If you’re a consumer of local music — whether that means attending local shows or flipping through the local music section at your nearest record store — there’s a chance that in the past 20 years, you’ve had the intimate experience of listening to an Audra Kubat song.
With an ethereal voice, steady fingerpicking, and production that often puts her poetry front and center, the Rosedale Park native is a classic songwriter, in the tradition of folk and Americana artists like Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Ani DiFranco, and Dar Williams.
When she’s not writing and performing, Kubat helps younger generations hone their craft. She’s taught songwriting and facilitated musical programming for numerous local organizations over the years, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, InsideOut Literary Arts Project, Living Arts, and Detroit Wolf Trap.
For Kubat, a self-taught guitar player, her entry to becoming a music educator was an informal one. After briefly living at the Trumbullplex — an anarchist housing collective in Detroit’s Woodbridge neighborhood — she moved into the house behind it. There, she would sit on the porch with her guitar, and kids from the neighborhood would come by to listen. Soon, she began teaching them music lessons.
One day, while out on the porch, she received a visit from a notable folk singer, who lived just a few blocks away. It was Sixto Rodriguez, and this was years before he was the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man.
“I’d seen him around, but I didn’t really know him; he was this mysterious artist,” she says. “I played him some songs. He ended up staying for a long time and smoking some weed. I kept saying, ‘Will you play something?’ And he’s like, ‘No, I want to hear your songs.’”
She’d later open for Rodriguez and John Sinclair at the since-closed Amsterdam Espresso in Detroit’s Cass Corridor.
Kubat, who now lives in home she calls A Detroit House of Music, has recorded seven albums since 2000. But it’s been a while since she has put out music. Her last official single, released in 2021, was “Gray Glory Parade,” a scathing critique of what she calls “misplaced Southern pride,” co-authored with Detroit’s poet laureate, jessica Care moore. She also scored America, You Kill Me (2022), a documentary about the late LGBTQ rights activist Jeffrey Montgomery, which was directed by her partner Daniel Land.
“At 52 years old, I go back and forth between, like, man, there’s so much I’m good at, and I can do this — I don’t need permission anymore,” she says. “Then, there’s this other voice that is like, ‘No, you can’t. No, that’s not gonna work.’ … I just want to look toward quieting that voice more.”
But on March 6, she’s planning on a new release. Kubat has been in the studio with an old friend: Joel Martin, owner of 54 Sound. Martin is something of a local recording legend — he’s worked with everyone from Eminem to The Romantics to Funkadelic. And she’s excited.
“I think some of the best stuff I’ve written, I’ve written in the last, like, couple of years,” Kubat says. “My goal with music is to sort of throw it on its head. Being vulnerable is powerful. It’s sexy. It’s important. And it helps other people thrive.”
On the same day as her release, Kubat plans to perform at the Detroit Institute of Arts for its Friday Night Live series. She will be joined in the Rivera Court by special guests including Emily Rose and Ozzie Andrews. For more information, visit dia.org.
This story originally appeared in the February 2026 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
