As a songwriter, Adeem the Artist finds the real to be especially resonant. (The acclaimed non-binary singer-songwriter uses they/them pronouns.)
“There’s a reason why I write the songs,” Adeem said during a recent conversation. “I think any time [songs] are striking at something real and earnest and important, that’s when the best work is getting done.”
The North Carolina native and Nashville resident has built a career — and a passionate fanbase — around that laser focus on the marrow of what matters most.
Their latest album, the Butch Walker-produced Anniversary, dropped in May, and it’s a bracing, dryly funny collection of material as furious about the political state of the world as it is comfortable with a rowdy night out, or tenderly paying loving tribute to Adeem’s wife, Hannah.
On July 24, Adeem the Artist will open for Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit for its sold-out Majestic Theatre gig.
The willingness to bare their soul is an act of vulnerability some artists shy away from, but Adeem has carefully considered how to indulge rawness without unduly exposing themselves to the wider world.
“There’s me — the true me that I am — and then there’s the artist’s avatar, and that’s the thing I’ve constructed to be interpreted in a specific way,” they said. “Then there’s the me other people are constructing psychologically, in their imagination, based off this version of me I built for them to understand. None of those three people are the same thing.
“So, for me, I can throw as much of myself into everything if I want without too much consideration of [exposure], because I have a very, very well-defined understanding of the fact that nobody is ever really gonna get the true me.”
Adeem the Artist opening for Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit at Majestic Theatre, Dallas. 8 p.m. July 24. Sold out.
Preston Jones is a North Texas freelance writer and regular contributor to KXT. Email him at [email protected] or find him on X (@prestonjones). Our work is made possible by our generous, music-loving members. If you like how we lift up local music, consider becoming a KXT sustaining member right here.
