I went to Symbiosis last weekend and one of the most impactful shows I saw was Rising Appalachia. Their show was so soulful, positive and uplifting. I got a chance to connect with Leah Song, one of the front women in the group, and tell her, “I really loved your set. The music brought me back to my roots in Atlanta.”
“I’m from Atlanta too. Went to Grady High school.”
“No shit! We played you guys in basketball. Was it always your plan to be a musician?”
“No, I’ve always been an activist and an educator. I was doing environmental work when I was 8. After high school I thought I would have been in Peace Corps or something like that. But, I went traveling all over; I went to Mexico, Hawaii, Columbia, India, Bulgaria, Italy. When I was in Mexico I started working with human rights and indigenous rights. Doing a lot front line activism. My sister, Chloe, and I decided to make an album just for family and friends but the response was so visceral and people wanted to hear what we were talking about. It became really clear that the stage was a an amazing tool for dialogue.
There’s a way to create a performance so that it’s a container space. And inside that container space so much information can be shared. From you and to you. It becomes a big dialogue of the entire collective that’s there. That realization was really exciting and I thought ‘This isn’t necessarily the type of work I thought I was going to be in, but I see it’s power to do what I love to do.’
Music is a really proper international language and we want to figure out how the bridges are built. We have an active medium at our fingertips and we realized this is a lifelong project on our hands.
That took a little while to understand, tapping into that creative flow, and it’s not flawless, it’s not perfect, but you work at it because there’s an infinite amount of information to be learned and connections to be made.
There was no other choice other than to try to steer this beast of a project. And it’s changed our whole lives. We started working with a organization called "Alternate Roots” and their mission is to take art and the voice of creative people and help fine tune the messages.
Their belief is that the strongest voice of social change and justice is through the arts because it’s literally a living filter of contemporary culture. You have to fine tune it because art can become very self-indulgent. It doesn’t have to be overly political, but it can at least steer you towards asking questions and looking at things from a new perspective. We’re helping to give a voice to the voiceless.
It’s a very delicate balance because we don’t want to be preaching to anyone. We’re creating a space where you stand in the audience and have your own experience. You take in the energy of the space, the feel of the air, the energy of the people around you. All of this is encapsulated. All we’re doing is trying to responsibly hold that container, and hope the rest happens from there. The dialogues, the networking. You rub elbows with your neighbor, have a dance party, and something clicks.“