EPK

Country & Western / Native Americana singer-songwriter Kandia Crazy Horse

(credit: Camara Dia Holloway)

Kandia Crazy Horse is currently composing the next set of songs for her Stampede song-cycle. Crazy Horse’s further foray from New York City / Hudson Canyon’s concrete country into American Wilds of the Mainland produces sounds forged through the prism of traditional southeastern Cosmic American Music & Native American traditions wherein her deep ancestral roots lie.

Crazy Horse’s next recordings herald organic, down-home songs about loss, Native American sovereignty, human rights, the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance -#NoDAPL (an ode to the Oceti Sakowin water protectors, “Mni Wiconi (Water Is Life)”), safeguarding rural spaces & folkways, honky-tonk heartbreak, and rogue highwaymen. As Kandia’s personal weave of western swing & mountain music sounds, the next album will fuse nonpareil lyricism, old-timey simplicity, and warm Quirank (Blue Ridge) harmonies with deconstructed Laurel Canyon elements freshly intertwined with the current Cosmic California scene.

[Short bio]

 A standout in the crowded Americana field & burgeoning rise of Black Country, KANDIA CRAZY HORSE expresses an authentic and rich sonic vision of Appalachian (Affrilachian) lore & Native American twang. Born in the Nation’s Capital, Kandia has resided in Bamako, Maseru, Alexandria – Egypt, Accra, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Charlotte – North Carolina, near Branson – Missouri & is now based in Harlem. Her Blue Ridge mountain music & Laurel Canyon-influenced songwriting skills, voice infused with a honeyed rasp, and deft arrangements have yielded performances on the Grand Ole Echo @ SXSW and at Lincoln Center; garnering critical acclaim from outlets such as MOJO, the Village Voice, Acoustic Guitar, Relix, Harp/Blurt & celebrated indie radio station WFMU. Praised for her all-encompassing fluency and facility with varied country and folk music traditions, Kandia’s sound unifies the ancient with indigenous futures.

#KandiaCrazyHorse

[Credit: Camara Dia Holloway]

KANDIA CRAZY HORSE’s unique, eclectic country & western sounds are conjured from a gypsy childhood rooted between the cross-Atlantic poles of Southeast America’s Red Road and several African nations near the Bight of Benin. Raised largely by her grandmothers from Appalachian Virginia – hence the Native Americana & Scotch-Irish mountain music influences – and southwest Georgia – responsible for the deep twang & red clay folk roots – while her parents followed their own revolutionary arrows, Sister Crazy Horse began to sow the seeds of her own take on country music’s aesthetics and stories during contraband viewings (she & her twin sister were largely forbidden television) of classic American horse operas, her favorite show Hee-Haw, Ellis Haizlip’s Soul!, Soul Train & vital, ecstatic hollerin’ time spent in her grandaddy Rev’s Daugherty County, Georgia church. All of this perpetual songcatching was also shaped by an exclusive education in several international schools including Mali’s École Liberté A and Maryland’s Lycée Rochambeau – topped by a BFA degree in cinema from New York City’s School of Visual Arts, wherein she delivered award-winning western screenplays. Crazy Horse has always been a devoted radio baby empowered to be creatively fearless by the freedom of 1960s-70s recordings & the era’s maverick dial jocks like Chocolate City’s fabled “The ‘Bama.” And her long spell as a pioneering, Native American rambling woman scribe on the New South rock & roll scene ultimately resulted in her 2014 debut album, released to press plaudits including a 4-star review from England’s revered music bible MOJO Magazine: Stampede.

“[…] the lady masters every sub-genre she essays. And girl, can she sing: equal parts Muscle Shoals rasp and effortlessly modulated vibrato, those Kandia Crazy Horse pipes are the real thang.” – Barney Hoskyns, MOJO  **** stars

The Village Voice also voted Stampede as its #2 Country Album of 2014

Kandia Crazy Horse still dreams of the idealized Wild West & is raising a joyful noise amongst her sonic circle of fellow southern expatriates in Hudson Canyon, from her perch in High Harlem; including fronting her twang quartet Cactus Rose, engaging in activism focused on Indian Country; and performing on the Brooklyn Country scene & beyond.

Hudson Canyon Sing (Kandia Crazy Horse’s Dixie-fried frolic) @ Branded Saloon, Brooklyn