EAT

April 20: Greener Fest

Diamondback Beer, 1215 E Fort Ave. 12-10 p.m. Free.

Any seasoned drinker will tell you that wine isn’t the only type of adult beverage that deserves a good food pairing. This Saturday, take your beer-tasting experience to the next level during this all-day festival that couples Diamondback’s limited-release beers with delectable bites by local pop-ups like Masarap Bmore, Clark Burger, and Avenue Kitchen & Bar. Spend the day snacking on fresh burgers and truck tacos, knocking back a few IPAs, and jamming out with area bands like folk group Pressing Strings, whiskey-rockers Old Eastern, and garage-folk band Skribe.

DRINK

April 20: Brews & Bands

WTMD, 1 Olympic Pl. 12-4 p.m. $30.

The only thing that pairs better with beer than great food is great music. For the fifth year, pack the WTMD studio for all-you-can-drink beer from 15 local breweries, including regional favorites like Heavy Seas Beer, Nepenthe Brewing, and Flying Dog Brewery. With a beer (or two) in hand, bop along to performances by local indie rock band Thunder Club and Baltimore-born Mark Hopkins & the Pretty War. With unlimited tastings of 30 beers, this annual shindig will have you swaying to the rhythm and buzz.

SEE

April 20-June 15: Blackface: A Reclamation of Beauty, Power and Narrative

Galerie Myrtis, 2224 N Charles St. 6-8 p.m. Free.

In collaboration with multicultural arts platform The Agora Culture, Galerie Myrtis will fill the walls of its Old Goucher gallery with photographs, paintings, and multidisciplinary works that explore contemporary notions of black identity. In this two-month exhibition, striking artworks, along with a compilation video, offer a counter narrative to historical and current negative stereotypes of African Americans and reassert the power and beauty of black bodies. Mark your calendar for June 15 for a discussion with contributing artists Tawny Chatmon, Alfred Conteh, Jerrell Gibbs, Jas Knight, Arvie Smith, and Felandus Thames on the final night of the exhibition.

HEAR

April 19: Rise Bmore

Union Baptist Church, 1219 Druid Hill Ave. 7-9:30 p.m. Free.

We already gave this momentous evening of words, music, and movement our seal of approval as 2017’s Best Concert, now get ready to give it yours, too. Now in its fourth year, this Druid Hill concert in honor of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore man who died while in police custody in 2015, will bring local spoken-word artists, activists, musicians, and dancers together for a free evening of artistic expression on the anniversary of his death. Starting with a conversation about art and activism with the founders of A Revolutionary Summer (a program for young women to discuss the creative works of black female artists), take in performances by the Peabody String Sinfonia as well as acts like singer-songwriter J. Pope, poet Tariq Touré, and beatboxer Shodekeh—and reflect on what’s still needed to instill justice and inspire change in our city.

DO

April 20-21: Easter Egg Hunts

Multiple locations. Times vary. Free.

This Sunday, don your best pastel-colored outfit and hop along to parks across the city for a sugar-crazed Easter morning. From Patterson Park to Federal Hill to O’Donnell Square Park, tag along as the little ones hunt for candy-filled eggs and then spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying bouncy castles, cotton candy, photo booths, and visits from the Easter Bunny during this picture-perfect day of family fun.

In the latest iteration of The Big Baltimore Playlist, we round up five local songs we can’t get enough of right now, ranging from boundary-breaking bluegrass to vital hip-hop and thought-provoking spoken-word poetry. Check back each month for new songs of the moment, and follow our Spotify playlist as we continue to build a soundtrack for our city. 

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“White Horse” by Bumper Jacksons 

At the exact moment of the Women’s March on Washington in 2017, Bumper Jacksons frontwoman Jess Eliot Myhre was in labor with her first child. The lead singer emerged from that life-changing experience and found herself moved to write this spirited anthem, reflecting on motherhood, feminine power, and the #MeToo movement. With hearty acoustic strums and the wavering twang of steel guitar, Myrhe and her master-of-their-craft bandmates create a call to collective action for women the world over. “We don’t need a man on a white horse, we don’t need anyone to save us,” she sings with gusto. “We can move mountains, when we harness our own power.” In this country-tinged tune, the Americana septet does exactly that, mobilizing through melody, using their feel-good sound to speak truth to power.

“Feel Nobody” by Butch Dawson

This West Baltimore artist approaches his tracks with a punkish edge, carving out his own corner in the local rap canon as he imbues his smoke-swirled melodies with nonchalant murky beats and, lately, a horror film’s flare. See last fall’s video for “Dead Man Draggin’,” in which Dawson transforms into a woods-wandering zombie a la The Walking Dead. But where that slow-burned with chill wave vibes and jazzy drums, this new number is an edge-of-your-seat thriller. “Feel Nobody” hooks you with its incessant whir, deep bass, and occasional scream-like sample, then Dawson’s delivery brings the suspense—his rhymes gaining new intensity and volume with every hard-hitting verse. At its core, the song is about survival in “the swamps,” as he calls Baltimore’s toughest neighborhoods, and staying unapologetically true to yourself. Keep an eye out for his forthcoming full-length Swamp Boy.

“Caroline” by The High and Wides

Since forming on the Eastern Shore in 2015, the High & Wides have crossed the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore, combining the backwoods roots of their hometown with the gumption of their new city to create a modern “hillbilly music” revival. From fiery barn burners to heartbroken ballads, this talented string quartet is celebrating the region’s rich bluegrass history, carrying the torch for the Old-Line legends who came before. The band’s boot-stomping first single puts their expert instrumentation and finger-picking finesse on full display. Full of hearty harmonies, lightning banjo, tight fiddle, and driving bass, it’s a simple reminder of how goddamn gorgeous the naked voice and unadulterated instrument can be. We’ll follow their breathless tempos down whatever dusty road—or up whatever chart, as the album just debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard bluegrass chart—they go.

“Invocation: Dear Baltimore” by Judah Adashi and Erricka Bridgeford*

One of the most beautiful things to be born out of the Baltimore Uprising is that of Rise Bmore, a free evening of music, speech, and community that takes place every April 19, on the anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death. Now in its third year, this spring’s event began with the premiere of this breathtaking ballad and love letter to Baltimore. The song combines “Rise,” a Civil Rights-inspired composition by Judah Adashi—Rise Bmore’s founder, plus Peabody professor and organizer of the Evolution Contemporary Music Series—with words by Erricka Bridgeford, the creator of Baltimore Ceasefire, which just celebrated another successful weekend without murder. With ascending piano and aching breaths of flugelhorn, the song evolves from poignant storytelling to courageous poetry. Bridgeford’s husky lines captures the city’s essence in a few simple notes. Listen. Meditate on these words. Feel your heart fill with hope for our hometown of Baltimore.

“4 3 2 4 1” by Smoke Bellow

We first caught wind of this song by way of the long, strange trip of its music video. The short film was so perfectly oddball that it could only have been made in Baltimore. After a three-year hiatus in their Australia homeland, Christian Best and Meredith McHugh returned to Baltimore in 2017 with their first new record in years. Just released via Ehse Records, Isolation 3000 was inspired by Smoke Bellow’s two distant and disparate locales, and includes this otherworldly song. With a new third bandmate, local artist Jessie Hughes, it takes the minimalist experimentation of the band’s past work and evolves it outward—or, rather, inward—down a sort of psychedelic rabbit hole. Swirling in synth loops and droning guitar, McHugh’s meditative incantations urge listeners to follow. Their labyrinthine dreamscape—from space through the ocean to the Outback—is worth getting lost in.

*Not available on Spotify. We’ll add it when if/when it comes online.

Three years after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died while in Baltimore police custody, Baltimore’s artists, activists, and community members continue to grapple with the underlying causes of his death, the multi-day uprising that followed, and how the events continue to impact every corner of the city. On the anniversary of Gray’s death, April 19, more than 150 people gathered at Union Baptist Church in Druid Hill for the third annual Rise Bmore, a free evening of words and music, of and for Baltimore, in honor of Gray.

“We gather here every year in memory of one of Baltimore’s murder victims. We gather here in memory of Freddie Gray,” said Judah Adashi, founder and artistic director of Rise Bmore. “We are here because he’s not here—we’re here because he should be here.”

Community storytellers and artists Malaika Aminata Clements, Julian Hamer, and Shannon Wallace started the evening with a discussion titled “Seeing Baltimore.” Moderated by local musician and writer Brittani McNeil, the discussion centered around using artistic mediums to challenge the narratives presented by local and national media about the uprising and how the panelists use art to push the conversation about life in Baltimore forward.

Wallace, an award-winning photographer from East Baltimore, said it’s important for her to share stories of otherwise unseen members of the African-American community through her photography. She told the audience about how she photographed a young kid, who lived in Rutland, and put him on the cover of her zine, BLVKBLUE (What Does It Mean to Be Black?). When Wallace gave the boy’s mother a copy, she burst into tears at the picture of her son.

“For the first time, I felt like what I do matters to someone,” said Wallace. “It was the first time I felt like someone was visible because of me.”

For Hamer, who worked for WBFF Fox 45 during the uprising and has since become a documentary filmmaker, the unrest influenced her decision to stay in Baltimore because she felt determined to see the city grow and thrive again.

“There’s no reason that [Baltimore] can’t be great if we continue to do individual arts and make each person’s day a little better,” said Hamer. “I want to see this city be the place that I know it can be, that we’ve all seen it be. And you don’t have to do that anywhere else. We can do that right here.”

At 8 p.m., the event shifted as the voice of Erricka Bridgeford, one of the organizers of Baltimore Ceasefire and The Sun’s 2017 Marylander of The Year, filled the room with a pre-recorded reading of “Invocation: Dear Baltimore.” The performances that followed—from artists that represented a true cross-section of the city’s music and arts scene—provided a window into each performer’s pre- and post-uprising reality.

At the top of the concert, soulful singer-songwriter Joy Postell delivered unflinching performances of her songs “Hands Up Don’t Shoot,” which is dedicated to Gray, and “Consciousness,” that uses her signature rhythms and sharp lyrics to address issues faced by the African-American community. Then, Abdu Ali, who has become a local underground music and cultural figure, shared four of his recent poems about experiencing life in Baltimore as a black man. Voices Rise, a community choir lead by brothers Douglas and Benjamin Buchanan, performed classic uplifting songs “Let It Be” and “Lean on Me.”

Before performing her original song “Sundown Town,” Baltimore folk singer-songwriter Letitia VanSant told the audience she wrote the song in reaction to an experience she had while canvassing for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in a suburb outside Detroit. One of her fellow canvassers, an African-American man in his 60s, was visibly shaken about being in this quiet, orderly neighborhood after dark because he grew up in a “sundown town” where black people were not welcome at night. VanSant said that when she returned to Baltimore, she questioned how her sense of safety as a white person compared to others in her community.

“I think that if we want peace in Baltimore we have to work for justice for everybody,” she said. “Nobody’s going to be safe until everybody’s safe.”

Three musicians, Akua Allrich on vocals, Japheth Clark on flugelhorn, and Mark G. Meadows on vocals and piano, performed Meadows’ original “Stay Woke,” Nina Simone’s “Come Ye,” and “Baltimore” by Randy Newman to “pay homage to the great city of Baltimore.”

To round out the show, renowned local poet Tariq Touré performed his piece “No Refuge: For the Love of The Game” that addresses his views on the disposability of black athletes and the dilemmas they face when choosing whether to speak out about social injustices.

His final stanza, “I assure you they love me! / surely they’ll understand today / So when I take this knee / as that anthem starts to play. / You think they could look at me / with this passion in my face / And truly be able to say / this is the land of the free / and the home of the brave?” was immediately followed by a passionate interpretation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Adashi on piano.

Jonestown resident Ashley Day, who attended Rise Bmore for the first time since 2016, said she’s glad Adashi has been able to maintain the event as a platform to address the changes or lack thereof since Gray’s death.

“It reminds people that it happened,” she says. “It also creates the memory and the life of a presence that’s no longer here, and it motivates and inspires the community again to get more involved and spark change.”