Bric JazzFest 2021 – Virtual

THURSDAY

Roy Ayers

Phony Ppl

Phony Ppl is a mix of people, time, and sound that’s been nurtured over generations in Brooklyn. They were a group of kids who started making music together during after school sessions in the homes of their creative families, and who grew up to cultivate a sound that’s as much punk as it is soul. A quintet of live music blending acoustic instrumentation with electronic inputs and different vocal styles, their DIY sound is a mix of soul, R&B, funk, hip hop, jazz, pop, and everything between and beyond.

Nikara Presents Black Wall Street

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Nikara Warren describes herself as being ‘bathed’ in music and the arts since birth. As the product of a musical family, Nikara’s sound is a direct reflection of her family’s jazz, hip-hop and dancehall roots. It’s only natural that Nikara makes ‘rump-shaker’ music with an emphasis on dancing. Nikara’s premiere project, Black Wall Street, is a set of feel-good tracks designed as an ode to Black Excellence to counteract the emotional trauma caused by news headings of Black men and women being slain by police. Nikara draws from many forms of Black music and brings awareness to the Black Wall Street massacre of 1921 while remaining positive about the future and emphasizing the positive effects of diversity in the arts.

FRIDAY

Meshell Ndegeocello

Meshell Ndegeocello is a ten-time GRAMMY Award-nominated singer-songwriter, bassist, rapper, and activist. Meshell first stepped into the spotlight in the early 90s and quickly took a seat next to some of music’s biggest names including John Mellencamp, Madonna, Rolling Stones, and Herbie Hancock. Shining just as much as a bassist as she does as a lead singer, her musicality has never been limited by scope or genre. Her fluid style seamlessly blends elements of funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, and rock into a powerful, soulful sound. Nearly three decades and twelve albums later, Meshell remains a main player on the music scene. Her last album Ventriloquisim (2018)—a cover album looking at R&B songs from the 80s and 90s—prompted NPR Music to state, “Ndegeocello breathes old soul into a collection of post-soul classics and elevates them to their rightful place in the pantheon.” This will be her second appearance at BRIC JazzFest and her first time as co-curator of the festival.

Keyon Harrold

Keyon Harrold is a GRAMMY-winning trumpeter, vocalist, songwriter, and producer. Keyon is a versatile musician whose resume includes working with a who’s who of the music industry–Common, Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, Beyonce, Nas, Maxwell, Erykah Badu, Gary Clark Jr., Robert Glasper, and Keith Richards, to name a few. Harrold was born and raised in Ferguson, MO, the St. Louis suburb that tore into America’s national consciousness in 2014 with the police shooting of Michael Brown and the bitter protests and riots that followed. While Ferguson looms large in Harrold’s latest album The Mugician, it examines our troubled times through a far wider lens than any one tragedy. Keyon is passionate about the many injustices in the US and his music is an expression of that.

Justin Hicks

Justin Hicks (creator/performer) is a multidisciplinary artist and vocalist whose work has been featured at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Performance Space New York, The Public Theater, JACK, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Highline, and The Institute for Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Baryshnikov Arts Center among many others. Hicks has collaborated with notable visual artists, musicians, and theater-makers including Abigail DeVille, Kaneza Schaal, Cauleen Smith, Helga Davis, Charlotte Brathwaite, Steffani Jemison, Meshell Ndegeocello and is a founding member of the vocal performance group The HawtPlates. In 2018, he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for his work as the composer of Mlima’s Tale by Lynn Nottage (The Public Theater, dir. Jo Bonney). Hicks was born in Cincinnati, OH, raised in Lafayette, IN, and is based in the Bronx, NY.