It seemed to be going well. Miko Marks had released two pop country records, won the 2006 best new country artist at the New Music Weekly awards and earned comparisons to Gretchen Wilson and the Dixie Chicks. But she kept getting the “we don’t think there’s a place for you” from industry figures. A Black woman knows what that means, especially when she’s trying to break into the country scene.

So she left Nashville for Oakland, stopped recording for labels that didn’t seem to want her, and instead focused on raising her son. Flash forward more than a dozen years to the 2020s and renewed attentiveness to the injustices and missed opportunities rendered to Black people in all walks of life, including the predominantly white country world. Marks returned to the studio with 2021’s Our Country, which features her abandoning the poppy twangy sound and leaning more into the blues, soul and gospel she grew up with — and the belting powerful voice she honed as a kid singing at churches. But it remains country music, on her terms, and about society’s struggles as she sees them.

When her latest album came out in 2022, she debuted at the Grand Ole Opry to promote it – a recognition there’s a place for her.

— Jason Markusoff