Meet Shirlette Ammons
Writer and musician Shirlette Ammons is not afraid of intimacy. Her poems and songs are like diary pages that she invites audiences to flip through at their leisure. Ammons is used to sharing her personal space. She grew up in a rural country home with a twin sister and dozens of cousins. After she left home for college, she started to explore her race and sexuality and used the power of the pen to document her self-discovery.
Her first collection of poetry, “Stumphole: Aunthology of Bakwoods Blood,” was published in and followed by the more recent “Matching Skin” (Carolina Wren Press/). Ammons is a musical artist as well. She’s the frontwoman of Mosadi Music, a hip-hop band based in the Triangle, and she just released an EP called “And Lovers Like,” with Chapel Hill blues rock band The Dynamite Brothers.
PLAYERS:
shirlette ammons - Vocals, Programming; Synth bass, “Spades”
Amelia Meath - Vocals, “Delight,” “Hello. It’s Alright.”
Mavis Swan Poole - Vocals, “Short,” “Spectacles”
Jessamyn Stanley - Vocals, “Temperature”
G Yamazawa - Vocals, “All The Things”
Kane Smego - Vocals, “All The Things”
Central Park School For Children - Vocals, “Hello. It’s Alright.”
Brevan Hampden - Drums, “Clown Faces”
Darion Alexander - Bass Guitar, Moog Bass
DJ Harrison - Drums, Clavinet, Juno, Moog, Rhodes; Piano, “Clown Faces”
Phil Cook - Programming, Piano, Guitars, Percussion; Vocals, “Neighborhood Headlines”
Chris Boerner - Bass, “Delight”
Brad Cook - Op-1, “On Spectacles Part 1,” “Delight” “On Spectacles Part 2;” Bass, “Temperature”
Nyk Baglio - Drums, “Spectacles,” “Hello”
Matt McCaughan “Spectacles,” “Hello”
Featuring commentary from: Mykki Blanco, Fred Moten, Shorlette Ammons, Anansj Stephens, DJ Doowop, Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Vivica C. Coxx, Tunde Wey
TECHNICAL:
Recorded at Break Alive Studios in Durham, NC by Jeremy “Bean” Clemmons
Assisted by Lynn Grissett and Brevan Hampden
Additional Recording at Overdub Lane in Durha
The Durham-based musician&#;s latest album, Spectacles, explores identity and features cameos by lots of local talent.
by David Menconi
In life as well as art, Shirlette Ammons is a multi-hyphenate polyglot who crosses all kinds of borders and boundaries. A self-described Black queer Southern truth-teller, she is a poet, community activist and documentary film producer as well as a musician. And if you want a sense of her range of sounds and influences, all you have to do is check the credits of her brilliant album Spectacles, which was released in April.
Ammons’ collaborators on Spectacles include Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn from Grammy-nominated electronic duo Sylvan Esso; rappers G. Yamazawa and Kane Smego; Justin Robinson from the Grammy-winning old-time string band Carolina Chocolate Drops; and players from The Veldt, Dante High, Hiss Golden Messenger and other rock bands. For good measure, students from Durham’s Central Park School For Children contributed a vocal cameo on one song.
It’s quite an all-star team that speaks to Ammons’ status as a connector.
“I kinda just don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” she says of her collaborative ways. “I’m like a little p
Shirlette Ammons explores visibility, identity and relationships in 'Spectacles'
Stacia Brown
Stacia L. Brown is a writer and audio storyteller who has worked in public media since , when she partnered with the Association of Independents in Radio and Baltimore's WEAA to create The Rise of Charm City, a narrative podcast that centered community oral histories. She has worked for WAMU’s daily news radio program, 1A, as well as WUNC’s The State of Things. Stacia was a producer for WUNC's award-winning series, Great Grief with Nnenna Freelon and a co-creator of the station's first children's literacy podcast, The Story Stables. She served as a senior producer for two Ten Percent Happier podcasts, Childproof and More Than a Feeling. In early , she was interim executive producer for WNYC’s The Takeaway.
See stories by Stacia Brown
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