"you better mind what you promised them..."
The alternative funk / conscious hip hop shake and maxim of "Short" by Black queer southern truth teller / Emmy and Peabody award-winning TV producer / poet / musician shirlette ammons, and featuring Mavis SWAN Poole, feels powerful in it's magnetic pull, jammy back beat and potent bass spirals. It is one of those songs that makes you lean in and get parts of you body moving while you earnestly want to absorb the words and let them saturate deep in your head and heart.
ammons' sonic presence is bold and she is beautifully far away from normal which is a blessing but can feel like a curse if you are not strong enough to carry the weight. This is where I hand you off to LINER NOTES because ammons' identity and accomplishments are so incredibly dense that putting all these historical facts / figures and amazing accomplishments in my own words would be too poseur.
LINER NOTES (bracketed):
[shirlette ammons is a Black queer southern truth teller, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning TV producer, poet, and musician. She is also an identical twin who hails from a tiny, wonderfully-named pocket of eastern North Carolina earth called Beautancus.]
[Given this wild set of identifiers, the thought of being someone else’s “spectacle” is not some theoretical consideration for shirlette; she has been “othered” her entire life. Her new album "Spectacles", co-produced with Phil Cook, is a captivating and electric 11-track examination of the duality between being objectified by the proverbial, patriarchal, white gaze and cultivating attention when rocking stages. The record is a poignant expression of her own multitudes (here as songwriter, MC, bassist, producer & poet) rendered by a modern wellspring of Black Southern brilliance and her wider creative community featuring contributions from musicians, filmmakers and writers including genre-and-gender-defying performance artist Mykki Blanco, MacArthur-winning poet Fred Moten, Nigerian writer and chef Tunde Wey, Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, and radical feminist writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “the Beyoncé of yoga” Jessamyn Stanley, as well as her twin sister Shorlette Ammons and niece, Anansi Stephens. Ammons has always been a highly collaborative musician, whether making a record with the likes of soul-rock band The Dynamite Brothers or pairing The Indigo Girls, Hiss Golden Messenger and Meshell Ndegocello on the same LP, 2016’s Language Barrier.]
[shirlette is also an accomplished in film and television, serving as a producer on the acclaimed documentary, MAY THE LORD WATCH: THE LITTLE BROTHER STORY as well as a producer on Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series A CHEF’S LIFE and SOMEWHERE SOUTH, both of which aired on PBS. shirlette is the 2016 recipient of Black Public Media’s Pitch Black Prize which awarded funding towards completion of the THE HOOK, a documentary short that explores Black maritime history through the plight of chef Ricky Moore. She also served as producer on THE SEEDS WE KEEP (Oxford American) and STAY PRAYED UP, which debuted at Telluride Film Festival in September 2021. She is also an award-winning poet and a Cave Canem Fellow whose body of work includes two collections of poetry.]
[Given this wild set of identifiers, the thought of being someone else’s “spectacle” is not some theoretical consideration for shirlette; she has been “othered” her entire life. Her new album "Spectacles", co-produced with Phil Cook, is a captivating and electric 11-track examination of the duality between being objectified by the proverbial, patriarchal, white gaze and cultivating attention when rocking stages. The record is a poignant expression of her own multitudes (here as songwriter, MC, bassist, producer & poet) rendered by a modern wellspring of Black Southern brilliance and her wider creative community featuring contributions from musicians, filmmakers and writers including genre-and-gender-defying performance artist Mykki Blanco, MacArthur-winning poet Fred Moten, Nigerian writer and chef Tunde Wey, Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, and radical feminist writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “the Beyoncé of yoga” Jessamyn Stanley, as well as her twin sister Shorlette Ammons and niece, Anansi Stephens. Ammons has always been a highly collaborative musician, whether making a record with the likes of soul-rock band The Dynamite Brothers or pairing The Indigo Girls, Hiss Golden Messenger and Meshell Ndegocello on the same LP, 2016’s Language Barrier.]
[shirlette is also an accomplished in film and television, serving as a producer on the acclaimed documentary, MAY THE LORD WATCH: THE LITTLE BROTHER STORY as well as a producer on Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series A CHEF’S LIFE and SOMEWHERE SOUTH, both of which aired on PBS. shirlette is the 2016 recipient of Black Public Media’s Pitch Black Prize which awarded funding towards completion of the THE HOOK, a documentary short that explores Black maritime history through the plight of chef Ricky Moore. She also served as producer on THE SEEDS WE KEEP (Oxford American) and STAY PRAYED UP, which debuted at Telluride Film Festival in September 2021. She is also an award-winning poet and a Cave Canem Fellow whose body of work includes two collections of poetry.]
God I feel like a fucking slacker (ha).
Step into "Short" and I guarantee you that you will surely put it on repeat over and over again.
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://www.facebook.com/ShirletteAmmonsMusic/
https://www.shirletteammons.com/
https://shirletteammonsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/language-barrier
https://twitter.com/shirletteammons
shirlette ammons is a Durham, NC-based musician whose albums include Language Barrier (feat. guest appearances from Meshell Ndegeocello, The Indigo Girls, MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, Amelia Meath and others). She is currently working on a new album entitled "Spectacles," set for release in Spring 2024. Stay in the loop at www.shirletteammons.com
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.facebook.com/ShirletteAmmonsMusic/
https://www.shirletteammons.com/
https://shirletteammonsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/language-barrier
https://twitter.com/shirletteammons
shirlette ammons is a Durham, NC-based musician whose albums include Language Barrier (feat. guest appearances from Meshell Ndegeocello, The Indigo Girls, MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger, Amelia Meath and others). She is currently working on a new album entitled "Spectacles," set for release in Spring 2024. Stay in the loop at www.shirletteammons.com
shirlette ammons, hip hop, conscious hip hop, alt pop, neo soul, funk, alt rock, funk rock fusion, jazz dips, Black Queer southern truth teller, "Short" featuring Mavis SWAN Poole, new album "Spectacles",
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