A portrait of Lance Markeith smiling while sitting outdoors on a bright day. The individual is wearing a black t-shirt under a black vest adorned with patches, including one that reads "ALABAMA," alongside a long beaded necklace. A covered porch structure with a hanging lantern is visible to the left, and a black metal railing lines a walkway under a partly cloudy sky in the background. — Lance Markeith Credit: lancemarkeith.com

To kickoff the new year, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay called Lance Markeith one of the Bay area’s artists to watch, adding that he’s “incapable of making a false move—on stage, at the mic, or in the classroom.”

Last year, Markeith—who played Malcom X in “The Meeting”—also inspired a theater full of high schoolers during a special performance of “When the Righteous Triumph,” and this week he taps Blake High School students like vocalist Sherri Richburgh to help bring a new album, Emancipation, to life.

“I was imprisoned by my own self doubt, imprisoned by the idea that I had to perform a particular way, record music in a particular way in order to ‘make it,'” Markeith told CL.

Emancipation, he added, is the manifestation of a bigger, cinematic sound that he found when he stopped getting on his own way.

“Emancipation is about finding me. It’s about giving that sense of uplift and that sense of freedom that comes when I’m doing what I know in my heart is the right thing to do.”

There’s no cover to see The George, Indigo Lane, and Lance Markeith play Rockk the Park at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park in Tampa on Thursday, July 2.