In 2007, Leah and Chloe Smith decamped to New Orleans from their hometown in
downtown Atlanta. The mission was to deliver art in service to the rebirth of a
city rocked in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Seduced by the royalty of NOLA
culture, the sisters put down roots and swiftly got to work. They saw themselves
as street-culture apprentices nestled in the bosom of a musical village. Rising
Appalachia’s soulful folk-roots trinity traces back to parents who prioritized
cultural richness, and to grassroots communities that dot the hills and valleys
of the Deep South. As well as the raw realism of Atlanta's kaleidoscopic '90s
rap underground, which further strengthened the girls' connection to the
Southern metropolis they called home. Those two disparate scenes first seeded
Rising Appalachia’s unicorn sound. The women eventually welcomed
multi-instrumentalist David Brown and percussionist Biko Casini to the project.
Each player wields an eclectic skill-set essential to the sonic gumbo. Later,
they added fiddler/cellist Duncan Wickel, a prodigy from the Appalachian summer
camps. Occasionally, the quintet will tour and record with Arounna Diarra, who
plays n’goni, a West African harp. Eschewing established industry norms, Leah
and Chloe Smith have followed invitation and intuition to independently forge
their own path. Fifteen years and seven studio albums into an ambitious
adventure that has already taken them around the world, Rising Appalachia
continues spreading musical catharsis with an iridescent elixir of global soul.
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