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@ Blue Note
Wednesday February 14, 2024
06:00 PM - 11:59 pm
8:00 PM (Doors 6:00 PM)
10:30 PM (Doors 10:00 PM)
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Victory Boyd
“There is a rich legacy of music that originates from both the trials and triumphs of the African-American experience, a legacy that flows like a river through generations and waters the world with songs of hope for the present times and for the future”.
This is how Victory Boyd, a 27-year-old soul and folk artist who hails originally from Detroit Michigan, describes not only the sound that she carries but also the responsibility of what she carries as an artist, entrepreneur, and advocate. After being personally signed by Jay-Z in 2016, Victory released her debut EP entitled “It’s a New Dawn” featuring her soul stirring rendition of Nina Simone’s classic “Feeling Good,” among other songs including original songs “Believe In Love,” “Lessons From My Father,” and “Cheap Love.” The entire project was released globally and premiered in over 8,000 Starbucks locations worldwide for over a year and positioned Victory to be highly anticipated in 2018 when her debut album and “The Broken Instrument” was released. Victory’s talent as a singer-songwriter and performer quickly became popular in the music industry as she continued to demonstrate rare capabilities of captivating audiences with her classic sultry voice, thought-provoking lyrics, and unconventional guitar skills.
Victory established a reputation in elite circles of influence having performed private concerts for Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Mellody Hobson from Ariel investments and her husband George Lucas the creator of Star Wars, Robert Smith venture capitalist, Mike Novogratz, Tyler Perry, Kanye West, and many, many others.
After Victory’s talent and spiritual depth as discovered by Kanye West in 2019 she was invited to be a writer on Kanye’s Grammy award winning album “Jesus is King” and went on to become the primary lyricist for hit songs “Closed on Sunday” and” God Is.” Victory went on to win her first Grammy as a songwriter with Kanye and that same year she crafted the theme song for Russell Stover the Chocolate Company and their first commercial campaign in 20 years which went on to be a huge success.
Victory began writing her sophomore album entitled “Glory Hour” in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic.
“After spending several months writing Gospel songs for Kanye, and then ending up in a worldwide pandemic and seeing how much I needed the comfort of a savior, I knew I hope to keep writing the message of the Gospel in song. For myself first and then for the World.”
Victory’s album Glory Hour” is slated to be released Q1 2023.
Keyon Harrold
Keyon 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 album The Mugician, it examines our troubled times through a far wider lens than any one tragedy. Sweeping and cinematic, the music draws on elements of jazz, classicval, rock, blues, and hip hop to create something uniquely modern, unmistakably American. Guests including Pharoahe Monch, Gary Clark, Jr., Big K.R.I.T., Guy Torry, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Robert Glasper add to the record’s eclectic nature, but it ultimately triumphs as a unified, cohesive whole both because of Harrold’s virtuosic skill as a trumpeter and songwriter and because of his relentlessly optimistic belief in brighter days to come.
Harrold grew up one of 16 children in a family that prioritized music and community across generations. His grandfather was a police officer who retired from the force to found a drum and bugle corps for local youth, both of his parents were pastors, and nearly all of his siblings sing and perform music today. Culture shock hit Harrold hard at 18, when he left Ferguson for New York City to enroll in The New School. In New York, he landed his first major gig with Common, an experience which he says broadened his musical horizons beyond jazz to include funk, Afrobeat, R&B, and hip hop. Soon he was performing with stars like Snoop Dogg, Jay Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, Eminem, Maxwell, and Anthony Hamilton.
In 2009, he released his solo debut, Introducing Keyon Harrold and then won wide acclaim for his trumpet performances in Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead. The Mugician is a portmanteau of “musician” and “magician, a nod to a nickname Cheadle bestowed upon the young virtuoso, and it’s an apt descriptor for a record that pushes beyond the traditional boundaries of jazz trumpet. In fact, the album doesn’t even begin with trumpet, but rather with a track called ‘Voicemail,’ which features an inspirational message from Harrold’s mother set to a stirring, orchestral soundscape. Entirely unedited, her words lay the groundwork for an album that celebrates the importance of family (ten of Keyon’s siblings appear on the record) and the absolute necessity of optimism in the face of darkness and doubt. These days, Harrold is a parent himself, and he pays tribute to his son with a pair of tracks on the album, “Lullaby” and “Bubba Rides Again.” Issues of identity and equality percolate throughout the record, sometimes subtly beneath the surface, sometimes more pointedly, as in “Circus Show.” However, the album’s most powerful moments come with the one-two punch of “MB Lament” and “When Will It Stop,” songs written in the wake of Michael Brown’s death and the senseless killings of so many others like him.
It’s a monumental task, one that calls for tremendous empathy and sensitivity. To give voice to the silenced requires more than just talent and ambition, it requires faith, imagination, strength, and determination. Above all, it requires perspective. Fortunately, that is what Keyon Harrold brings most of all.
Wednesday February 14, 2024
6:00 pm - 11:59 pm
All Ages
Cover: TBD