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
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.
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.
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
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
Thank you to our partners
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.