Yasmin Williams has received critical acclaim from outlets such as Pitchfork, which included her in its list of 25 New and Rising Artists Shaping the Future of Music in 2023, and NPR Music, which named her its Breakthrough Artist of 2021, saying: “Yasmin Williams treats her guitar like a playground. She taps the wood of the instrument, fingertaps the fret—on other songs, she taps dance shoes, plays the kora or a thumb piano while playing the guitar.” The outlet further noted the “joy and possibility she brings to the guitar … This music goes back to Black blues guitarists; she’s reclaiming, but she’s also staking her claim at the same time.”
A native of northern Virginia, Williams began playing electric guitar in eighth grade and quickly moved on to acoustic guitar, finding that it allowed her to combine fingerstyle techniques with the lap-tapping skills she had developed, as well as perform as a solo artist. Williams’ influences include the smooth jazz and R&B she listened to growing up, Hendrix and Nirvana, go-go and hip-hop. Her love for the band Earth, Wind and Fire prompted her to incorporate the kalimba into her songwriting, and she has also drawn inspiration from other Black women guitarists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Algia Mae Hinton. On her previous album, the highly acclaimed Urban Driftwood (SPINSTER, 2021), Williams referenced the music of West African griots through the inclusion of kora and by featuring the hand drumming of 150th generation djeli of the Kouyate family, Amadou Kouyate, on the title track. Last fall, she released the Acadia album track “Dawning,” featuring Aoife O’Donovan on vocals, Kafari on rhythm bones, and Nic Gareiss’ percussive dancing.
