In August 2021, we conducted a virtual roundtable discussion with two musicians performing regularly in the traditions of Black American music to shed light on the realities of making and selling music in the twenty-first century in the context of nocoastjazz. Chaney Sims is a blues and jazz singer who lives in New Jersey. She cofounded the Heritage Blues Orchestra with her father, famous blues musician Bill Sims (1949–2019). Their debut album, And Still I Rise, received a Grammy nomination in 2012, thrusting the orchestra's four members into the spotlight of an international tour. The album is an homage to the blues traditions that each of the members hold dear, and—as Sims herself says—“honors African American roots music.” A self-described “songstress and storyteller,” Sims sings at the intersection of soul, blues, jazz, work songs, and rhythm and blues. In “C-Line Woman,” Sims makes the chanted phrases of this...

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