Leyla McCalla is the former Carolina Chocolate Drop, who has embraced the sounds of her adopted home of New Orleans and her ancestral Haitian roots to address issues like lead-poisoned water, financial instability, racism, and sexism on her latest album The Capitalist Blues. Leyla will be performing a full band show at the Atrium at Lincoln Center on April 4th. Leyla previously played at the Winter Jazz Fest in NYC, and will return to the New Orleans Jazz Fest for an appearance in May. Leyla also just completed her maiden voyage to SXSW. From Austin she taped an interview for NPR‘s All Things Considered, which just aired. She was deemed “a voice for the voiceless,” as well as one of the top acts to catch by the Austin Chronicle. Earlier this year, her album The Capitalist Blues was included in New York Times playlist, NPR Music.
NPRs World Cafe premiered the music video for the song ‘Money Is King’. She also performed on WNYC Soundcheck, sat down for Salon Q&A, and performed for World Cafe9. Leyla will also be performing the album live at New Orleans Jazz Festival next month, as she wraps up a worldwide tour. You can watch her perform “Money Is King”
Along with her own album, Leyla is a member of critically acclaimed super group ‘Songs Of Our Native Daughters.’ The band is compromised of four black women McCalla, Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah, and Rhiannon Giddens — re-writing and reclaiming the history of American folk music. The band has been featured in TIME, Rolling Stone, and the Washington Post, as well as a 5-star review in The Guardian.
