Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood : Listen
Northern Virginia guitarist Yasmin Williams just released the eponymous single from her upcoming album, Urban Driftwood, out on January 29th via Spinster Sounds.
As a lover of acoustic guitar, Yasmin’s style thrills me – it’s far from the usual ambient fare that I often play in the background while I work, her combination of fingerstyle and lap-tapping is dreamy and highly engaging. Watching her play is absolutely enthralling – truly hope to see her live one day.
“With all of the political & social discord that is happening in the US, I felt it was extremely important to include a song on the album that was inspired by my heritage & paid homage to who I am, the household I grew up in, the music I listened to as a child.”
A native of northern Virginia, Williams, now 24, began playing electric guitar in 8th grade, after she beat the video game Guitar Hero 2 on expert level. Initially inspired by Jimi Hendrix and other shredders she was familiar with through the game, she quickly moved on to acoustic guitar, finding that it allowed her to combine fingerstyle techniques with the lap-tapping she had developed through Guitar Hero, as well as perform as a solo artist. By 10th grade, she had released an EP of songs of her own composition. Deriving no lineage from “American primitive” and rejecting the problematic connotations of the term, Williams’ influences include the smooth jazz and R&B she listened to growing up, Hendrix and Nirvana, go-go and hip-hop. Her love for the band Earth, Wind and Fire prompted her to incorporate the kalimba into her songwriting, and more recently, she’s drawn inspiration from other Black women guitarists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Algia Mae Hinton. On Urban Driftwood, Williams references the music of West African griots through the inclusion of kora (which she recently learned) and by featuring the hand drumming of 150th generation djeli of the Kouyate family, Amadou Kouyate, on the title track.
Pre-order Urban Driftwood on Bandcamp.
