In Defiance of the Silence

This was supposed to be an article about Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the twentieth century singer-songwriter credited for inspiring the likes of Johhny Cash, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, some guy called Elvis, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards... hell, just about anybody that heard her powerful mix of gospel and rock, all before rock was invented. Then I heard a voice...

It was pure, and rich, and deep. The highs would hold you aloft before the lows in the same stanza would bury you without mercy. This voice wasn’t just singing, it was holding up a mirror and forcing you to count the warts, every last one of them.

Amythyst Kiah has been described as ‘one of roots music's most exciting emerging talents’, and is best known for her Grammy-nominated rallying cry, Black Myself. It is a radio-friendly soul magnet for anyone that has been marginalised, the song finding a popular audience both at home and overseas, regardless of class or colour.

‘I’ve prided myself on writing songs which anybody can relate to,’ she said. ‘I turned to music as my way of being able to create a world where I didn’t feel like I had to answer to anyone, that I didn’t feel like I needed to be a certain way.’

When I first heard the song Black Myself, I thought, ‘Yeah, girl’, nodding along as I sat on my sofa, pouring wine down my throat, fire crackling in the corner of the room, and the kids tucked up safely in bed. This song wasn’t intended for me - I’d pass the carrier bag test, let alone the paper bag test – but the voice rumbled on, edged with an aggressive pride that made me look up her other songs. And what a treasure trove I found.

A mix of blues and folk from the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s sung with passion and a commitment to retelling the tale, punctuated with concept pieces from her Chocolate Drops collaboration, and stunning originals such as Doomed to Roam and My Old Man, it is music that cannot be ignored.

Amythyst didn’t have it easy. She talks of the isolation she felt growing up, being very different to the other kids in her neighbourhood, having to rely more on herself, drawing strength from within just to be able to talk to other people. She taught herself how to play guitar, using CDs and DVDs she borrowed from the library. Sheet music baffled her, but she felt truly free when she found guitar tablature – the universal code that translates music to a fretboard. ‘Anytime I heard a song, if I wasn’t sure what the chords were, I could just look it up,’ she said. The world opened up before her, but despite her emerging talent, she still faced many challenges.

‘I’m a person of color regardless of what my socioeconomic status was, regardless of what I did in school or how I dressed or what I listened to.’

‘There were aspects of my life where I felt othered even though I didn’t feel like I should have been othered. People were already standoffish towards me for being black,’ she said. ‘So why add on being gay too?’

‘Music was my refuge and that was the place that I could go where nobody could hurt me or ignore me.’

The way that Black Myself has been picked up in these troubled times, sung almost as a militant anthem with a voice which comes from you and me, shows that this deep knowledge and mining of American Folk & Blues isn’t about reflection and abasement. Amythyst Kiah may draw her voice from deep within the mountains and history of America but she speaks unwaveringly to the future of her nation.

'We can’t be silent if we want to see things change.'

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