"Americana to fight fascism." - Adobe & Teardrops

In 2006 South Asian-American Yale graduate and political activist Sumanth Gopinath started a country/bluegrass band in Minneapolis called The Gated Community. Influenced by his dad’s classic country record collection and modern Americana bands like The Flatlanders, the band mixes folk, bluegrass and country music with a raw, rock edge.

Born in Chicago, Sumanth’s family relocated to Slidell, Louisiana when he was nine. “At first, my brother and I hated the place. We consciously decided not to adopt southern accents, but we were of course surrounded by them, and by contemporary country music,” he recalls. Later, as a grad student at Yale he fell under the musical mentorship of fellow graduate student and Chapel Hill, North Carolina country/bluegrass veteran Rob Slifkin, who introduced him to the music of classic Americana artists. Sumanth’s songwriting quickly blossomed in country music—a genre he’d shunned since his…