If Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Don Flemmons is a Black music historian for fans of Smithsonian Folkways, then Jake Blount is the artist-activist-firebrand for music fans who’re also members of the local Democratic Socialists of America branch.
Tickets to see Jake Blount play The Attic at Rock Brothers Brewing in Ybor City on Friday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. are still available and start at $20.
Woven into songs from his new album, The New Faith (released via Smithsonian Folkways, mind you), are a couple generations’ worth of oppression and suffering that have long been a hallmark of the Black experience in the U.S. Yes there are touches of anger and resentment, but they are far from the focus of his fiddle-driven Afrofuturistic folk, all radically-arranged in a way that turns the genre on its head.
If Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Blind Willie McTell were alive today, they would definitely ask Blount to open their shows.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2022.
