Daisha McBride, Domani and Melo Roze Turn Up at Analog

The Midtown stretch of West End Avenue that’s home to the Hutton Hotel is not one of the first places you think of when it comes to Nashville music history. Music Row is a few streets to the southeast of the hotel, which opened in 2009 in what since 1961 had been an office building. A little further away to the southwest is the Rock Block on Elliston Place, where Exit/In and The End are. A couple of spots closer to the Hutton have significance that’s been obscured over time, like St. Mary’s Bookstore, one block up West End. In the late 1970s, the building’s basement was a bar known as Phrank ’n’ Steins, which hosted songwriters and some of the city’s first punk bands. A block away at 19th Avenue South and Broadway is a Chuy’s; in the early 1980s, part of the building was a club called Cantrell’s, which also played a key role in the underground rock scene that laid the foundation for the array of independent music scenes the city enjoys today.

In 2017, the Hutton opened a music venue called Analog with a capacity of around 300 on its second floor, which has since hosted songwriter nights, rock bands and more. In June, excellent and ever-expanding pizza purveyors Slim & Husky’s moved their Unplugged concert series — a showcase for outstanding Black music talent with a strong focus on Nashville hip-hop — to Analog. Saturday’s packed-out Unplugged show, produced for the brand as each installment has been by Christina Raiford, was the fifth overall and second at this venue. It was another essential reminder of just how much Black excellence means to the commerce and culture of Music City.

A sizable crowd bustled and mingled in the small lobby outside Analog, and streamed through the doors when they opened at 8 p.m. The beautifully appointed space, with its plush couches and stools and premium P.A. and lighting, is carved out of two of the building’s floors. Balconies flank the main room, helping counteract the obstructed sight lines created by two giant structural columns near the corners of the stage. Members of a camera crew, set up to stream the show live on YouTube, weaved and dodged among the patrons and the staff as Slim & Husky’s founders and TSU alumni Clint Gray, Derrick Moore and E.J. Reed took the stage. Gray gave a brief benediction honoring the trio’s mentor — businessman and philanthropist Darrell Freeman, who died in June — and emphasizing that one important part of the event was networking and building business relationships, a message he reiterated throughout the night.

However, it was also a show to be enjoyed, and to that end, Gray & Co. brought up author, speaker and poet Patrick Walker-Reese, who served as emcee, performing a couple of his poems as he introduced each set. He led off with pieces titled “This Morning” and “Numb,” about recognizing your self-worth, to welcome up-and-comer Melo Roze. Roze grew up in Atlanta and graduated from MTSU, and she brought mellifluous R&B with a strong ’90s throwback vibe; she also had dancers for one song, as well as a phenomenal full band, a trend that would continue through the night. 

Despite a chatty crowd — who pushed one fan to the limit, leading to an impassioned admonishment between songs — Roze held her own with grooving and purposeful songs like “Made It” from her forthcoming project Melomania. She pointed out how many of her songs focus on the hard work of pursuing her creative career, something she feels is missing from contemporary pop music.

Next up to the stage was East Tennessee-born and MTSU-educated rap champion Daisha McBride. She’s shown off a phenomenal stage presence since she first started playing around Nashville regularly circa 2018, and it was awesome to see her absolutely owning the room. McBride stopped in on a brief break from a tour that’s taken her around the Southeast and to Washington, D.C., and will soon take her to New York. That’s exciting for several reasons, not the least of which is that rappers from Nashville, much less queer woman rappers, haven’t often had the opportunity to build their fan bases and earn money from touring like their local counterparts in other genres. 

Another very cool piece of news McBride shared: She’s the subject of a forthcoming documentary from Queen Latifah’s production company called In Her Element. Not unlike McBride’s February show at Acme Feed and Seed, which was filmed for the doc, her set on Saturday was built around songs from her fantastic second LP Let Me Get This Off My Chest, with a few older tunes for the longtime fans. She wrapped up with the superbly swaggering “Bounce Back,” after which Walker-Reese asked if she’d stay onstage while he performed his next poem. He noted that he wanted to be able to tell his baby daughter that he shared a stage with McBride.

Atlanta’s Domani, who finished out the night, had a few things working against him. Some technical difficulties delayed the start of his set — cue comedian Josh Black, who helped pass the time with a few japes and jibes — and the drowsiness that comes after pizza and booze had started to settle over the crowd. Though Domani acknowledged that the vibe had gotten a little weird, he and his band didn’t let the circumstances faze them. They focused instead on attentive and excited fans who gathered close to the stage. Domani showed how he’s deeply invested in his work; he’s only 21, but he commands the stage like a seasoned pro, and spoke about songs he wrote when he was 15 in the way someone twice his age might. He happens to be the son of Atlanta trap pioneer T.I., but he’s clearly determined to forge his own path. He blended cues from R&B and spoken-word poetry in a way that reminded me a bit of peak Jay-Z, especially in his standout examination of commitment “I’m Not Ready,” and — ironically enough — in the song he introduced himself with, “Not a Rapper.”

The show was about good food and music and hanging out. But it also celebrated something that’s been developing for a long time: Black entrepreneurs, in Nashville’s food and music scenes and elsewhere, are building power and equity for themselves that the city has a history of denying to them. In a time when there are plenty of changes that make Music City feel less welcoming, this is one positive development worth holding onto.