Martha Redbone
American musician (born 1966)
title: "Martha Redbone" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["african-american-women-songwriters", "american-soul-musicians", "american-people-of-cherokee-descent", "american-people-of-choctaw-descent", "american-people-of-shawnee-descent", "american-people-of-lumbee-descent", "living-people", "american-women-singers", "american-women-songwriters", "musicians-from-brooklyn", "independent-music-awards-winners", "songwriters-from-new-york-(state)", "singers-from-new-york-city", "singers-from-kentucky", "songwriters-from-kentucky", "21st-century-african-american-women-singers", "21st-century-american-women-singers", "1966-births"] description: "American musician (born 1966)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Redbone" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary American musician (born 1966) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Martha Redbone |
| image | Philadelphia Folk Festival 2018 DSC 0275 (42368247180).jpg |
| background | solo_singer |
| birth_place | New York City |
| origin | New York City, New York, and Kentucky, United States |
| genre | Rhythm and Blues, Folk and Soul |
| occupation | Singer, songwriter, composer |
| years_active | 1996–present |
| label | Dome Records |
| website | |
| :: |
::callout[type=note] the American musician ::
| name = Martha Redbone | image = Philadelphia Folk Festival 2018 DSC 0275 (42368247180).jpg | background = solo_singer | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = New York City | origin = New York City, New York, and Kentucky, United States | genre = Rhythm and Blues, Folk and Soul | occupation = Singer, songwriter, composer | years_active = 1996–present | label = Dome Records | website = ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Martha_Redbone.jpg" caption="Martha Redbone, Arts for Art - Vision Festival 2024. Photo by Marek Lazarski"] ::
Martha Redbone (born 1966) is an American singer known for blending rhythm and blues and soul with elements of Native American music.
Early life and education
Redbone spent time with her maternal grandparents in Harlan County. and her late father was African-American and Lumbee from Robeson County, North Carolina. She has never conducted a DNA test, but says she looks like the Igbo people in Nigeria.
Career
Redbone is a musician and singer, her style combining Black and Native American musical elements. Her stage name, "Redbone", comes from Southern slang for people of Black and Native American ancestry. She was mentored in songwriting and music production by Junie Morrison of the Ohio Players and Parliament Funkadelic. In early 2007, Redbone's Skintalk won The 6th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best R&B Album.
Her 2012 work, The Garden of Love – Songs of William Blake, sets Blake's poem of the same name to music that draws from rural influences of Appalachia: English folk, African American, and Native American traditions. She tours nationally with the Martha Redbone Roots Project.
Redbone composed the score for the revival of the late Ntozake Shange's choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf with her husband and collaborator Aaron Whitby, which premiered on Broadway in 2022. In 2019, they were the composers of the Public Theatre's iteration of the choreo-poem. Redbone and Whitby won a Drama Desk award in 2020 for Outstanding Music in a Play for the original score for "For Colored Girls".
Personal life
Redbone is married to Aaron Whitby, with whom she owns the record label Blackfeet Productions. The couple has a son.
Discography
- Home of the Brave (2001)
- Skintalk (2004)
- *Future Street * (2006)
- The Garden of Love – Songs of William Blake (2012)
References
References
- "Martha Redbone".
- [http://www.soultracks.com/martha_redbone.htm "Martha Redbone"], Soultracks
- Tayac, Gabrielle. (26 October 2009). "IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas". Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian.
- (13 September 2025). "Martha Redbone: Blending Afro-Indigenous Identity and Appalachian Traditions Through Bold Creative Projects". RSS America LLC.
- Gross, Jason. (24 November 2020). "Indigenous Musicians Remix Thanksgiving Part Two". Sea of Reeds Media.
- (22 October 2022). "'Home of the Brave' by Martha Redbone". ICT News.
- (10 November 2019). "'Good Music Is A Celebration': Martha Redbone combines cultures in 'brilliant collision'". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
- (11 February 2025). "Martha Redbone on using music to challenge inequality". The Chickamauga Nation..
- (21 March 2013). "Choctaw, Cherokee and African-American descent have shaped Martha Redbone". SentinelSource.com.
- (13 September 2018). "Martha Redbone does it her way". ICT News.
- "Martha Redbone".
- [http://www.independentmusicawards.com/ima_new/jukebox2007.asp "6th Annual Winners"] {{webarchive. link. (2009-05-01 , Independent Music Awards)
- [http://theark.org/3634.html "The Martha Redbone Roots Project"] {{webarchive. link. (2013-12-07, August 2013, The Ark (Ann Arbor, MI), accessed 16 June 2014)
- "Composers Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby Set "for colored girls" to Music".
- https://playbill.com/article/a-strange-loop-the-inheritance-moulin-rouge-win-big-at-2020-drama-desk-awards
- Beeson, Ed. (10 July 2004). "Musical Grab Bag". [[Schneps Media]].
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::