Jake Blount
is an award-winning interpreter of Black folk music based in Providence, RI. Initially recognized for his skill as a string band musician, Blount has charted an unprecedented, Afrofuturist course on his pilgrimage through sound archives and song collections. In his hands, the banjo, fiddle, electric guitar and synthesizer become ceremonial objects used to channel the insurgent creativity of his forebears. From transfixing solo sets to full-band festival appearances complete with crowd-surfing and ecstatic chants, Blount’s performances - like his recent Smithsonian Folkways release, The New Faith - seamlessly merge centuries-old traditional songs with the trappings and techniques of modern Black genres. This “genrequeer” approach to the traditions has earned his music a place in the very same archives from which he extracts his repertoire. In defiance of genre categories, revisionist histories and linear time, Blount fashions an “Afrofuturist folklore” that disintegrates the boundaries between acoustic and electric, artist and medium, and ancestor and progeny.

Balancing his taste for arcane source material with his desire to reach diverse audiences, Blount has shared his music at venues including Carnegie Hall, Newport Folk Festival, the Library of Congress and NPR’s Tiny Desk. His knowledge and skill have deepened over the course of his still-young career, and his vision has grown more ambitious - but his music has only grown in popular appeal. Blount’s debut solo record, Spider Tales, was ranked among the best of 2020 by outlets including Bandcamp and The New Yorker. NPR, The Guardian, Rolling Stone and more named The New Faith one of the best roots releases of 2022. With the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, two International Folk Music Awards nominations and two first-place ribbons from Clifftop already under his belt, Blount’s star continues to rise.

Blount’s thoughtful musicianship has made him a sought-after collaborator. He has contributed to recordings by Adia Victoria, Dave Hause, Adeem The Artist and others, opened for GRAMMY-winners Rhiannon Giddens and Molly Tuttle, and traveled the world as a member of old-time groups Tui and The Moose Whisperers. He regularly shares the stage with skilled contemporaries such as Mali Obomsawin, George Jackson and Nic Gareiss, and recently collaborated with the Kronos Quartet on their sold-out 50th Anniversary performance at Carnegie Hall.

In addition to his public-facing achievements, Blount has an impressive industry track record. He has performed as an official showcase artist at Folk Alliance International, SXSW, AmericanaFest and the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass. He was a 2020 Strathmore Artist In Residence, and participated in the IBMA’s Leadership Bluegrass program in the same year. An emeritus board member of Bluegrass Pride, Blount is known as a strong advocate for progressive causes within the music industry, and appears regularly on conference panels pertaining to social and environmental justice. His writings on music and issues facing the industry have appeared in publications including Rolling Stone, NPR, Paste Magazine and No Depression.

Blount is also a skilled educator. In addition to his on-stage offerings, his engagements frequently include lectures and presentations pertaining to both his original research and the history of Black string band music. He has shared this work at Yale University, Berklee College of Music, the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere. He also makes regular appearances at music camps, most notably Earful of Fiddle Music & Dance Camp, offering hands-on instruction in fiddle and banjo. As of fall 2023, Blount is a Ph.D. student in Musicology & Ethnomusicology at Brown University.

Mali Obomsawin
is an award winning bassist, songwriter and composer from Odanak First Nation. Her stunning 2022 debut Sweet Tooth received international acclaim and was named best of the year in GRAMMY.com, JazzTimes, NPR and more. Sweet Tooth’s success brought Obomsawin’s touring sextet to major venues and jazz festivals across the US and Canada, and landed her a triple-feature in the soundtrack of FX’s hit series Reservation Dogs. Mali’s sophomore album “Greatest Hits” by Deerlady, an indie-shoegaze duo with guitarist Magdalena Abrego, was released January 19, 2024. NPR’s Lars Gotrich calls Greatest Hits a “headbang while you weep” record. In addition to touring her various projects this year, Mali’s score for the award winning documentary Sugarcane (dir. by Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie) had its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January 2024, where it picked up the SIFF director’s award and a distribution deal with Nat Geo and Disney+.

With an expansive background in American roots, rock, and jazz, Obomsawin carries several music traditions. She spent the early years of her career recording and touring internationally with folk-rock band Lula Wiles, who released two albums and an EP on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. An in-demand sideperson, Mali appears often with collaborators Jake Blount and with Julia Keefe’s Indigenous Big Band. She can be found in galleries and creative music spaces with friends and mentors Peter Apfelbaum, Taylor Ho Bynum, and Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble.

Mali studied Upright Bass at Berklee College of Music from 2013-2014. She went on to study composition and improvised music at Dartmouth College with mentor Taylor Ho Bynum, where she had the opportunity to work with Peter Apfelbaum (NY Hieroglyphics, Don Cherry), Craig Harris, Mary Halverson, Nicole Mitchell, Tomeka Reid, and Tomas Fujiwara, among others. She was a twice attendee of the selective Acoustic Music Seminar in Savannah, GA, and toured and taught music extensively across the U.S., Canada, and overseas during her time at Dartmouth and Berklee, and received a B.A. in Comparative Literature and Government from Dartmouth in 2018. She was also selected to attend the International Music Creators+ Collaborators Workshop organized by Kris Davis and Angelica Sanchez (2024) through Berklee College of Music’s Jazz and Gender Justice Program.

Obomsawin received the 2022 International Folk Music Association's “Rising Tide Award," which honors new generation artists who embody the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice. She also received the New England Foundation of the Arts' New Work New England award in 2022, and SouthArts’ Jazz Road touring grant in 2023. Beyond the stage Mali is a community organizer and advocate for Indigenous rights, environmental justice and landback. She works as a writer and educator with Sunlight Media Collective, a Wabanaki-driven media team, to document and promote stories at the intersection of environmental justice and Tribal sovereignty. Her journalism has been published recently in Smithsonian, National Performance Network, and the Boston Globe. In 2020, Mali co-founded Bomazeen Land Trust, the first ever Wabanaki land trust, where she currently serves as executive director.