Yasmin Williams is an extraordinary guitarist who will bring her unique rhythmic style to the Felton Music Hall Friday. Williams lives in Alexandria, Virginia, and is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist who uses a lap-tapping style. Williams has released one EP “Serendipity” (2012) and two albums; “Unwind” (2018) and “Urban Driftwood” (2021) and last year Music Radar rated her the No. 7 acoustic guitarist in the world. Go to feltonmusichall.com for tickets and for more information.

The Sentinel recently spoke with Williams about being introduced to the guitar by a video game and the influence Black Lives Matter protests had on her most recent album.

Lap tapping

Q: For people who haven’t seen you before, describe your guitar technique.

Yasmin Williams: A lot of the time I put the guitar in my lap, horizontally, and I play the guitar by doing hammer-ons and pull-offs, which is just lightly tapping on the strings. I get that sound that a lot of guitar “shredders” achieve on electric guitar but I do it on acoustic guitar with the guitar in my lap. I’ve always appreciated the shredder sound and the only way for me personally to achieve that is by playing this way. My fingers just don’t move as quickly the normal way so that’s why I do lap tapping.

Q: You often play other instruments simultaneously with guitar.

Yasmin Williams: I tape the kalimba onto my guitar body. They’re small, portable and lightweight, so it’s easy for me to carry around. I got the idea from Maurice White from Earth, Wind and Fire. He played kalimba a lot at their live shows and in solos and I just remember hearing that as a kid and thinking it was super cool. I also use tap shoes sometimes, which is just because I have two hands and they’re usually busy doing something else guitar-related. I also play other instruments like banjo and kora. I just played a show three days ago, my first banjo live performance. I really enjoyed it. The banjo is very calming and meditative, a lot like guitar.

Q: I tend to view rhythm as primary and melody as coming from rhythm. Your music feels like rhythmic storytelling.

Yasmin Williams: I appreciate that. I would say rhythm is primary for me, too. As a kid, I listened to a lot of hip-hop, R&B and gospel music because that’s what my parents listened to. I’ve always appreciated a normal pop structure and that lends itself to a rhythmic/bass approach towards composing. But I feel like nowadays, melody is taking more precedence just because I’ve been focused on rhythm for so long that it’s time for a change!

‘Guitar Hero II’

Q: Is it true you came into playing guitar through the “Guitar Hero II” video game?

Yasmin Williams: That’s literally the reason! I don’t want to say I wouldn’t be playing guitar if not for that because you never know. But that is a core reason I’m playing guitar at all. I love the video game. I played it every day. It was for my older brothers at first, but I claimed ownership and I eventually beat the game. It definitely helped with the hand-to-eye coordination that benefited me a lot when I actually got a real guitar, when my parents bought me my first electric guitar — which I still have — a cherry red Epiphone Special SG.

‘Urban Driftwood’

Q: I read that a lot of your album “Urban Driftwood” came together after you went to Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd was killed. Tell me about the impact that BLM had on you and your music-making.

Yasmin Williams: Making “Urban Driftwood” was affected by going to the BLM protests and seeing how passionate people were, including myself. But also witnessing how nothing was really getting done in terms of actually changing anything. That weird dichotomy got to me a lot and still does. I finished the song “After the Storm” after attending protests during the summer when everything was popping off after George Floyd. I just wanted to focus more on a hopeful mood and attitude, especially since I was already working on the record. And I was stuck at home and everything was shut down and then these protests were sweeping D.C.

Writing and recording the album was a way to decompress from all of the sadness and hopelessness I felt after attending those protests and witnessing cops sitting there and laughing at protesters and not really taking it seriously. It affected the album in a way that maybe people wouldn’t expect in terms of it having a hopeful aesthetic. I didn’t want to give up on the country and hoping that things could get better.

Q: Once again we recently saw another brutal police murder with the killing of Tyre Nichols in Memphis.

Yasmin Williams: After this Tyre Nichols situation, you see so many layers of white supremacy that are either overlooked, or honestly, people probably feel like they can’t do anything about it at this point. Not much legislation has been passed at all to help curb police brutality. So, we’re still in the same situation, even after all of those heated protests, debates and news cycles. It’s difficult to witness but it makes me happy that I released this album that is a meditation for me, and also puts forth a hopefulness, almost like a prayer, out into the world.

Q: Along with people taking a new look at policing, people started looking at the depth of racism that this country is based on, and asking, for example, should we display statues of slaveholders?

Yasmin Williams: Richmond, Virginia, took a lot of their statutes down and in D.C., there were a lot of protests. I’m glad people are shifting the focus towards, “Here are things we can do to actively make our environment safer and healthier for the most oppressed communities and for everyone.” These statues can go in museums, storage units, whatever, but they don’t need to be in public squares. It’s good that people are taking active steps to achieve something instead of just protest. Protests are great. But if nothing really gets done, then what happened really?

Abolish or defund

Q: A lot of people were hoping to create real safety by defunding or abolishing police and establishing new systems. Those changes haven’t happened very widely though.

Yasmin Williams: For some people saying abolish, or even defund, the police is a bold statement. To me, that means you’re giving less money to this entity and moving it to other entities like mental health counselors, with better resources and training. There’s a lot of emergency calls police don’t need to respond to. I don’t think that should be a bold statement, but it seems for a lot of Americans it is. It’s unfortunate, because that doesn’t lend itself to change. Innovation doesn’t come from doing what’s comfortable. It comes from doing new things and seeing what works and what doesn’t. And if it doesn’t work, fix it.

No. 7 on planet Earth

Q: Music Radar rated you the No. 7 acoustic guitarist on planet Earth!

Yasmin Williams: That was pretty wild. That stuff I can’t really expect. I don’t know how that happened. I do appreciate it. I think I’ve put in my 10,000 hours of practice but it’s still pretty crazy to be on a best acoustic guitarist in the world list with people like Tommy Emmanuel.

Q: I read that when you go into the studio, you’re pretty set on what you’re going to play. And your engineer was encouraging you to experiment. What role does improvisation play in your performance and recording?

Yasmin Williams: For “Urban Driftwood,” I did come in with pretty much everything set, other than the djembe player who did his own thing (Amadou Kouyate). I wrote the cello part and she played that (Taryn Wood). Experimentation can happen outside of the studio, when I’m not paying for it! Jeff Gruber, the engineer for “Urban Driftwood,” was trying to get me to experiment more with post-production and the album sounds incredible. He used eight mics on my guitar, which I’ve never done before! My tap shoes were recorded in stereo!

In terms of improvisation, I’m becoming much more open to it. Just this year, I did a live score for a silent Charlie Chaplin film called “The Kid.” I improvised a lot of that and it worked out great. It was very fun. I’ve always wanted to do film composing. It flexes different music muscles because films have their own universe. I play a lot of notes in my songs, so I have to be aware of space and silence and the less is more ethos, which I don’t normally have. It kind of shifted how I think about composition in general, which is very cool. I may include improvisation in live shows. Why not?

‘Felton is dope’

Q: Are you working on a new album? How do you like touring?

Yasmin Williams: I’m recording a new record right now and it’s very exciting. It has more collaborators, a fuller sound and less solo guitar pieces. I’m used to working pretty solo, just me and an engineer in the studio. But I have a lot of friends that are going to be on this next record, and it’s pretty cool. I’m excited. I’m thinking it will be available early next year. I did two European tours last year and they were very fun. I love touring internationally, especially in Scandinavia because they treat you very well. I like going to new places, meeting new people, seeing new venues. Touring is fun. It’s just the traveling that kind of sucks. If I could teleport to the different cities, that’d be great.

Q: I hear that’s coming in the near future.

Yasmin Williams: I hope so. That will make my life way easier. Way easier. As they say, “You get paid to travel. You don’t get paid to perform.” I was in Felton last year with Andy McKee. I liked it a lot. Felton is dope.

Listen to this interview with Yasmin Williams on Thursday at noon on Transformation Highway with John Malkin on KZSC 88.1 FM / kzsc.org.