APR 9, 2019

About this commission

Soundtrack of America opens The Shed with a five-night concert series celebrating the unrivaled impact of African American music on contemporary culture with performances by today’s most exciting emerging musicians. Conceived and directed by Turner Prize-winning artist and Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen, and developed with music visionaries and academic experts, Soundtrack traces a musical “family tree” of spirituals and blues, jazz and gospel, R&B, rock and roll, house, hip hop, and trap that has inspired a new generation of artists who continue to develop that legacy.

Special guest Natasha Diggs will play a DJ set for an hour before the concert begins.

Artists

Portrait of Samm Henshaw
Samm Henshaw
Portrait of Judith Hill
Judith Hill
Portrait of ill Camille
Photo: Cee Cee Nicole/The ViLLAGE.
ill Camille
Portrait of Emily King
Emily King
Portrait of Fantastic Negrito
Photo: DeAndre Forks.
Fantastic Negrito
Portrait of serpentwithfeet
serpentwithfeet
A portrait of Soundtrack of America artist Natasha Diggs
Special Guest: Natasha Diggs
A portrait of Soundtrack of America artist Dom Flemons posing with a string instrument
Photo: Timothy Duffy.
Spotlight Artist: Dom Flemons
Samm Henshaw
Recently, Samm Henshaw has signed to Columbia Records, racked up millions of Spotify streams with his two Sound Experiment EPs, and toured with James Bay and Chance the Rapper—both of whom, upon hearing Henshaw’s rich, soulful pop, hand-picked him to support them on the road. His family have been great role models for him, and his South London roots have most shaped his identity—artistic and otherwise. “How Does It Feel,” the lead single from his forthcoming debut album, is a summery, soulful, gospel and hip hop-inspired song, whose choral hooks and claps evoke the church music he grew up performing, and the single distills his philosophical ethos into a song.
Judith Hill
Judith Hill has been praised by Rolling Stone for her “stellar powerhouse vocals.” In addition to penning and performing her own material, Hill, who wrote her first song at the age of four, has backed such artists as Stevie Wonder and the late Michael Jackson. Hill’s story is one of those told in director Morgan Neville’s acclaimed 20 Feet From Stardom, a film that shines the spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. The film has won the Film Critics Award for Best Documentary and an Academy Award for Best Documentary. The film also won the 2015 Grammy for Best Music Film. Hill, who was also featured on the film’s soundtrack, was a contestant on season four of The Voice. Hill has already garnered much praise for her live performance as opener for Josh Groban, John Legend, and Prince, both in the US and the UK. Hill’s debut album Back In Time, produced by herself and Prince, is out now on NPG Records. Her sophomore album, Golden Child, will be released this year.
ill Camille
ill Camille raps about love and family serving as the source of her strength, the importance of self-worth as a woman, and the necessity to nurture oneself from within even when confronted by the despair of poverty as a young artist. And you can hear all that in her album Heirloom, which was named one of the most important albums of 2017 by NPR. The Los Angeles-native MC and writer, who also represents the Inland Empire, has collaborated with Patrice Rushen, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Kendrick Lamar, DJ Battlecat, Ty Dolla$ign, Dr. Dre, Damani Nkosi, and Terrace Martin among others.
Emily King
Hailing from New York City, Emily King is a Grammy-nominated artist with pop, indie, and soul influences that she hones with carefully crafted compositions. King had a busy couple of years with headlining tours, performing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and opening for Alabama Shakes around the release of her critically acclaimed album The Switch: Deluxe Edition. King has become labelmates with Brittany Howard and Co., Benjamin Booker, Brandi Carlile, and many other greats as she has signed a deal with Dave Matthews’s co-founded label, ATO Records.
Fantastic Negrito

The name Fantastic Negrito represents the artist’s third rebirth, literally coming back from death. For Fantastic Negrito, the narrative is as important as the sound—because the narrative is the sound, which features slide guitar, drums, and piano and an urgent, desperate, edgy sensibility. Fantastic Negrito is the story of a man who struggled to “make it,” who “got it,” who lost it all, and somehow managed to find his way back.

June 15, 2018, marked the debut of Fantastic Negrito’s critically acclaimed new release Please Don’t Be Dead, with the the New York Times’s Jon Pareles hailing it as “a cranked-up, slow-grinding attack on addiction and consumerism,” and Premiere Guitar calling it “one of the year’s most compelling albums.” Please Don’t Be Dead recently won a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category—the same category Fantastic Negrito won in 2017 with his debut full length album The Last Days of Oakland.

serpentwithfeet
serpentwithfeet is an avant-garde vocalist and performance artist whose growing body of work is rooted in dueling obsessions with the ephemeral and the everlasting—key components of his artistic journey from a childhood stint as a choirboy in Baltimore through his time at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied vocal performance before relocating to New York City. His forthcoming debut full-length album soil is a return to the sensibilities and wide-eyed curiosity of his musical youth before symmetry and sterile soundscapes ruled the roost. With the release of soil the chameleonic serpentwithfeet (born Josiah Wise) rediscovers and ultimately returns to the unhinged version of himself he was sure he had outgrown.
Special Guest: Natasha Diggs

Natasha Diggs is one of the most versatile and well respected DJs in the world, playing to crowds across the globe in cities such as New York, Tokyo, Berlin, Prague, Sydney, and Beijing. From amassing a huge record collection in her teenage days to being dubbed The 45 Queen known for rocking crowds with her signature all 7” vinyl sets at downtown New York City parties including her weekly Mobile Mondays event, Diggs has gone on tour with Grammy Award-winning singer Lauryn Hill, has held an residency with hip hop luminary Q-Tip at New York City’s famed Output Club, DJ’d for Damien Marley’s inaugural Welcome to Jamrock cruise, and has shared the stage with countless notable artists, such as Erykah Badu, Bruno Mars, Maxwell, Questlove, Santigold, Hiatus Kaiyote, Rakim, Dam-Funk, Kenny Dope, Kamasi Washington, Anderson. Paak, and others.

Her broad taste in music allows her to be equally comfortable playing underground loft parties as massive events like Central Park Summerstage for thousands, earning her respect in the world of music and a solid reputation amongst her clientele. Diggs has been called on as a trusted party-starter for numerous celebrity, club, and corporate clientele including Pharrell, Spike Lee, Jay-Z, Google, L’Oréal, Samsung, Adidas, Grey Goose, Nickelodeon, Vanity Fair, Lincoln Center, and MoMA. In addition to her success as a DJ, Diggs has been recognized by the fashion world for her iconic style and has collaborated with global brands such as Fendi, Net-A-Porter, and Levi’s on everything from music supervision to being featured herself in major campaigns.

When not traversing the globe, Diggs can be found holding down the decks at her weekly New York City residency, Soul in the Horn, the city’s premiere dance party and live music showcase celebrating horn-infused music from around the globe while bringing together the best New York City talent in one room. She has also appeared on Fuse TV’s Crate Diggers, MixMag Lab, and Boiler Room. Diggs is featured worldwide on Apple’s Beats1 station playing alongside Q-tip for the weekly Abstract Radio show.

Spotlight Artist: Dom Flemons

Grammy Award winner and two-time Emmy nominee Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He is known as “The American Songster” since his repertoire of music covers nearly 100 years of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. Flemons is a music scholar, historian, record collector and a multi-instrumentalist. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, fife, guitar, harmonica, percussion, quills, and rhythm bones.

In 2018, Flemons released his solo album titled Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys on Grammy Award-winning record label Smithsonian Folkways. This recording is part of Folkways’s 70th Anniversary and the African American Legacy Recordings series in conjunction with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. In 2017, Flemons was featured on David Holt’s State of Music on PBS and performed as bluesman Joe Hill Louis on CMT’s original hit television show Sun Records. In 2016, Flemons released a duo album with British musician Martin Simpson titled Ever Popular Favourites, on Fledg’ling Records. In 2014, he released a critically acclaimed solo album, Prospect Hill, through Music Maker Relief Foundation. In 2005, Flemons co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops who won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk in 2010. He left the group to pursue his solo career in 2014. In 2016, the Carolina Chocolate Drops were inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

Location and dates

This event takes place in The McCourt.
8:30 pm

Details

  • Running time: 120 minutes
  • No intermission
  • All ages welcome
  • Please note that each night of Soundtrack of America is a unique show with a different line-up
  • Membership does not guarantee ticket availability, so we encourage you to book early
  • All tickets sales are final; times and performers are subject to change
Seat Map
Tux, the Linux mascot

Thank you to our partners

Major support for Soundtrack of America is provided by the Ford Foundation.
The Founding Bank of The Shed is
The Shed is connected by

The creation of new work at The Shed is generously supported by the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Commissioning Fund and The Shed Commissioners.

Major support for live productions at The Shed is provided by the Charina Endowment Fund.

In The Works