Oxford American is excited to announce a special live event featuring singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Leyla McCalla. Join us on Monday, June 22, at the UCA Windgate Center, 2150 Bruce Street in Conway, Arkansas. The show is free and open to the public—we encourage you to reserve seats ahead of time, but walk-ups are welcome on the day of the event. Doors open at 5:30 pm and the event will begin at 6:30 pm.
Before the music begins, Oxford American Editor in Chief Sara A. Lewis will announce the theme of our 2026 Music Issue. Attendees will be the very first to know what we have in store for this edition of the acclaimed annual series!
Published since 1997, the annual Music Issue is the Oxford American’s most acclaimed and popular production. New York Times critic Dwight Garner wrote that the OA’s compilations “practically belong in the Smithsonian.” Since 2009, the music edition has centered on different themes, including Southern states, Visions of the Blues, Country Roots, Ballads, and—beginning with Memphis in 2024—city-specific explorations. We are proud to continue this twenty-eight year tradition with another historic issue. And, for the third year in a row, we’re pressing a limited-edition vinyl LP to accompany the music edition.
Born to Haitian emigrants and activists, Leyla McCalla finds inspiration from her past and present—her music vibrates with three centuries of history and influences from around the globe. McCalla possesses a stunning mastery of the cello, tenor banjo, and guitar and, as a multilingual singer and songwriter, has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience.
Her latest album, Sun Without the Heat, was recorded in an intense nine-day session at Dockside Studies in New Orleans. While conceiving the project, McCalla expanded her musical palate and revisited her longstanding creative influences. “I like when music feels urgent,” McCalla says, “but I also wanted the new album to be playful and fun. I wanted that levity to come through.” The album draws lyrical inspiration from the writings of Black feminist Afrofuturist thinkers including Octavia Butler, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and adrienne maree brown. Like these authors, McCalla looks to songwriting as a way to increase faith and hope, encourage community thinking, and catalyze personal transformation.
The result is a balance of heaviness and light with melodies and rhythms derived from various forms of Afro-diasporic music including Afrobeat, Ethiopian modalities, Brazilian Tropicalismo, and American folk and blues. The transcendent collection of songs holds the personal and universal, carrying grief and joy at once. Through this album, McCalla explores the elements of transformation and the heat necessary to move from darkness toward light.
Sun Without the Heat was released via ANTI- Records. McCalla is also currently the Artist in Residence at the University of Richmond. In addition to her solo work, McCalla is a founding member of Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, and Allison Russell) and alumna of GRAMMY award-winning Black string band The Carolina Chocolate Drops.
