By this point, Shirlette Ammons has earned the right to be recognized for much more than merely her collaborative associations.
For more than two decades, the longtime Durhamite and Duplin County native has woven a tapestry of creative expression about as varied and prolific as the area has seen—poetry and music, documentary filmmaking and podcasting. She has won Emmy and Peabody Awards for her TV production work, had her albums heralded by the likes of NPR and WYNC, and, not for nothing, been published or featured in INDY stories a staggering 121 times.
And still, even with individual bonafides that more than stand on their own, some Rolodexes are hard to ignore.
That was the case back in 2016, when then-INDY music editor Grayson Currin reviewed the songwriter’s second album, Language Barrier, remarking upon the “panoply of high-profile guests”—Hiss Golden Messenger, Phil Cook, H.C. McEntire, Amelia Meath, Median, et al.—that Ammons had successfully recruited to bring her singular, genre-agnostic vision to life.
And it remains true a decade later, as Ammons prepares for a celebratory, 10-year retrospective performance of the album with Duke Arts (Page Auditorium, Sep. 17th), reimagining its 10 tracks with an illustrious roster that spans from original album contributors like McEntire and Cook to younger artists who have emerged as North Carolina luminaries in the years since (G Yamazawa, Sonny Miles, Cyanca).
Language Barrier lends itself remarkably well to a remix format, with styles often diverging sharply from one song to the next; at one moment the driving indie rock of McEntire duet “Language Barrier,” the next, the alt hip-hop haze of Median-featuring “Aviator Segue.” Given the guest list, some avenues for reinvention—like the way Winston-Salem singer/songwriter Miles would be a natural fit for the tender, acoustic album closer “Travel Light”—can be at least hazarded in advance.
Others, like who will step up to the plate for Berlin rapper sookee’s entirely German verse on “Language Barrier Segue,” remain to be seen. In sum, the event amounts to the kind of must-see homecoming that many works of art deserve but few actually receive—right on the heels of another such occasion for a beloved 2016 Durham album, Young Bull’s Sopadelic, just last month.
As ever, the cast of characters in tow are a testament to both Ammons’ communal artistic philosophy, her sonic adventurousness, and the curatorial sense that unites and reinforces both. The most obvious hurdle to a lineup like this—that is, funding it—is certainly less of an issue with an institutional presenter like Duke Arts on board. Logistics aside, the question remains whether anyone but Ammons would even think to construct it in the first place—rappers, folk singers, avant-garde experimentalists, many of them generationally and stylistically disparate, yet all neatly cohering under one artist’s circus-tent-sized creative umbrella.
The concert is just one part of a larger slate of programming from Duke and Durham marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence—including rare historic prints of the document on exhibit at the Nasher starting later this month—and is billed as a “timely reflection… on collaboration and connection” at the nation’s semiquincentennial. It is also, with its motley assemblage of voices and sounds, one of quintessentially American resistance, too—resistance to boxes, labels, and oversimplifications that have long been weaponized against anything, or anyone, seen as a threat to orthodox societal norms.
It’s the same message that Ammons has been hammering home for a quarter century now, a rallying cry that, across its many chapters, has rarely sounded or looked the same—and will be different once again next Thursday night—but has been spectacularly consistent in spirit and moral clarity.
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