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Matana Roberts

Mixed-media composer Matana Roberts has been called “a major talent” (The Wire) and “the spokeswoman for a new, politically conscious and refractory Jazz scene” (Jazzthetik). Her Coin Coin series has been widely and highly praised for its stylistic innovations and narrative power. Noted music critic Peter Margasak has written of Coin Coin: “Memory is a powerful thing, but it’s so private, fluid, and unreliable that it can seem almost impossible to capture in a work of art—and history is often no more stable, once you look closely enough. Roberts has succeeded at evoking both, though, and gives her audience a long look at something ghostly, tragic, and beautiful. She is carving out her own aesthetic space, startling in its originality and gripping in its historic and social power.”

Coin Coin Recollections

Coin Coin Recollections

Jason Moran and Matana Roberts discuss Coin Coin, Marie Therese Metoyer, a freed slave and businesswoman who helped establish a Creole community in Louisiana—and an ongoing inspiration for Roberts.