O.N.E The Duo’s ‘Blood Harmony’ celebrates authenticity, fearlessness, unfying humanity

For an inside perspective on mother-daughter act O.N.E The Duo, go back a generation and ask grandmother Yia Yia.

“Manifesting who they deserved to become required developing synergy in their courageously inquisitive desires and joyful humanity,” she tells The Tennessean about the pair who began recording together five years ago.

Tekitha Wisdom and daughter Prana Supreme Diggs represent a continuing wholesale evolution for African-American female performers from being pioneers to achieving sustainable prestige in Americana and country music.

With their 12-track debut album “Blood Harmony,” they’ve officially joined roots-to-pop music’s loudest silent movement.

“We represent perfectionism and first achieving our own, self-imposed standards of excellence becoming commonplace for Black creatives in this space,” says Wisdom, in conversation with The Tennessean.

“Being a pioneer is nothing but pressure. Being considered great while in the presence of pioneers feels better.”

Wisdom would know. Her daughter, Prana, is the result of her personal and professional relationship for over two decades with the Wu-Tang Clan’s Robert “RZA” Diggs. Though the pair amicably split long ago, her time as a vocalist with the hip-hop collective provided her with firsthand knowledge of navigating a course within but without well-established industry structures.

O.N.E the Duo are 2023 CMT Next Women of Country class members and were recently featured on NBC’s “Today Show.” They’ve also appeared on veteran talking head Sway Calloway’s hip-hop radio program “Sway In The Morning” and Rissi Palmer’s Apple Music Color Me Country Radio.

They’re a prime example of what ideal country-to-mainstream crossover looks — but, more importantly, feels — like in modern popular culture.

Music-wise, songs like “Guilty,” “HoeDown” and “Stuck In The Middle” feature early 2000s pop crossover sounds — the style Wisdom and Prana Supreme Diggs, 21, who gravitates to indie pop and alt rock, settled upon after revealing their shared love for Miranda Lambert radio anthems and Chris Stapleton ballads during impromptu at-home jam sessions with family and friends after relocating to Franklin, Tennessee.

Creating the sonic landscape for their work involved Wisdom taking her daughter’s musical desires seriously, then reaching out to legendary Sony Music and Universal Records A&R Renee Bell, who counts work with Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride and Brooks & Dunn in her history.

From there, legendary producer Dann Huff and songwriter Nash Overstreet quickly became enamored of not just the duo’s voices but also their humility in being willing to learn how to apply their existing wealth of musical knowledge into the pop-country environment.

“Our greatest fear in the studio is one that we shared with our collaborators — nothing should sound corny or cringe-worthy,” says Diggs.

“‘Blood Harmony’ reflects songs that make sense for us, but naturally within a very Americana and country-defined cultural and sonic landscape.”

Wisdom has discovered the “authentic entirety of her best creative self” in country music because of the space’s empathetic way of allowing “unique methods for engaging with and processing the entirety of one’s life” to fit within established traditions in a “bias and resistance-free construct” that is slowly being “de-conditioned to mindlessly accepting many of its stereotypes.”

Insofar as stereotypes being broken, O.N.E the Duo’s next accomplishment has already been announced.

Alongside beloved veteran Nashville session vocalist and acclaimed soul and country performer Wendy Moten, Wisdom and Diggs will cover “Had A Dream (For The Heart)” on an album of The Judds covers out on Oct. 27, which also features Jelly Roll, Dolly Parton, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, Lainey Wilson and Trisha Yearwood.

It continues what Wisdom hopes becomes her and her daughter’s artistic signature.

“Our music aims to be universal because it values harmony in the studio and humanity.”