Rising Appalachia

Rising Appalachia
Chloe and Leah Smith of Rising Appalachia in May 2008
Background information
Origin	New Orleans, Louisiana
Genres	World, folk, soul
Years active	2005 - Present
Labels	Independent
Associated acts	R.I.S.E. Collective
Website	www.risingappalachia.com
Members	Leah Smith, Chloe Smith, Imhotep, Biko Casini, Forrest Kelly, Abram Racin, Dee Nalam

Rising Appalachia is an American musical group led by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah and Chloe Smith. Leah also performs as a solo artist under the name Leah Song. Based between Southern Appalachia and New Orleans, the sisters work with an array of international musicians and the band incorporates everything from simple harmonics with banjos and fiddles, to a wide variety of drums, kalimbas, beatbox, djembe, baliphone, congas, didgeridoo, tablas, spoons and washboard creating a full mix of world, folk and soul music.

In 2005, sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, decided one afternoon to record their first album, Leah and Chloe, in the basement studio of a friend in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The album was meant as a gift for family and friends but they received so much support and recognition for it that they decided to officially start a band called Rising Appalachia.

In the early days, the sisters busked, in the French Quarter of New Orleans and elsewhere. They began to find their own natural interpretation of Appalachian music which brought together folk, soul, hip-hop, classical, southern gospel and other styles based on their upbringing on traditional Appalachian string band music, as well as on their exposure to urban music like hip-hop and jazz and the influence of roots music of all kinds which they experienced during their worldwide travels. They released their second album, Scale Down in 2007.