Nite Bjuti is a Brooklyn-based female trio featuring recent Grammy Award winner Val Jeanty. The Afro-Caribbean meets experimental jazz outfit emerges with a stirring debut on their full-length self-titled album. Traversing through themes of freedom, femininity, and folklore, while “highlighting existential themes centering black women,” Nite Bjuti is a transcendental journey through the unique lens of singer-songwriter Candice Hoyes, bassist Mimi Jones, and sound chemist Val Jeanty.
“We are expressing the kind of pillaging, the uprooting of women in ways personal, intergenerational, familial, sexual, past and present,” Hoyes shares about the album. On focus track “Witchez”, haunting bellows matched with harmonic undercurrents crash over an eerily alive symphony of percussive rhythms. The single channels a floorboard creek turned cryptic violin riff that immerses us in a twisted atmosphere from the moment the track begins. The song serves as a testament to the unacknowledged and forgotten legacies of healing women, nurturers, and radical Black women who faced opposition throughout history. “Stolen Voice” opens with a subtle parade of rain-like percussion and heavy strings that collide with an angelically deep vocal at the root of the track. While in “Soursop”, Nite Bjuti beautifully paints a vivid snapshot of sweet romance and a tender heart’s desire set against a rich tapestry of ancestral sounds.The luminous and uplifting vocals of Candice Hoyes take flight, serenading with lyrics, “I’m in the mood for love // kisses like Soursop.”
Each piece of Nite Bjuti is profoundly independent while still falling in perfect place with the collective group, creating a sound that is inextricably authentic and serendipitous all in one. This album is a ruminative deep-dive on the black feminine experience with a myriad of generational wisdom embedded in the tracks.
Nite Bjuti are past recipients of the UMEZ Arts Engagement Grant (2022) and the NYC Women’s Fund in Jazz Music (2020). Inspired by voices such as Zora Neale Hurston and Carrie Mae Weems, storytelling is an inherent part of Nite Bjuti’s creative work.
Take a listen to Nite Bjuti’s self-titled debut album and tweet @celebmix your favorite song
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