Kaia Kater
Kaia Kater is a Canadian-Grenadian banjo player and singer-songwriter who trained in Appalachian old-time music at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia. Bridging Black diasporic history and Appalachian string-band tradition, she has become one of the most acclaimed younger voices in North American roots music.
- Born in 1993 in Montreal, Quebec, of Canadian-Grenadian heritage.
- Studied Appalachian music on a banjo scholarship at Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia.
- Nine Pin (2016) won the Canadian Folk Music Awards' “Pushing the Boundaries” award.
- Grenades (2018) drew on her Grenadian heritage.
- Released Strange Medicine (2024) via Smithsonian Folkways.
- Won the 2025 JUNO Award for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year for Strange Medicine.