Leyla McCalla

Leyla McCalla is a founding member of Our Native Daughters and alumna of the GRAMMY award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. Leyla's work unearthing history and musical tradition, combined with her knowledge of cultural hybridization and her own identity as a Haitian American have given her a unique voice and perspective. Her music reflects her eclectic and diverse life experiences, projecting respect for eloquent simplicity that is rarely achieved.

Leyla has three solo albums to her credits. Vari-Colored Songs is a celebration of the complexity of Black culture and identity, and a tribute to the legacy of poet and thinker Langston Hughes. On it, McCalla sets Hughes' poems to her own compositions, juxtaposing them with arrangements of folk songs from Haiti.