Mississippi Creates: Music

Mississippi Creates is a collaborative project between the MFA in Documentary Expression and Yoknapatawpha Arts Council started in 2021 by John Rash as part of his MFA Documentary Fieldwork course at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. MFA students enrolled in the course are each provided with funding to produce a short documentary film highlighting musicians creating work influenced or inspired by the life, culture, and sounds of Mississippi. Each film pairs new original recordings of the musician performances with oral history interviews to capture both the craft and inspiration of the creative process.

AJ Haynes / Evidence

Produced and Directed by Lucy Gaines

Black and Filipino queer-femme musical artist A.J. Haynes finds freedom of expression and bodily agency in ancestral ties to Mississippi land. Through genre-expansive music and community activism, A.J. invites us through a portal where the roots of black and queer futures grow infinitely through time and space.

Kell Kellum / Layers

Produced and Directed by Garrett Fuller, NEEN., Sochima Okafor

Layers is a reflective doc that ventures into the sights, sounds, and creative ethos of Mississippi-based musician and photographer, Kell Kellum.

Big T. Williams / Delta Blues, Delta Blood

Produced and Directed by Jai Williams

With ancestral Blues legends guiding his guitar strums, Terry “Big T” Williams is committed to more than the success of being a Delta Blues musician. Williams illustrates that the Blues is deeper than a constant state of heartbreak, pain, or struggle, and can be used as an effective method to uplift one’s community and its residents.

5th Child

Produced and Directed by Sandip Rai & Katherine Aberle

Stephen Brown envisions a better community in his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Under the stage name 5th Child, he inspires others with politically charged hip-hop. As the purveyor of Briarwood Arts Center, he has built a community hub that offers resources for others to create and inspire through their own initiatives.

Jerry Jenkins

Graham Hamaker

Produced and Directed by Lilian Slaughter

Gulf coast native, Graham Hamaker, makes music with influences from the southern environment and his personal life.

Kill Command

Produced and Directed by Bethany Fitts

High school metal heads find each other and form a band as a means to make it out of their small town in Mississippi.

Big Clown

Produced & Directed by Christina Huff

Big Clown, a punk band that calls both Jackson, MS and Memphis, TN home, are interested in creating short, fast, disruptive bursts of creativity in a region of the country usually associated with negative stereotypes and a lack of underground culture.

Andrew Bryant

Produced & Directed by Sandip Rai

An intimate portrait of singer / songwriter Andrew Bryant and how his life and music have been informed by the rural areas of Mississippi. Andrew has traveled and performed across the country in bands and as a solo artist, but like his music, he is always rooted in the small town he calls home.

Tyler Keith

Produced & Directed by Kelly Spivey

Tyler Keith plays punk-inspired rock and roll influenced by his love for Mississippi and Memphis musicians, authors, and filmmakers. Tyler’s story is told through oral history and two of his songs performed in their entirety at the Lyric theatre in Oxford, Mississippi.

The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council support of this project was made possible by funds from Cathead Vodka, Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mississippi Arts Commission and if part of our mission to provide programs that highlight the talent within our community and provide community members deeper understanding of the creative process.

Schaefer Llana

Produced & Directed by Annemarie Anderson

Schaefer Llana is a musician and audio engineer based in Water Valley, Mississippi. Originally from Batesville, Mississippi, Schaefer takes inspiration from Mississippi’s environment and its deserved musical reputation of the Delta and Hill Country.

The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council support of this project was made possible by funds from Cathead Vodka, Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mississippi Arts Commission and if part of our mission to provide programs that highlight the talent within our community and provide community members deeper understanding of the creative process.