Martha Redbone

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Martha Redbone
Philadelphia Folk Festival 2018 DSC 0275 (42368247180).jpg
Background information
Born
New York City
Origin New York City, New York, and Kentucky, United States
GenresRhythm and Blues, Folk and Soul
OccupationsSinger, songwriter, composer
Years active1996–present
Labels Dome Records [1]
Website martharedbone.com
Martha Redbone, Arts for Art - Vision Festival 2024. Photo by Marek Lazarski Martha Redbone.jpg
Martha Redbone,  Arts for Art - Vision Festival 2024. Photo by Marek Lazarski

Martha Redbone (born 1966) is an American singer known for blending rhythm and blues and soul with elements of Native American music. [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Redbone spent time with her maternal grandparents in Harlan County. [3] Her late mother was a mix of Chickamauga Cherokee, Shawnee, Blackfeet, and Mississippi Choctaw [4] [5] [6] and her late father was African-American and Lumbee from Robeson County, North Carolina. [7] [8] She has never conducted a DNA test, but says she looks like the Igbo people in Nigeria. [3]

Career

Redbone is a musician and singer, her style combining Black and Native American musical elements. [9] Her stage name, "Redbone", comes from Southern slang for people of Black and Native American ancestry. [5] She was mentored in songwriting and music production by Junie Morrison of the Ohio Players and Parliament Funkadelic. [10] In early 2007, Redbone's Skintalk won The 6th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best R&B Album. [11]

Her 2012 work, The Garden of Love – Songs of William Blake, sets Blake's poem of the same name to music that draws from rural influences of Appalachia: English folk, African American, and Native American traditions. She tours nationally with the Martha Redbone Roots Project. [12]

Redbone composed the score for the revival of the late Ntozake Shange's choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf with her husband and collaborator Aaron Whitby, which premiered on Broadway in 2022. In 2019, they were the composers of the Public Theatre's iteration of the choreo-poem. [13] Redbone and Whitby won a Drama Desk award in 2020 for Outstanding Music in a Play for the original score for "For Colored Girls". [14]

Personal life

Redbone is married to Aaron Whitby, with whom she owns the record label Blackfeet Productions. The couple has a son. [3] [15] [16]

Discography

References

  1. ↑ "Martha Redbone". Discogs. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  2. ↑ "Martha Redbone", Soultracks
  3. 1 2 3 Martin-Brown, Becka (10 November 2019). "'Good Music Is A Celebration': Martha Redbone combines cultures in 'brilliant collision'". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  4. ↑ Tayac, Gabrielle (26 October 2009). IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. p. 208. ISBN   978-1588342713. Archived from the original on 28 April 2022. Retrieved 14 December 2025.
  5. 1 2 Adams, Jim (13 September 2018). "Martha Redbone does it her way". ICT News. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  6. ↑ Leah Roseman (13 September 2025). "Martha Redbone: Blending Afro-Indigenous Identity and Appalachian Traditions Through Bold Creative Projects". rss.com (Podcast). RSS America LLC. Retrieved 13 December 2025.
  7. ↑ Gross, Jason (24 November 2020). "Indigenous Musicians Remix Thanksgiving Part Two". Rock and Roll Globe. Washington, DC: Sea of Reeds Media. Retrieved 14 December 2024.
  8. ↑ Rowlands, Lucinda (22 October 2022). "'Home of the Brave' by Martha Redbone". ICT News. Retrieved 14 December 2025.
  9. ↑ Colson, Nicole S. (21 March 2013). "Choctaw, Cherokee and African-American descent have shaped Martha Redbone". SentinelSource.com. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  10. ↑ "Martha Redbone".
  11. ↑ "6th Annual Winners" Archived 2009-05-01 at the Wayback Machine , Independent Music Awards
  12. ↑ "The Martha Redbone Roots Project" Archived 2013-12-07 at the Wayback Machine , August 2013, The Ark (Ann Arbor, MI), accessed 16 June 2014
  13. ↑ "Composers Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby Set "for colored girls" to Music".
  14. ↑ https://playbill.com/article/a-strange-loop-the-inheritance-moulin-rouge-win-big-at-2020-drama-desk-awards
  15. ↑ Brown, Camille A. "Martha Redbone". camilleabrown.org. Jamaica, NY. Retrieved 13 December 2025.
  16. ↑ Beeson, Ed (10 July 2004). "Musical Grab Bag". The Brooklyn Paper . New York City, NY: Schneps Media. p. 12. Archived from the original on 13 June 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2025.
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