DETROIT – Musician and poet Blair is about to trek through the U.S. to California where he'll play a few shows, including the Queer Arts Festival, before his Taste Fest gig in Detroit and the release of his new album in August. The award-winning urban folk artist from Detroit has received acclaim from the Detroit Music Awards, Real Detroit Weekly and Hour Detroit Magazine.
BTL: How did the Taste Fest gig come about?
Blair: Well I've played, let's see, a couple of times before. I didn't play last year 'cause I was on tour. Actually I was in Africa. I was excited about playing again this year.
BTL: Can you give readers a brief glimpse of the new album?
Blair: The new album is called "Burying The Evidence." It's going to be a mix of new music and spoken word. There's a sense in which it has a very gay theme to it, but there's also more of a universal aspect about it … I was thinking of cities – you know this whole phenomenon of cities that get buried under sand. We have very beautiful parts of ourselves that, out of fear or out of a bad situation in childhood or whatever, we have this reaction to bury it.
BTL: What got you into writing poetry?
Blaire: I've written poetry all my life actually, but I never really showed it to anyone until about four years ago. I was hosting an open mic and a lot of people doing poetry slam would come to my open mic, and then would rehearse to go to the National Poetry Slam. And when I heard I was like, "Hmm, I'd like to try this." I went out for the slam and it all kind of happened in the space of three months. I went to the slam and I won and I got on the team and then we went to nationals and we won the National Poetry Slam. [Laughs] It was like, "Ah, maybe this is what I'm supposed to be doing."
Six feet under with Blair
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