Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Music has the power to affect our mood, shape our state of mind, bring back memories and feelings. A new show from the Bronx-based band is using music to tap into your dreams. It's called Dream Feed and is described as a shared dream sequence and live concept album. The music is performed by the HawtPlates whose work with the bassist and songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello has earned them Grammy awards. You might also recognize them as the vocalists from her Tiny Desk set.

The band's members are also decorated theater performers. Justin Hicks is a drama desk nominated singer, songwriter and sound artist. His sister Jade Hicks and wife Kenita Miller-Hicks are both stage actors. Kenita was nominated for a Tony just a few years ago for her role in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide. Dream Feed is running at the HERE Arts Center through January 25th as part of the Under the Radar festival. The HawtPlates are here with me now in studio. Welcome.

Jade Hicks: Thank you.

Justin Hicks: Hey, how's it going?

Kenita Miller-Hicks: Great to be here.

Alison Stewart: Could you kick us off with some music?

Justin Hicks: Yes.

Jade Hicks: Absolutely.

Justin Hicks: We'll do a tune called Teeth.

[MUSIC - HawtPlates: Teeth]

Alison Stewart: That was awesome. That was Justin Hicks, Jade Hicks, and Kenita Miller-Hicks, the HawtPlates. They're performing as part of the Under the Radar festival, now through January 25th. Their show is called Dream Feed. What are you playing, Justin?

Justin Hicks: This is a little autoharp.

Alison Stewart: When did music first come into your life, Justin?

Justin Hicks: Oh, gosh, it's hard to say. I mean, my mom actually taught us well, played the autoharp for us.

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Justin Hicks: This instrument was instrumental in the building of Dream Feed, actually. Yes, I actually can't remember when music became a thing in my life. It just has always been there. We used music, Jade and I, and Kenita was in a very musical household, too. Singing, especially, was just a way that we communicated with each other, and it was very normalized. My mom was always singing. She made instruments. Yes, just it's always been there.

Alison Stewart: What was your mother's musical influence on you, Jade?

Kenita Miller-Hicks: Huge. I still hear her voice in my voice every day.

Alison Stewart: That's lovely.

Kenita Miller-Hicks: She introduced us to so many different genres of music. She was a big lover of jazz, but also reached out and did a lot of different sounds, which I really do think become and have solidified as a heartbeat in the HawtPlates.

Alison Stewart: All right, Kenita, you married into the family, but you came from a musical family yourself, though, right?

Jade Hicks: I would say somewhat musical. They didn't have any bands that they sang in together, but my dad is very proud of the marching band. Southern University is very proud of that. I think it's more like, in secret, my mom sings. I would always hear her singing in the morning. She has the most beautiful voice, the most beautiful vibrato, but it's nothing that she ever shared as far as performance. It was more just for herself internally. I think that's where I get a bit of my influence from. Yes.

Alison Stewart: How did the HawtPlates-- When did that start, Justin?

Justin Hicks: Okay, so I want to say about 11 years ago now. We had been, I guess, curious about what it would mean to cover some music that was made popular by Odetta. At the time, we ended up all landing in the same apartment. We lived together at that time, and so it was easy for us to get together and jam or just meet in the living room and jam out. I can't even remember what got us so focused on Odetta music. I think it was a combination of that interest and that interest being titillated, I guess, and then a lot of events that were happening in the world that got us to really think through that catalog as a way to talk about things that were happening. A friend of ours, Kaneza Schaal, a terrific director and producer.

Alison Stewart: Oh, she's great.

Justin Hicks: Yes, amazing. I don't know, we did a pop-up performance somewhere, and she was like, "Have you guys ever thought about doing a project based on Odetta?" We were like, "No, but we'd like to." She threw an event together at Bowery Arts and Science, and we did our first performance of Odetta music. We came close to calling the project the Odetta Project, but we thought that might be a little limiting for what we saw ahead for ourselves. We went with the HawtPlates, which is a little bit of a riff on what it means to be in New York and to find what you need both creatively and spiritually with a mixed bag of things that you have at your disposal. I used to be a chef, so it's like a little bit of a corny rich.

Kenita Miller-Hicks: Trying to offer some sustenance.

Justin Hicks: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Jade, when you perform, do you improvise when you perform?

Jade Hicks: Yes. That's a big part of performance for me. I enjoy that a lot. Being in the experimental side of things is not only fun, but we get to try different sounds all the time.

Alison Stewart: Kenita, you're an actor, and you have to hit cues. You're used to having a limited space. You have to work--

Kenita Miller-Hicks: Yes, we try to.

Alison Stewart: You try to sometimes. How is it different with the HawtPlates?

Kenita Miller-Hicks: I think in the improvisation, the spontaneity, and it's just the essence of us. Whereas I feel like in theater a lot of times you have to interpret in a different way that is outside of yourself-- Not outside of yourself, but that you might have to isolate a part of yourself to become somebody else, or it's just a different balancing game. Whereas this is my family. I just don't feel as many boundaries or-- Yes, I would say that's a big difference.

Alison Stewart: We're going to hear another song from the HawtPlates. It's going to be part of your Dream Feed. What are we going to hear next?

Justin Hicks: This is a song that's very dear to us, written by a friend of ours named Dawn Meredith Smith. She's in San Francisco right now. Hey, Dawn. This song is called Mustard Anthem.

[MUSIC - HawtPlates: Mustard Anthem]

Alison Stewart: That's the HawtPlates. They'll be performing Dream Feed as part of the Under the Radar festival through January 25th at the HERE Arts Center. Justin, how would you describe Dream Feed?

Justin Hicks: I think Dream Feed is a collection of feelings that we've had in relationship to our investigation of the phenomenon of dreaming, and both dreaming while you're awake, dreaming while you're asleep. We get into a little bit of generational dreaming and what it means to carry on a dream, perhaps of your ancestors or perhaps of someone not related to you, and what it means to investigate your aspirations. I think that's what it is for me. I think there's a strong thread of motherhood and maternity in this piece.

Alison Stewart: Yes. The program asks the question, can we share the dreams we have in common? Jade, how does the music encourage a shared dreaming?

Jade Hicks: Wow. A lot of the songs are like adult lullabies, so I think that many of us will be able to relate. It's lullabies for adult humans who have been through some things.

Alison Stewart: How do you think we can share dreams?

Jade Hicks: Just share them, be courageous enough to share them. I say that because oftentimes I feel like there's such symbolism and you may not understand what they are, and so it can be a little bit vulnerable in a way, but I think that's something that we're finding in this is just how-- even how unpredictable dreaming can be. There's so much likeness in it. Hopefully, like in the sharing, you're also sharing a thread of your humanity that another human can identify with.

Alison Stewart: Justin, when someone comes to see your show Dream Feed, what state of mind should they be in? Should they just be open-minded? Should they be ready for sleep? What should they be thinking about?

Justin Hicks: I would say they should be open-minded only because I am pretty certain that even from the first note that we sing, you're not going to be able to predict that that's even what's happening? I think it's a pretty mysterious world when you first walk in. It looks like anything could happen, but everything feels like a surprise. I think everything is a reveal. The reveal of the voice, the reveal of objects, the reveal of thoughts and ideas, and of-- Yes, the iconography of the dream world. Yes.

Alison Stewart: That is a teaser if I've ever heard one. The HawtPlates. They'll be performing their show, Dream Feed at the HERE Arts Center until January 25th. Would you take us out with one song?

Justin Hicks: Sure. This is called Rest Stop.