shirlette’s album, “Language Barrier” features guest appearances by The Indigo Girls, Meshell Ndegeocello, Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso), Median, sookee, MC Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger), Phil Cook, HC McEntire. Music by Daniel Hart (Broken Social Scene, St. Vincent)

Poet, Musician, and Producer

shirlette ammons is a Black queer Southern truth-teller — a poet, musician, and Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning television producer whose work moves fluidly across sound, story, and social history. An identical twin from Beautancus, a tiny pocket of eastern North Carolina, ammons has spent a lifetime navigating visibility, otherness, and self-definition — themes that sit at the core of her music and multidisciplinary practice.

Her 2024 album Spectacles, named one of the year’s best by Sound Opinions, is a bracing and electric meditation on being seen — and on choosing how to be seen. Co-produced with Phil Cook, the record blends incisive lyricism, propulsive grooves, and spoken-word intimacy, showcasing ammons’ range as songwriter, MC, bassist, producer, and poet. Spectacles features 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, radical feminist writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and “the Beyoncé of yoga” Jessamyn Stanley, as well as her twin sister Shorlette Ammons and niece, Anansi Stephens.

A deeply collaborative artist throughout her career, ammons has recorded with the soul-rock band The Dynamite Brothers and brought together artists as wide-ranging as The Indigo Girls, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Meshell Ndegeocello on a single album — 2016’s Language Barrier — reflecting her long-standing commitment to creative community across genre and generation.

Beyond music, ammons has built a distinguished career in film and television, serving as a producer on Emmy- and Peabody-winning PBS series and acclaimed documentary projects. She is also an award-winning poet and Cave Canem Fellow, with two published collections.

In 2025, ammons launched TENDING, a six-part audio documentary tracing Black farmers’ generational fight against the USDA — a project deeply personal to her as the granddaughter of a Black farmer. Whether onstage, on record, on the page, or wearing the producer’s hat, shirlette ammons creates work that is urgent and profoundly human.

Acclaimed Jazz Vocalist and Songwriter

Through an inimitable voice that The New York Times touts as, “a smooth, dark alto possessed of qualities you might associate with barrel-aged bourbon or butter-soft leather,” renowned vocalist and songwriter Lizz Wright sings with a soaring reflection of the cultural fabric of America. She lies beneath the script of history, transcending social divides with an offer of love and deep sense of humanity. Her music accepts the beauty of reality and creates a collective experience of belonging for the listener. Wright’s songs embody a tradition that allows us to always feel at home.

Wright’s 2024 studio album release, Shadow, presents Lizz in a gentle and triumphant light. With five originals penned by Wright, Shadow is anchored by acoustic guitars and layered with string quartets, harp, Carnatic Indian classical strings, gospel vocals, and bare emotion. It celebrates the intimacy of romantic love, loss, community, and healing. The album was produced by Chris Bruce and executive produced by Wright on Blues & Greens Records (with licensing/distribution through Lightyear Entertainment/Virgin Music). Wright worked with renowned engineer Ryan Freeland (who recorded Grace and has also worked with music legend Bonnie Raitt), and the album features acclaimed guest artists Angelique Kidjo and Meshell Ndegeocello.

At the age of 22, Wright first made a name for herself nationally as a vocalist with a touring concert tribute to Billie Holiday. At 23, she signed with Verve Records for the release of Salt, which topped Billboard’s contemporary jazz charts. She went on to record for Universal Music Group and released the albums Dreaming Wide Awake (2005), The Orchard (2008), and Fellowship (2010). On Concord, Wright released Freedom & Surrender (2016) – featuring the single “Lean In,” which landed on President Obama’s Summer 2016 playlist – and Grace (2017). Wright’s (2022) release of Holding Space (a live recording of a concert in Berlin at the Columbia Theater) was her debut live album on Blues and Greens Records.

Wright looks forward to the release of a duo album in 2026