Leyla McCalla offers a fresh and challenging perspective on roots music, combining folk, jazz, and classical elements with the Louisiana musical traditions of her adopted New Orleans home.
Born in New York City to Haitian emigrants and activists, the singer, songwriter, arranger and multi-instrumentalist finds inspiration from her past and present– her music vibrates with three centuries of history and influences from around the globe.
McCalla possesses a stunning mastery of the cello, tenor banjo and guitar and, as a multilingual singer and songwriter, has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. In addition to her solo work, McCalla is a founding member of Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell), and she was a member of Carolina Chocolate Drops on their Grammy Award-winning album Leaving Eden.
McCalla’s newest album, Sun Without the Heat, is playful and full of joy while holding the pain and tension of transformation. Throughout the album's ten tracks, she plays with melodies and rhythms derived from various forms of Afro-diasporic music including Afrobeat, Ethiopian modalities, Brazilian Tropicalismo, and American folk and blues. She draws lyrical inspiration from the writings of Black feminist Afrofuturist thinkers including Octavia Butler, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and adrienne maree brown. Like these authors, McCalla looks to songwriting as a way to increase faith and hope, encourage community thinking, and catalyze personal transformation. “Songwriting is a modality to tell the stories that need to be told,” she explains. “Sometimes these are painful stories to tell. We all want the warmth of the sun but not everybody wants to feel the heat,” McCalla explains. “You have to have both.”
