Listen to Anna Wise's Lounge Acts session in the audio player above.
CINCINNATI -- Bockfest, the funky festival celebrating dark beer and the start of spring (didn't it come a month ago?), has needed no help in providing neighborhood-wide debauchery through its 25 years, but vocalist Anna Wise will help The Woodward Theater leave its mark with a special appearance Saturday night.
The Brooklyn-based singer earned a Grammy in February 2016 for best rap/sung collaboration for the ethereal vocals she lent to rapper Kendrick Lamar’s “These Walls.”
Lamar scooped Wise up as a collaborator on several of his albums after listening to "Nursery Boys" from Wise's duo Sonnymoon on YouTube. In the most professional use of Facebook stalking skills I’ve ever witnessed, Billboard reports Lamar asked around until he discovered her phone number. Wise and her bandmate Dane Orr were on the road when he reached out, but they immediately detoured to California to spend some time in the studio with Lamar.
Wise blazed her path as a solo artist with the April 2016 release of her seven-song EP “The Feminine: Act I,” followed up by the 11-track “The Feminine: Act II” out Feb. 17. Both records delve into the everyday challenges of being female (of which I won't pretend to be an expert as a male). "B--chslut" from Act I presents the infuriatingly contradictory reasons women are called either epithet, ranging from "cause you said no/ cause you slept around" to "cause you played games/ cause you lost your head."
Watch Anna Wise perform "Coconuts" for WCPO Lounge Acts
Act II opens with "Coconuts," an otherworldly, synth-heavy track calling for female unity and trashing the arbitrary rules of womanhood. "The governors of status quo know that they're old/ That ship is sinking/ Go for it. You know when we're together/ Baby, there's nothing that we can't do/ So ignore the disapproval," Wise croons.
Her Queen City visit comes courtesy of local sitar- and synth-infused folk duo Dawg Yawp, whose friendship with her stems from their days at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Sitarist and vocalist Tyler Randall toured with Sonnymoon and says he’s excited for Cincinnati to see Wise perform since she is “the best singer I’ve worked with.”
Performance Details
Wise is trekking through the Queen City en route to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and opens for Dawg Yawp on Saturday at the Woodward Theater in Over-the-Rhine. Singing cellist Kate Wakefield will also perform.
Doors open at 8 p.m. Concert starts at 9 p.m. 18+ only.
$7 in advance or $10 at the door. Find more ticket information here.
