Amythyst Kiah turns her tumultuous past into music with revolutionary force, at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival
Guitar in hand, the genre-defying “Black Myself” singer brings together everything from blues and Americana to alt-pop
Amythyst Kiah remembers growing up as “the antithesis of the all-American girl next door”.
Amythyst Kiah plays the Vancouver Folk Music Festival mainstage on July 14
MUSICIAN AMYTHYST KIAH spent her youth as an outsider. Now, as an adult, the American singer-songwriter has found empowerment in alchemizing her struggles into song.
Kiah, whose latest EP, Pensive Pop, blends pop and punk influences with her distinctive blues style, is set to hit the stage at this year’s Vancouver International Folk Festival.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kiah’s journey with music began at the age of 13, when her parents gifted her a guitar and a DVD of video lessons. Music was highly regarded in Kiah’s household, and it had played an important role in her life since her early childhood. In a phone interview with Stir, she describes her father as an audiophile, and recollects his days as a lead singer of a band based in Johnson City.
She began to discover her distinct taste in music through her interest in skateboarding, where she was introduced to punk. Music quickly became a place of refuge for Kiah, who struggled with immense social anxiety. She preferred the safety of her inner world, passing time by playing guitar and writing songs in her bedroom.
“I was one of the few Black kids that went to a predominantly white school, I realized I was gay when I was a teen, and I was a tomboy,” Kiah says. “I was the antithesis of the all-American girl next door.”
After losing her mother to suicide at age 17 and her enduring father’s struggles with addiction, Kiah began to pursue music by taking classes at East Tennessee State University.
“One of the things that really turned my life around was discovering old-time music at college,” Kiah recalls. “I was encouraged to audition for band, so I started learning how to play music with other people, which was terrifying.
“I definitely kept way more to myself, even after my mom passed,” she continues. “What really helped my dad completely leave drugs behind was seeing that there was some promise in what I was doing.”
Through her university classes, Kiah was introduced to Americana and blues, citing artists such as Dolly Parton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and even Appalachian murder ballads such as the Louvin Brothers’ “Knoxville Girl” as her inspirations. Kiah’s talent was evident to her teachers and peers, and her schooling resulted in the production of her first album Dig in the university’s recording lab.
Since that release of her debut album in 2013, Kiah’s career has flourished, in large part due to her genre-bending style and powerful vocals. She has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and earned herself a Grammy nomination for her 2019 song “Black Myself” from the collaborative supergroup Our Native Daughters.
Driven by her powerful vocals, accomplished fingerpicking, and soul-baring lyrics, Kiah’s musical style is wonderfully hard to pin down. Over the years, she’s described her music with a variety of terms, including "Southern Gothic” and “Alt Country Blues”. These days, she prefers to describe herself simply as an Americana musician.
Along the way, Kiah has come to a better place in her life. “My father is 13 years in recovery from drug addiction now,” she says. “He started travelling with me when I would play solo shows. He was just really, really supportive. My dad's really been my biggest hero and influence of what it means to be able to overcome things that seem impossible.
“I see one of my main purposes here is to write songs and make music,” she continues. “Music for me has always been my way of dealing with difficult feelings and situations. I guess I've always kind of seen that as my way of giving back, because just music is so important and so integral to being human. It has such a strong impact to be able to help people get through things. And so to be able to have the power to do so is a responsibility that I take seriously.”
As Folk Fest fans will hear this Sunday, Pensive Pop takes a step outside the Americana genre, integrating the alternative music of her teens and new wave motifs. The EP features covers such as “Hitchin’ a Ride” by Green Day (see the spine-tingling video below) and “Sugar” by Tori Amos, of whom Kiah considers herself a lifelong fan.
“The main reason I picked those songs is because they all have themes of dealing with living in the modern world and struggling to find meaning,” the artist says. “It all ties back into that initial interest of songs that really speak about overcoming.
“Most of the songs on the album are very upbeat songs,” she adds. “You could very easily head bang or dance or whatever and not even listen to the lyrics. But with the way that I've reimagined them, it really makes them more singer-songwriter in a way, because I position them where you can listen very clearly to the lyrics.”
No longer a shy teenager, Kiah has learned to turn her past into a revolutionary force, accrediting her tumultuous history with shaping her success as a musical outlier.
“The way I create my art is that, while sometimes it could be lonely, I've always been able to take the things I like from an idea and let go of the rest without feeling obligated to endure what I don't like,” Kiah says. “Because I've been able to see various perspectives without feeling the need to go along with something I don't agree with, that's allowed for me to be able to take all the things I like and put 'em together in a song, and not necessarily in any deliberate way. It shows up when I start writing a song and I never know where it’s gonna go, which makes it really rewarding and exciting.”
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