Description
Saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, bandleader, sound experimentalist and multimedia practitioner Matana Roberts isn’t the sort of artist whose accomplishments fit neatly into any particular box. Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, she took up music as a child, and was fully immersed in the city’s music and arts scenes during her teenage years. In the early 2000s, she formed a trio called Sticks & Stones, which ultimately released two albums, but it was her efforts following a move to New York City in 2002 that thrust Roberts into the spotlight. While fronting and participating in a number of different projects, she was also enlisted to collaborate with artists like TV on the Radio, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion. As as solo artist, her debut album *The Chicago Project* surfaced in 2007 and made a few waves, but it’s Roberts’ *Coin Coin* series, which began in 2011, that has truly prompted widespread acclaim.
