Ahamefule J. Oluo’s darkly comic musical portrait of his mother builds one story out of many, a journey from Section 8 housing in 1980s Seattle, to the mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta, to the Clallam Bay Correctional Facility. With stunning new compositions, combined with soul-baring stand-up interludes, Oluo explores two intertwining narratives: his mother’s life as the white, Midwestern wife of a Nigerian chief, and later a destitute single mother; and his own journey to Nigeria as an adult, to visit his late father’s village and discover a family on the other side of the world.
"We were seeing a lot of injustices, wrongful imprisonments, stuff like what happened with Marissa Alexander, who was arrested for standing her ground. As we were writing music for the album, we chose the retro sound because we were dealing with retro issues. We thought we’d really gotten passed some of them, but recent events caused us to realize that they didn’t disintegrate, they were just hiding."
"She isn’t a rough-hewn belter but rather a meticulous vocalizer, able to hang back in poignancy, elevate in delicacy or settle into intimate simplicity."
"It’s nothing less than Wilson’s swing for the fences, a worthy and largely self-penned 21st century successor to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On"
The Sunbreak Top 10 Best Northwest Records, 2016
"In the case of vocalist Tiffany Wilson—whose recent KEXP performance stopped me in my tracks when I heard it two rooms away streaming from my husband's phone—there's no denying the power and passion of her voice"
“As a woman of color, I am black history. That is what I see everyday. I think it's really important for those who are not people of color sometimes to maybe... it'd be nice if it wasn't just for the 28 days of February, but if we allowed that one month to really dig in and take that moment to submerge yourself in the history and the culture of people of color -- and not just black people, that really doesn't encompass Hispanics and natives and Asians. And as far as I'm concerned, it incorporates all people of color, but we look at it, of course, as all black folks. But I think that everyone comes from them. So figure out how they all tie together and do some research.“
“The inspiration for the lyrics I wrote came from the retro funk instrumentation the album boasts. I thought, why not address some of the retro issues that are resurfacing?”
“We caught up with extraordinary soul artist Tiffany Wilson. She and her band (Tamara Witherspoon, Joey Walbaum, Stingshark, Davee C., Scotty X, and Jon Rÿser) perform "Shut The Door", the explosive first single off her album #SEESHARP.”