Shirlette Ammons has been described as a Black queer southern truth-teller, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning TV producer, poet, and musician. She is also an identical twin from a tiny, wonderfully named pocket of eastern North Carolina earth called Beautancus.
Her latest album, Spectacles, was co-produced by Phil Cook. It features 11 tracks that explore the duality of being objectified by the patriarchal white gaze while also receiving attention for one’s performances. The album is a poignant expression of her multitudes as a songwriter, MC, bassist, producer, and poet. It draws from black Southern brilliance and contributions from a wider creative community, including genre-and-gender-defying performance artist Mykki Blanco, MacArthur-winning poet Fred Moten, Nigerian writer and chef Tunde Wey, Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, and radical feminist writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Other contributors include “the Beyoncé of yoga” Jessamyn Stanley, her twin sister Shorlette Ammons, and her niece, Anansi Stephens. Ammons is known for her collaborative work, having previously worked with soul-rock band The Dynamite Brothers and brought together The Indigo Girls, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Meshell Ndegocello for 2016’s Language Barrier LP.
The artist is equally accomplished in film and television, serving as a producer on the acclaimed documentary, May the Lord Watch: The Little Brother Story as well as a producer on Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series A Chef’s Life and Somewhere South, both of which aired on PBS. She is the 2016 recipient of Black Public Media’s Pitch Black Prize which awarded funding towards the completion of The Hook, a documentary short that explores Black maritime history through the plight of chef Ricky Moore. She also served as producer on The Seeds We keep (Oxford American) and STAY PRAYED UP, which debuted at Telluride Film Festival in September 2021. She is also an award-winning poet and a Cave Canem Fellow whose body of work includes two collections of poetry.
Check out the album via the link below!
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