Rissi Palmer’s deeply personal music explores all manner of American roots traditions—earthy soul, sparse folk, and upbeat gospel among them—but there’s a genre that has a hold on her heart more than the others. One need look no further than her swaggering 2007 single “Country Girl” to find her testimony. That song made Palmer (who was born in Pennsylvania in 1981 and raised in Missouri) the first African American woman to chart a country song since 1987. The rest of her debut, self-titled album carried a similarly traditional vibe to that introductory tune. Her 2015 EP The Back Porch Sessions took things in a slightly poppier direction (see the bouncy “Sweet Sweet Lovin’”), while 2019’s Revival was a clear return to her roots and a foray into heavier thematic territory. She addressed the murder of Michael Brown in her home state with the weighty protest song “Seeds” and her own miscarriage on the fiddle-swept “You Were Here.” In 2020, she launched her Apple Music Country radio show, Color Me Country, which focuses on amplifying Black, Indigenous, and Latinx country-music histories.