Biography

Krystle Warren’ s 'Three the Hard Way' is an elegantly bare testament to the complex resonances of Black music and to the traditions of incisive commentary and spiritual seeking that have often walked with them. These are songs of earth and soul, of poetic protest and potent grooves. The deep past underpins and warps the frenetic present, when Biblical devotion becomes a hot love affair (“Nae-­Nae and Ruthie,” a blues ­inflected reframing of the Old Testament story) and when questions of faith and doubt (“I Hope He Comes Back”) resolve in the eternity of a single tree, toughing it out in the middle of a city (“Learn to Bend”). For Warren, this was familiar territory, yet she had never worked so explicitly with these musical influences in her earlier, singer­-songwriter work. “When [longtime friend and Grammy Award winning producer Ben] Kane and I began talking about this project, I immediately started thinking gospel,” a sound that bursts through tracks like “Move!” “I grew up Southern Baptist, with an incredible choir at church. I started listening to old recordings of various gospel choirs, to the blues. I began learning the language again. It’s always been a part of me.” - Trista Yeager