“Nine Pin”, Kaia Kater

This way: Nine Pin

Kaia Kater (born in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitar, piano and banjo player.

Kater was born in Montreal, Quebec, where she spent her early childhood in Mile End. She started playing the banjo at 12 years old. She also lived in Wakefield, Ottawa and Winnipeg before attending Davis & Elkins college in Elkins, West Virginia on a banjo scholarship. In Elkins, she also learned to flatfoot and deepened her knowledge of body percussion (hambone). Kater spoke about her experience being a woman of color in West Virginia, and experiencing racism. "If 70 or 75 percent of the time it was a wonderful experience, there was also that other part of the experience where I did encounter some racism, or I witnessed racism. I felt the racial divide very strongly, more so than in Canada".Her mother is from Quebec, and her father immigrated to Canada from Grenada as a teenager in 1986 as part of a young speakers program, after the U.S. invasion. She grew up spending significant time in the North American folk music community, attending festivals, camps and conferences frequently during her teen years. 

[Spotify] Nine Pin