On Friday, six Detroit singer-songwriters will gather inside Rivera Court at the Detroit Institute of Arts for what’s known in Nashville as a “Writer’s Round.” The Friday Night Live! event that evening will feature musicians Isis Damil, Michelle Held, Audra Kubat, Marbrisa, Mayaeni, and Emily Rose.
The term “Writer’s Round” is shortened from writers-in-the-round. The idea is for each musician to take turns performing their songs in an acoustic, stripped-down format (don’t say “unplugged”) that’s intended to focus the audience’s attention on the song and not the performance, and is accompanied by a story or some background information about the song, the writing process, or some other element they think is interesting or relevant. In Detroit, these kinds of evenings aren’t common, but musician Kubat, who curated the event, is hoping to change that.
When Kubat — a long-time singer, songwriter, and music educator born and raised in Detroit — was offered the Friday Night Live! spot, she decided that she wanted to do something “more eclectic and collaborative,” she tells Metro Times. “Instead of just doing a solo show of my own, I wanted to kind of curate a particular songwriting night.”
In Nashville, a destination for both hopeful performers and songwriters, the round-robin format of acoustic guitars and storytelling is a norm and a rite of passage for newcomers, with dozens of helpful “how to slay your next writer’s round!” articles on the internet. But it’s not a musical tradition the Motor City is known for.
“The songwriter in the round is really an older, traditional way of sharing songs that’s been around for a long time, but it’s not very Detroit,” Kubat says. “When I first started playing in Detroit, there wasn’t really hardly anybody doing like, ‘I’m just going to play guitar and sing!’ It’s like, the late ’60s, that happened, and Joni Mitchell lived here, and it didn’t really get big here in Detroit.”
She’s also done this sort of thing before. “I started an open mic at Union Street that ran for almost 12 years, and it was an open mic that really created a listening space because of the way I invited people in. Some of the greatest players in the city would come there, because they knew that people would be listening. They knew that the space was conducive to that because of the host and I was really trying to create a space where people could come and really hear the lyrics of songs.”
This is the impetus that inspired Kubat to pitch her idea to the DIA, especially after an event she attended at the museum earlier this year. As part of its Regeneration: Black Cinema, 1898-1971 exhibit, Friday Night Live! hosted the Black Opry Revue, featuring performances by Isaiah Cunningham, Christine Melody, Jett Holden, and Nathan Graham. “They did a songwriter’s round. It was all people of color, and it was a beautiful night of listening,” Kubat says. “And I was like, ‘This is so great. I want to do this, and I want to have the great Detroit area songwriters do it.’”
The event also ties into Kubat’s current approach to being a working musician, in a climate where venues and opportunities for artists are drastically changing if not evaporating. “I’m really about localizing the way that we support our community,” she says. “Like we need people to stay in Detroit. We don’t need everybody to leave because there’s not enough opportunity. So how can we inspire our audience to understand that them coming to our shows really helps us thrive as artists, and I want them to feel like they are a part of what helps us thrive, right?”
Asking Kubat to talk through her criteria for selecting the artists who’ll be joining her in Rivera Court, her immediate answer is about the art itself. “I think that the main criteria was songs that do work,” she tells Metro Times. “Songs that were sort of actively engaging in some kind of growth or development… I think all of these artists have a real propensity for that, that they’re able to take a story, whether it’s about themselves, whether they’re hiding themselves in it, and connect with an audience and have them want to know more and to hear more. And all of these writers have done that for me, held me in that pin-drop moment. I think when you can do that to an audience, it’s a real beautiful gift, and I think the audience really gives that gift back by listening. So I wanted it to be a memorable experience for the people that gathered, and I also wanted it to feel that way for the artists that really deserve that listening space, and to, again, be in a space where artistry is.”
Meet the artists
Isis Damil: There’s something smoky in Isis Damil’s voice. It’s smooth, it’s sexy, it sparkles, it definitely wears sequins. Her video audition for NPR’s Tiny Desk series, featuring her song “Sacrifice,” demonstrates her impressive vocal command as well as her songwriting chops; it’s polished, intimate, tasteful, combining jazz, modern R&B, and any definition of the term “soul” you’d like to invoke.
When asked for her elevator pitch, Damil responds, “Expect songs about relationships, God, vulnerability and sisterhood.” So when she tells you her favorite songwriter is Prince, it all makes sense. This is her third performance at the DIA and the thing she’s looking forward to the most is the women she’ll be sharing the bill with. “I grew up as an only child and longed for spaces to share with beautiful, like-minded women,” she says.
She’ll be previewing an unreleased song at the event, and her favorite exhibit at the DIA was The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion. She has some shows coming up in December and you can buy tickets and get more info at isisdamil.com.
Michelle Held: There are thousands of folk singers who say they’re influenced by the likes of Dylan but where they fall to the wayside is that they offer nothing new or noteworthy to the culture. Where Held emerges above the fray is not just the unique technical qualities of her vocal instrument, multi-textured and commanding, but also her emotional approach to the songs. She’s got a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Black Cowboys” — hardly a well-known choice — that adds more depth and intimacy to the original interpretation; it’s not just presenting the same song in the same way.
Held recently released a song about the death of legendary singer-songwriter John Prine, “The World Moves On,” that doesn’t just sound great musically and vocally and sonically overall, but also offers more than empty platitudes. There’s a warmth and a sincerity that might not be fashionable — there’s zero irony here — and it’s easy to believe her.
To hear more of Michelle’s music, and find out about her January charity event “Darkness on the Edge of Corktown,” supporting the Motor City Mitten Mission, you can visit michelleheld.com.
Audra Kubat: Kubat is a songwriter, a performer, and an educator who is also the proprietor of the Detroit House of Music, a space for musicians to work and perform. You’d probably characterize her music under the umbrella of “Americana,” songs that stretch across folk and blues and country, with a propensity towards acoustic, more intimate, less electric sounds, anchored by a gorgeous, velvety voice with endless depth.
She’s been a working musician for decades, beginning in 1999 with her band Stunning Amazon. But pick anything from her solo records and the same qualities of deliberate, focused craft are obvious. Start with the urgency in “The Bells” from 2016’s Mended Vessel, the quiet beauty of “Georgia” from 2005’s Million Year Old Sand, or the sonic peace of “Caged Bird” from The Sliver & the Salve — Kubat’s artistic output is strong, thoughtful and consistent.
Listen to more music — including the deeply thoughtful “Gray Glory Parade,” her 2021 protest song featuring poet jessica Care moore — at audrakubat.com.
Marbrisa: She claims Stevie Wonder as her favorite artist of all time, and where you most hear that influence in her own work is how she has no limits to what genre she’ll work in.
A recipient of a Detroit Music Award for Outstanding Songwriter in the World Music category, Marbrisa is more of a musical polymath than a devotee of a particular sound. She went to Spain to attend flamenco guitar school, she’s played in jazz clubs in Mexico City, and she curated a monthly songwriter event in New Orleans, where she’d gone to immerse herself in jazz and Black American music.
And her songs showcase an eclecticism borne out of enthusiasm, impossible to pigeonhole.
You can listen to more at marbrisamusic.com.
Mayaeni: It’s the deceptive power of her vocals that first draw you in — like her song “200.” “I wrote the song I needed to hear,” she says, a recitation of promises and a reminder of why she — or you, or anyone, honestly — matters.
Her music is a testament to melody, light, and space, and uplifts the listener. “The most important thing I want people to know about my music,” she says, “is that it’s authentic and comes from a place of raw emotion and personal experience.”
Her favorite item at the DIA is the Sowo Mask, “because it is Mende. My mother is from the Mende tribe in Sierra Leone and my name Mayaeni is a Mende name meaning ‘all my mothers, all my women.’”
Listen to her new song, “Sippin Lemonade” and check out her beautifully curated Instagram feed at mayaeni.com.
Emily Rose: Her voice sounds ancient and immediately familiar, whether she’s singing love songs, like “Alma,” confessions (“My Redemption Song”), on covers by Tom Petty (“Only a Broken Heart”) or a delightfully lo-fi rendition of Quarterflash’s “Harden My Heart” that breaks it down to its essentials.
That’s also representative of Rose’s approach to originals, and she probably fits into the “folk” category, and will appeal to fans of that genre, but there’s something more intriguing, more interesting, than a textbook interpretation of that particular term. “I like to write things that are simple and observational,” she says. Her favorite item at the DIA is the 16th century French Gothic Chapel.
Emily Rose’s next record is The Parlor Tapes, recorded on a four-track cassette recorder in the parlor of a historic Detroit home. Rose also has a residency the second Wednesday of every month at Ghost Light in Hamtramck called “Ghost Night,” which focuses on different departed artists, along with a second set of original music. Find out more about these (or anything else) at emilyrosemusic.com.
Friday Night Live! Detroit Songwriters with Audra Kubat is set for 7-8:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 22 inside Rivera Court at the Detroit Institute of the Arts; 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-7900; dia.org. The event is free to attend with museum admission.
