Martin Luther McCoy

Actor, guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer

Actor, guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer, soul-man, San Francisco native Martin Luther McCoy refuses to confine himself to any one creative pursuit. An essential catalyst on the Bay Area’s fertile 1990s neo-soul scene, he continues to serve as a conduit for socially conscious music. On the cusp of releasing his fourth full-length studio album, a self-titled LP focusing on original material, Mccoy also tours as lead singer with the interdisciplinary alt-art-rock performance group Moon Medicin, a project led by keyboardist and internationally acclaimed visual artist Sanford Biggers.

In some circles McCoy is best known for his work with the seminal hip hop collective The Roots. Many others discovered him through his incendiary performance starring in Julie Taymor’s 2007 film Across the Universe. He’s performed with Dave Matthews, Jill Scott, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and many other marquee acts. He’s currently cast in the role of Musician, a griot sage, in Yale Repertory Theatre’s production of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3). If there’s one thread connecting all of McCoy’s endeavors it’s his grounding in the verdant soil of African-American culture, a soul-steeped presence that leaps off of stages, screens, and bandstands.