Genre: hip hop

The Suffers take the Huffines Performance Hall stage at the Lewisville Grand Theater on the evening of Saturday, February 10.

“How do we heal from this?” Kam Franklin asks on The Suffers’ explosive new album, It Starts With Love. “How do we heal?” It’s a loaded question without any clear answers, a painful reckoning with the open wounds of racial violence and trauma that continue to plague this nation as we lurch forward from one tragedy to the next, swearing things will change each time only to watch the same scenes play out over and over again. “They keep breaking us like we can’t feel,” Franklin continues. “We’ve all been shouting out since Emmett Till.”

“There’s a lot of anxiety that comes with being Black in America,” says Franklin, “with not feeling safe if you put on a hoodie or even just look at somebody the wrong way. I wrote that song with my friend John Michael in New Orleans, and it was a really therapeutic thing for both of us to speak our truth like that.”

The truth, it seems, has set The Suffers free. Racism, misogyny, and the ugly underbelly of the music industry are all in the band’s crosshairs on It Starts With Love, but so are growth and evolution and self-acceptance. Written in the midst of a tumultuous stretch that saw the Gulf Coast Soul powerhouse reinvent themselves personally and professionally, the record is a fierce, defiant ode to resilience and commitment, to the passion and drive that brought them together in the first place. The writing here is bold and self-assured, with fearless lyrics and addictive melodies, and the performances are blistering to match, fueled by buoyant rhythms, muscular horns, and Franklin’s hair-raising vocals.

Theater doors open: 7:30 p.m.
Concert begins at 8 p.m.

Reserved Seating:
Tier 1: $35
Tier 2: $25

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