Texas-born and Nashville-based artist
Denitia grew up in small refinery towns outside Houston, performing in school choir and learning to play piano, then saxophone and trumpet, then guitar. Inspired by the country legends she listened to as a child; the harmony, gusto, and intention of praise and worship music; and the raw edge and passion of alternative rock, she made her way to Nashville for college, then to Brooklyn for a decade. But she found her way home — to country music, her gold standard for songwriting, and back to Nashville — with her 2022 album, Highways, an “alt-country ramble” through emotion, time, and place that is “deeply tuneful, light on its feet, and shot through with melancholy” (Stereogum).
The turn suited her. Denitia was named an Artist to Watch by NPR after earning one of five spots in the Black Opry and WXPN’s 2023 residency, was a member of Rissi Palmer’s Color Me Country Class of 2023, was one of three artists in CMT and mtheory’s 2023 Equal Access cohort, was a 2023 AmericanaFest Showcasing Artist, and recently was named a 2024 CMT Next Woman of Country, and a 2024 Artist to Watch by the Nashville Scene. CMT also premiered Denitia’s powerful “I Want To Live” music video on their Times Square billboard in August of 2023.
If Highways was a homecoming, Denitia’s forthcoming new album, Sunset Drive, anchors her there. “I wanted to make a collection of songs that felt like a louder evolution of the tenderness of Highways,” Denitia explains. “This project weaves together heartache, romance, and wanderlust to tell the bittersweet story of what it means to stay on the road of life: the visions ahead, the life you leave behind, and everything you take with you.”
Denitia has also toured extensively with the Black Opry Revue; been invited to perform at the National Museum of African American Music and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville; and shared stages with Jason Isbell, Amythyst Kiah, Wendy Moten, and Joy Oladokun, among other artists. Her music has been featured in the 2022 films Nanny and The Invitation, as well as in the series Better Things (FX), Broad City (Comedy Central), Dear White People (Netflix), Shrinking (Apple TV+), and The Terminal List (Amazon).