Gatefold. On her new album Sun Without the Heat, McCalla brings more playfulness and joy than she has on previous records when she speaks to the concerns that have shaped her career, mainly including an ethos in which you must look back at lost and erased histories before you can embrace a forward vision of Afrofuturism and the importance of music making to heal and forge relationships across differences. Across Sun Without the Heat's ten tracks, she achieves this with music that combines jazz, Haitian Twoubadou, American blues, folk and Brazilian Tropicalismo.Born in New York City to Haitian emigrants and activists, McCalla possesses a stunning mastery of the cello, tenor banjo and guitar.

Leyla McCalla finds inspiration from her past and present, whether it is her Haitian heritage or her adopted home of New Orleans, she a bilingual multi-instrumentalist and alumna of Grammy award-winning African-American string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops has risen to produce a distinctive sound that reflects the union of her roots and experience. McCalla has produced a multi-disciplinary music, dance and theatre work, Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever, which follows her personal journey as she uncovers the history of Radio Haiti, the first radio station in Haiti to report news in Haitian Kreyol - the voice of the people.