“Meeting Martha”: An Affrilachian Performance Aesthetics In Martha Redbones’ Bone Hill

Abstract: Musician Martha Redbone is an Appalachian-born Black Indigenous woman with wide visibility, whose artistry highlights how race, place, indigeneity, and class inform what it means to be American. This essay on Martha Redbone, highlights the artists’ activism on stage across cultures, Black, Indigenous, and Appalachian, showcasing the nuances of Black belonging in the region. Redbone’s Bone Hill: The Concert is a musical that tells the stories of her female ancestors growing up in Appalachia. Artistically, Redbone embeds an awareness of region and race within her musical compositions, a strategy I am naming as explicitly Affrilachian. Martha Redbone’s aesthetic interventions as a Black Indigenous artist creating national touring productions about her roots in the region highlights the ongoing influence of Black artistry in America as well as offers historical perspectives on Black and Indigenous experiences in the Appalachian region.