcamp: https://leylamccalla.bandcamp.com/alb... All other platforms: https://orcd.co/varicoloredsongs Leyla McCalla’s 'Vari-Colored Songs' is a celebration of the complexity of Black culture and identity, and a tribute to the legacy of poet and thinker Langston Hughes. A songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, McCalla sets Hughes’ poems to her own spare yet profound compositions. She juxtaposes these with arrangements of folk songs from Haiti, the first independent Black nation and the homeland of her parents, tapping into the nuances of Black experience. McCalla’s music elegantly weaves Haitian influences together with American folk music, just as Hughes incorporated Black vernacular into his remarkable poetry, and the way the Haitian Kreyòl is a beacon for the survival of African identity through the brutal legacy of colonialism. This is music of reclamation, imbued with a quiet power that grapples with the immense weight of history. Leyla McCalla: https://leylamccalla.com Facebook:   / leylamccallamusic   Twitter:   / leylamccalla   Instagram:   / leylacello   Smithsonian Folkways: https://folkways.si.edu Facebook:   / smithsonianfolkwaysrecordings   Twitter:   / folkways   Instagram:   / smithsonianfolkways   The content and comments posted here are subject to the Smithsonian Institution copyright and privacy policy (www.si.edu/copyright/). Smithsonian reserves the right in its sole discretion to remove any content at any time.