On her intimate new album, Where He And Strange, Emmett Diskia sings her heart out about

losing her mom to suicide and what it's like being the only black person in the room

at Country Gags.

I wanna jump the fence and watch my face in the creek but I'm black myself.

Emmett Diskia has always been caught between different worlds.

Growing up with massive anxiety, as a teenager near Chattanooga Tennessee, she started learning

Green Day and Tori Amos songs alone in her bedroom on guitar.

Eventually she built up her chops and courage and began performing Bluegrass standards

live, catching the attention of recent guests at the pod and banjo extraordinaire, Rianne

and Giddens, who put Kia in her band in 2018.

Nearly two years later, Emmett Diskia started working with Phoebe Bridges producer Tony

Burr on what would become her newest album, Where He And Strange.

The project expertly fuses Kia's love for 90s alt rock, with her old time country sensibility.

Emmett Diskia performs two of her new songs on today's episode and talks to Bruce

Hevlam about what it was like for a black teenager to come out as gay in a white Christian

southern town.

She also explains how learning of the West African roots of Bluegrass helped reaffirm

her place in Americana music.

This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age.

I'm Justin Richmond.

Here's Bruce Hevlam with Emmett Diskia.

There are many things I love about your album, but we'll get to the songs in a second,

...