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In Conversation with Shelley Nicole

In Conversation with Shelley Nicole

Inside Episode 3 with Shelley Nicole

Shelley Nicole—the mainspring behind Shelley Nicole’s blaKbüshe—is simultaneously a product, a witness and architect of Black-on-Black love, a calling that has informed all of her work as a singer, writer, composer, actor, poet, musician, and a healer. It is the tap root of her latest work, I Am American, a collection of songs written by her and produced by award-winning guitarist, composer, and producer Vernon Reid of the band Living Colour.

The project is part of the continuum of audacious, self-confident, and eclectic Black sisterhood that extends from Rosetta Tharpe to Nina Simone to Betty Davis to Labelle to Joan Armatrading to Meshell Ndegeocello. As band leader, she released two previous albums, she who bleeds… and The Quick & Dirty EP.

Shelley is also featured vocalist and percussionist in Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber founded by writer and musician Greg Tate and songwriter and bassist Jared M. Nickerson. As a member of Burnt Sugar, she has traveled the globe performing in venues from The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles to Sons d’hiver in Paris.

Credits

Hosted, Edited, and Produced by Ben Tyree

Theme music is “Latitudes” by Ben Tyree from the 2020 album Lifelines

Photography by Deneka Peniston, Daryl Tillman, and Ben Tyree

All rights reserved by the artists.


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