Miko Marks in Concert

In this concert and interview with Rightnowish host Pendarvis Harshaw, Bay Area-based Miko Marks shows how she’s forged her art and identity as a Black woman in the white- and male-dominated country music industry. We’ll also be sure to cover her love of roller-skating and how she’s captured the fantastic feeling of skating at Lake Merritt in her music.

About the Artist

Miko Marks proves to be a bonafide maverick that has blazed an unprecedented trail in the music industry. She released her debut album Freeway Bound in 2005, followed by It Feels Good in 2007. While Marks received well-deserved accolades — “Nashville’s Hottest New Country Star” by People Magazine and “Best New Country Artist” by New Music Weekly — her efforts to be fully embraced by the industry in return proved to be elusive. “In trying to pursue the gates of Nashville, I discovered that there were high fences made of stone,” Marks said of her experience in the early 2000s.

After a long overdue hiatus from music, Marks is eager to spread not only her music, but a message of unity and outspokenness for Black musicians in country music and beyond. Her highly anticipated single “Feel Like Going Home,” was released almost exactly one year after her 2022 third album Our Country was released and approximately six months following her Race Records EP.  In January of 2022, Marks was named to CMT’s “Next Women of Country” class.

She has done much more than just make a splash and now she is ready to make waves. Marks works towards an ever evolving dream of creating art that is not stereotyped or pigeonholed by a specific genre and is created with no borders or boundaries.