ARTIST OF THE MONTH: Devendra Banhart

Banhart“For a guy who gets tagged with a lot of limiting descriptors — “freak folk,” “hippie” and so forth — Devendra Banhart doesn’t like to let his music sit in any spot for long. His catalog, which now includes seven official albums, has taken him through warmly intimate ballads, raw and unselfconsciously strange home recordings, songs in several languages (Banhart spent much of his childhood in Venezuela), a lot of smoothly strummy folk-pop and the occasional low-key anthem about free-spiritedness.”

Devendra Obi Banhart (born May 30, 1981) is a Venezuelan American singer-songwriter and visual artist. Banhart was born in HoustonTexas and was raised by his mother in Venezuela, until he moved to California as a teenager. He began to study at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998, but dropped out to perform music in Europe, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Banhart released his debut album in 2002, continuing to record his material on the Young God and XL labels, as well as other work on compilations and collaborations.

Devendra is playing in Chicago May 31st! Go check out his awesome music.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devendra_Banhart

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/03/173073083/first-listen-devendra-banhart-mala