New York noir soul artist Kendra Morris recalls singers who straddled soul and rock during the early '70s, such as Ruth Copeland and Chaka Khan. Her taste was developed through a library heavy on late-60s and early-70s soul and funk as well as a love for the cinema scores of the same period. After touring with Motown Funk Brother Dennis Coffey and releasing a series of singles that she did with collaborator and bandmate Jeremy Page including "Concrete Waves," with the b-side remix by DJ Premier, Morris released the album Banshee followed by a covers album Mockingbird on Wax Poetics records.
Banshee and Mockingbird received much acclaim, a cult following and several film + tv placements. Title track "Banshee" was used prominently in the Showtime hit series Ray Donovan while her cover of Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was featured in the trailer for major motion picture Dead Man Down starring Noomi Rapace and Colin Farrell. Around this time Kendra was awarded the Songwriters Hall Of Fame 'Holly Prize'.
In 2013 Morris worked on a side project band with friends Scarlett Johansson, Julia Haltigan and Holly Miranda. With Este Haim joining on drums and TV On The Radios' Dave Sitek producing.
Returning with 'Babble' in 2016 to positive reviews and more media placements she continued working on her catalogue as well began an added focus on her love of creating multimedia art and connecting it to her own sonic universe. Having been doing collage art and stop motion animation a handful of years for her own albums and videos she wound up in the directors chair and animating the 2018 music video "Bomb Thrown" for the popular hip hop supergroup Czarface / MF DOOM record 'Czarface Meets Metal Face' and soon following up with videos for other fellow musicians including Eli Paperboy Reed and UKs Skinshape.
Morris recently released music that includes features by Greg Nice of Nice & Smooth as well as DâM-FunK. She was featured on both Czarface Meets Metalface and Czarface Meets Ghostface albums and her song "If You Didn't Go" was heavily sampled on the Rapsody & J Cole song 'SoJourner' produced by 9th Wonder.
