Tonight: Rogê at Millennium Stage

Brazilian singer Rogê, born Roger Jose Cury, initially established his name performing for 10 years at the premier samba club, Carioca de Gema, in the Lapa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Rogê, who began playing guitar at age 10, tells City Paper, “Lapa was an amazing time. It was kind of school to me.” A fan of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, and many Brazilian singers including the legendary Jorge Ben, Rogê, during his time in Brazil, released six solo albums and helped compose the theme song for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. In 2019, Rogê and his family decided it was time for a change and moved to West Hollywood where he subsequently met producer/guitarist Thomas Brenneck, who had worked with soul singer Sharon Jones. Brenneck began producing Rogê’s new album, Curyman, which came out this year on Brenneck’s new Diamond West label. While the album uses some American studio musicians, Rogê and Brenneck also flew to Rio, where renowned arranger Arthur Verocai added an orchestrated string section to several tracks. Drawing influences from classic 1970s Brazilian music, Rogê gorgeously sings in Portuguese both bouncy rhythmic samba numbers as well as tender ballads with delicately strummed acoustic guitar. Lyrically, he addresses, from a distinctly Brazilian perspective, the role of nature and the Orixás, Afro-Brazilian divine beings. Perhaps reflecting on his own geographic change, on his recent single “Pra Vida,” Rogê sings in Portuguese: “It doesn’t matter if a door is closed/ There’s always an open window.” Rogê plays at 6 p.m. on Nov. 30 at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, 2700 F St. NW. kennedy-center.org. Free. —Steve Kiviat 

Friday: Bar Italia at Songbyrd

Named after a London cafe, Bar Italia are unmistakably British. Wryness underpins the London-based band’s lyrics, and their melodies brim with gloominess. The group released their fourth studio album, The Twits, on Nov. 3, only six months after their third, Tracey Denim. While vocal-forward tracks and pared-down guitar parts dominate the earlier LP, The Twits delves into a wider range of influences, from noise rock to folk. The new release sees Bar Italia experimenting at a level somewhere between the eclectic sound of their pre-2023 work and their clean minimalism since signing to Matador earlier this year. Their Dec. 1 show is not only the band’s second-ever time at Songbyrd, but their second performance at the venue this year. Fellow Londoner Great Area and Baltimore-based Walter Kunkel will open. Bar Italia play at 8 p.m. on Dec. 1 at Songbyrd, 540 Penn St. NE. songbyrddc.com. Sold out, but a wait list is available. —Dora Segall 

Friday: ​​Hailu Mergia at Union Stage

Around 10 years ago, the only time Maryland-based Ethiopian musician Hailu Mergia was using his keyboard was when he pulled it out of his taxicab trunk to play in between picking up passengers while working as a cab driver at Dulles Airport. But then, in 2013, Brian Shimkovitz of the label Awesome Tapes from Africa, found a 1985 cassette of Mergia’s instrumental solos. Shimkovitz contacted Mergia and the album was reissued. Its distinctive blend of Ethiopian pentatonic scales and funky American jazz a la organist Jimmy Smith received critical support, and Mergia found himself in such demand as a musician that he gave up his day job. The media coverage also gave more attention to Mergia’s storied past as part of the Walias Band in Ethiopia in the 1970s, and locally with the Zulu Band in the 1980s. Mergia has been on a musical comeback since that initial 2013 reissue with gigs throughout the world, two albums of new music, and three more reissues. Now, in support of the recently released Pioneer Works Swing (Live), a 2016 concert recorded in Brooklyn, the 77-year-old Mergia is again doing some U.S. shows where he alternates between an organ, a keyboard, and an accordion. He tells City Paper that live in D.C., one can count on more improvisation than on his studio efforts, but he also ensures the melodies are always strong. Hailu Mergia, with opening act Dunia and Aram, plays at 8 p.m. on Dec. 1 at Union Stage, 740 Water St. SW. unionstage.com. $25. —Steve Kiviat

Saturday: Anjimile at DC9

I first discovered Anjimile’s music through his strong 2018 NPR Tiny Desk contest entry of the song “1978.” Melodic, reflective, and folksy, the musician’s voice captured me in its first note and I’ve been a fan ever since. Their 2020 album, Giver Taker, got me through the pandemic and my transitory period of moving to D.C. and adjusting to life here as a queer person of color. Anjimile’s newly released album, The King, marks a musical evolution as the artist further comes into their identity as both an artist and a person. The King was written and produced over three years after the murder of George Floyd, the album working as an outlet for Anjimile’s emotions for what they describe as the “Black Death—the COVID-19 epidemic and the rising, ceaseless wave of police brutality against Black folks.” On the album’s opening track, Anjimile sings, “The Black Death is here/ Your silence a stain,” setting the tone for the songs that follow. The King is very much a protest piece urgently addressing the experience of being a Black trans musician living and making art in the U.S. Anjimile communicates their message through their signature interrogative and poetic style that leaves the music almost sounding like spoken word. Anjimile plays at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 2 at DC9. dc9.club. 1940 9th St. NW. $17–$20. —Serena Zets 

Monday: Lydia Loveless at the Atlantis

Heartbreak. Dumb mistakes. Drinking. Doubt. And lots of regret. Alt-country songster Lydia Loveless writes confessional lyrics exploring the darker, messier aspects of being human and falling in and out of love. In Loveless’ earlier records, the artist explored a twangy, plucky, old-school country “outlaw” sound and persona—cowpunk indebted to artists as varied as Hank Williams III and Patsy Cline. Loveless has always poured soul into each song, like so many shots lining the bar, and each record has evolved as Loveless toured more, lived more, and grew up. Listen to the world-weary break-up bruiser “Falling Out of Love” from the 2013 album, Boy Crazy (when Loveless was only 22)—it’s a song about believing you can change a man even after all the lies and cheating, and realizing too late that you can’t. In contrast (and several years after a real-life divorce), Loveless complains on the 2023 album, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again’s lead single, “Toothache,” about being unwilling to “spend my life sitting around and filling up an ashtray.” Not like Loveless was ever one to sit around and pine; they have always been too busy writing and performing. Over the years, their sound has evolved, but has always kept that punk DIY aesthetic and approach, and Loveless’ voice—soaring, soothing, snarling, whatever is needed to convey those candid lyrics—has aged and matured like a fine malt whisky. The 2020 album Daughter—the first released on Loveless’ own label—sounds distinctly different, more piano and less snarling, but is still about a battered and bruised soul getting up again. They have built on that sound in Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again, with the album title coming from a line in “Ghost,” a song about a metaphorical death and rebirth as an empowered spirit. After years of songs about hard living and bad mistakes, Loveless’ lyrics flirt with sobriety and a sort of brutal awakening to oneself. In support of this latest record, Loveless, who played two 9:30 Club shows last April opening for Drive By Truckers, plays the Atlantis. Reese McHenry, a prolific and moving singer-songwriter, opens the show. Lydia Loveless plays at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 4 at the Atlantis, 2047 9th St. NW. theatlantis.com. $25. —Colleen Kennedy

Tuesday: Celebrating Christmas, Tudor Style

King Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) and Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603) surpassed even Clark Griswold (of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation fame) in their generous Christmas spirit and opulent displays for the holidays. Renaissance scholar Carol Ann Lloyd–Stanger shares the traditions of the Tudor royal court during the festive season in this Zoom lecture, part of the Smithsonian Associates Holiday Programs. Many of the traditions we still associate with Christmas were celebrated by the Tudors, including exchanging gifts, singing carols, visiting and feasting with neighbors, burning of the yule log, kissing under a sprig of mistletoe, and decorating with boughs of evergreens, ivy, and holly. The Twelve Days of Christmas—feasting, drinking, songs, dances, games, gifts, and even lords a leaping—was a time of jolly misrule, a loosening of the usual stringent social code of the English Renaissance, a time of warmth and hospitality during the coldest and darkest time of year. (William Shakespeare’s festive romantic comedy, Twelfth Night, is a tribute to this temporary inversion of gendered and class-imposed norms.) And the feasting! The original “turducken” originated with the Tudors: a “Christmas pie” of ever smaller birds were all shoved into a turkey and cooked in a pastry “coffin.” A “wassail”—a hot drink made of mulled ciders, ales, or wines with spices and sugars—washed everything down and ensured “good health.” Lloyd-Stanger also discusses the bah humbug politics and naughty-list scandals of the period, such as the awkwardness of Henry VIII’s Christmas feasts as soon-to-be-ex-wives and current mistresses overlapped, and when the “Virgin Queen” was publicly proposed to by one of her courtiers—that holiday’s “Lord of Misrule.”  Also, check the full lineup for both Zoom and in-person talks about famous White House Christmas traditions, a 1914 Christmas truce during World War I, an analysis of Hallmark Channel holiday movies, Christmas desserts from around the world, and more. Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger discusses Celebrating Christmas, Tudor Style for the Smithsonian Associates Holiday Programs at 6:30 p.m. on ​Dec. 5 via Zoom. smithsonianassociates.org. $30–$35. —Colleen Kennedy