Celebrate 30 years of the OA.

With original work from Imani Perry, Kristen Arnett, Diane Roberts, and so many others, our Spring Issue honors our past and looks into our expansive future.

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The South Just Has a Thang

Issue 111, Winter 2020

Illustration by Three Ring Studio

How does the South inform my music

It’s just me. 

You see, the South just has a thang

It gets INTO you. It’s its own thing, its own culture. It has its own sound. Everything in motion, wrangling to survive like a tumble of vines. The air, pungent, so thick with humidity it has a taste, it fills your senses. It’s hard not to be informed by it when you are breathing it, swimming in it. Even the way the light shines here is different. The shadows here are different. 





Brittany Howard

Brittany Howard is a musician, singer, and songwriter known for being the lead vocalist, guitarist, and main songwriter of the rock band Alabama Shakes. The band has won four Grammy Awards (with eleven nominations) and topped the Billboard 200 with the gold-certified Sound & Color, the follow-up to its platinum debut album, Boys & Girls. Howard has performed everywhere from the Obama White House to the main stage at Lollapalooza, where she sang with Paul McCartney at his invitation. She released her debut studio album, Jaime, in 2019, her most revelatory work yet, which quickly gained critical acclaim.