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Terry Blade
History & Commentary
Terry Blade is an American audiovisual artist, singer-songwriter, and nonfiction author whose work examines African-American history, queer identity, and music as historical record.
Biography
Terry Blade (born 1986) is an American audiovisual artist and singer-songwriter based in the Chicago metropolitan area. His work spans music, experimental film, multimedia design, nonfiction, and public interest media. His projects explore African-American history, queer identity, and the use of sound and image as historical records.
He directed the music video Won't Be Around, which premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, and the animated experimental video Mimesis, which won Silver at the 2026 Australian Effects & Animation Festival. His 2025 album and ethnographic audio project Chicago Kinfolk: The Juke Joint Blues won honors at the Clio Music Awards, Shorty Impact Awards, The One Show, and New York Festivals Radio Awards. Blade's 2026 book Of Bloodlines and Blue Notes won the grand prize for nonfiction at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. His documentary My Gender Is Black opened the 18th Massimadi: Afro LGBTQ+ Film and Arts Festival in Montreal, and its teaser-trailer won Gold at the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards.
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Books by Terry Blade
Of Bloodlines and Blue Notes
Of Bloodlines and Blue Notes is a hybrid work of music writing and cultural criticism that combines lyrics, album notes, and critical essays rooted in Black American music, treating songs as evidence of inheritance shaped by history, labor, survival, and family memory.