When poet, youth educator and visual artist Jamila Woods steps on stage, it’s a divine encounter. The Chicago songstress and poet radiates angelic energy that creates an intimate and soothing connection between her and the audience. Such was the case during her performance last month at the Red Bull Music Festival in her hometown. Performing her sophomore album LEGACY! LEGACY!, released in the spring, Woods gave the audience an interdisciplinary experience that celebrated the richness of Black culture.

Seamlessly oscillating between dance, poetry, moving imagery, historical clips and live instrumentation, Woods’ performance provided a stripped-down interpretation of her album — one that was Black as hell, which doesn’t come as a surprise considering almost all of the songs from LEGACY! LEGACY! are named after iconic Black artists, from the likes of Sonia Sanchez to Octavia Butler. Woods said the process for creating the conceptually unique album was very organic.

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“I was really thinking of it in terms of people who are my influences, like different artists and thinkers living and not living, who have influenced me,” Woods told Blavity. “I didn’t set out to make a project like this. It was kind of like I had writer’s block after my first album, and I started giving myself prompts like cover a Nikki Giovanni poem as a song.”

Source: How Jamila Woods Turned The Legacies Of Black Icons Into Soulful Hits